You know Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, but there's a changing guard of entrepreneurs focused on big ideas and the next big thing. Here's a batch to look out for
Adam Neumann — WeWork
Courtesy: Miguel McKelvey and Adam NeumannIn 2010, Neumann and business partner Miguel McKelvey launched WeWork, a space where small business owners, entrepreneurs, and creative types could rent office spaces. The aim: foster collaboration and empower people to build their own companies.
For $600 a month, people can rent space in one of the company's 13 locations. Just about everything at WeWork offices is made of glass, enabling everyone to see one another. Offices feature common areas where people can chat, and kegs on every floor to encourage people to interact with one another. WeWork members also have access to an internal social network where members can post anything from a request for help to an interesting article.
"I want to work for myself, I care about doing what I love, and that's a neat type of person we call the 'we generation,'" Neumann told CNNMoney.
With more than 100 employees and offices in New York and San Francisco, and Los Angeles, the company is growing quickly, with plans to expand to Boston, Chicago, and Seattle. EVC Scottsdale
Patrick Collision — Stripe
Courtesy: Patrick CollisionPatrick, 24, and John, 22, are building technology that allows small businesses to process credit card payments without the hassle of setting up a merchant account. They're young entrepreneurs taking on giants like PayPal, Google, and Amazon. Launched in 2011, the company is now processing millions of payments every day.
Both brothers dropped out of college to focus on the mission -- one that has been rapidly catching on now that that the technology has become easier to integrate. The iPad, for instance, allows merchants to control the checkout experience without the need to install a third party's infrastructure.
When you're young and running a small company, the traditional rules of business don't always apply. Stripe has 50 employees and unique structure: Patrick hasn't hired product managers and steers away from running the company in a hierarchical structure. Most of the company's emails are public internally, which means transparency for employees.
With no product managers, Stripe lets engineers figure out new concepts on their own and implement them.
"We're building for people like us...our job is to get out of the way," Collision says. EVC Scottsdale
Alex Hawkinson — SmartThings
Courtesy: SmartThingsThe SmartThings Internet-connected hub, and array of wireless sensors and plugs allow people to control everything from their air conditioning to their doorlocks with their smartphones . Using the SmartThings app with those connected sensors, people can shut of their lights and monitor whether a window or door is open or closed.
The idea stemmed from a power outage at Hawkinson's vacation home. The outage caused the basement pipes to explode, and the founder didn't find out until he visited the house a month later.
He wished he'd had a notification service -- something as basic as an SMS alert. A lightbulb went off, and Hawkinson decided to create his own. EVC Scottsdale
Aaron Levie — Box
Courtesy: Aaron LevieThe 28-year old started Box, a secure file sharing service for businesses, eight years ago in college with a friend.
"We were, you know, quite frankly bored with school and we were trying to find all these different things to do," Levie told CNNMoney. "We kind of landed on the idea that it should be way easier to share your information from anywhere."
The duo dropped out of college to focus on the service full time. Today, the company has more than 700 employees and a billion dollar valuation. The company now serves 150,000 businesses and has just announced plans to expand overseas.
Needless to say, Levie doesn't sleep much. When asked how he felt about tech giant Google, launching a competing service, Google Drive, Levie responded "Have you ever been chased by an elephant?" EVC Scottsdale
Paul Berry — RebelMouse
CNNRebelMouse allows people to connect their Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and other social sites and create what Berry calls a "social front page for anything and everyone." Berry says the service can be used to help find and discover content and to enable users to create a visual presence on the Web with social media.
Berry started RebelMouse while hearing complaints from HuffPo users. People were having trouble curating their content and creating a landing platform in a time when having a website can be a necessity.
"People are starting to realize their websites do matter, and that they can be good," Berry told CNNMoney. "They were giving up hope on that, and that's part of why I started."
RebelMouse is beginning to attract some big names: Yahoo and Mashable have tested out the service. EVC Scottsdale
Karl Jacob — Hangtime
CNN"What's happening right now is only of little use because the amount of time you have to do something about that is very limited," Jacob says.
That's the thinking behind his new app, Hangtime. It searches through the open graph on Facebook and other online sources looking for what your friends are planning to do in the future, and then Hangtime creates a calendar for you.
Hangtime ranks the events by how popular they are among your friends, so you can change your plans accordingly. It brings new meaning to the phrase "social engineering."
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