The Baby Billionaires of Silicon Valley

Zuckerberg, a shy kid from tiny Dobbs Ferry, New York, was having an even tougher time with Facebook's success. "There aren't a lot of CEOs who are twenty-two," he says, "so you don't get to talk to many who are in that position." What started as a lark in his dorm room had become a major operation in Palo Alto. More than a hundred kids were suddenly working around him in an office across the street from the original headquarters of Google. The press was calling. Money moguls circling. One investor, Peter Thiel of PayPal fame, bought him a jet-black Infiniti FX35.

Every time Zuckerberg shrugged off rumors of buyout offers, however, people thought he was either nuts or greedy. In October, word on the street had both Yahoo and Google as potential suitors, with numbers hovering upward of $2 billion. But Zuckerberg has insisted all along that he's simply trying to build the best "no-brainer" site he could — for now with little or no outside interference. "For me, it's about keeping focused on what we're doing, which is building something long-term," he says, "regardless of the numbers that people are throwing out." With all the doubters, in and outside his company, though, maintaining this party line can be "emotionally sapping," he says. For salve, he clung to the college lifestyle as best he could, living in a student apartment with little more than a mattress on the floor and a lamp. It didn't work. Unable to sleep, he'd head out alone into the night, driving the Palo Alto streets listening to his Weezer CDs, trying to find some calm in a life spinning like a midway Himalaya ride.

One by one, the Brats had split their nowhere towns, dropped out of Ivy League schools and road-tripped to the Valley to change the world, but they were finding themselves increasingly at sea. By early this year, the wave of enthusiasm around this new generation was mounting. And the entrepreneurs riding highest decided it was time to make a lifeboat.

In February, Noah Kagan, a partner in OneClickTennis, an online site for Bay Area tennis players, convened a panel of young CEOs called Entrepreneur27. As the featured guests on the panel, Pazornik met Ross and Masonis. They stepped into the room to find it jammed with hacker geeks in graphic tees just like them. Though the panelists were familiar with one another's startups, they hadn't met in the flesh. But they had mutual friends and acquaintances — Zuckerberg, Sternberg, Hurley and Chen. The more they talked, the more they found they had in common. "We could go out and buy a Ferrari tomorrow," Pazornik says, "but we'd rather change the way people live."

They also share a mutual respect. "Blake had done this amazing and powerful thing," says Pazornik. "He one-upped Microsoft!" Sternberg idolized Zuckerberg. "Mark has this amazingly clear insight into his users," he says. And each of them could learn from Masonis, who had been navigating the murky waters of venture capitalists the longest.

So Pazornik had an idea. Round up the others. Let's start a band.

After pazornik floated the idea of forming a secret society, the Valley Brats hit their IMs and started texting their like-minded pals. They met for the first time as a group in June at a Palo Alto dive. It was awkward at first, since they had little experience shooting the shit for fun. To break the ice, they came up with their version of a fraternity handshake: removing the batteries from their cell phones and slamming them on the table. "I suppose we could just turn our phones off," Zuckerberg says, "but this makes more of a statement."

At first, they made small talk, kicking around their common celebri-geek experiences. "We talked about photo shoots," says Ross. "Yeah," snickers Zuckerberg like Beavis, "photo shoots suck." They talked about the pressures, and the harsh reality that getting millions from venture capitalists doesn't make you rich. Just like in the music industry, venture capitalists want a heavy return on their investment, which means these guys pinch pennies until they bleed.

While collectively valued at roughly $4 billion, few are making six figures. Fearful of blowing their wads, the Brats don't sit around ordering Dom Perignon, they compete over how cheap they can be. Matt Sanchez, a twenty-five-year-old behind a startup called VideoEgg, is buried in student loans. Pazornik treated himself to a forty-dollar punching bag. Zuckerberg splurged on a $100 amp. "The only other things I've bought myself are a sword and a teapot!" he brags. Yet everyone from their parents to the wanna-be geeks jamming the Entrepreneur27 assume they're loaded. "It's ridiculous," Ross confided. "Even my mom thinks getting $10 million [from investors] makes me rich."