For Love Or Money? Could The Beatles' "Money (That's All I Want)" be the theme song for today's young entrepreneurs? You be the judge.

Selling out. It's taboo in so many social circles. But inbusiness, it's practically en vogue. Ever since independentinnovations in software and Internet spaces became prey for techmanufacturers and Internet portals seeking increased brand power,the minds behind them have willingly begun to accept a lump sum--ofcash, stock or salary at a new corporate job (complete withhigh-walled cubicle)--in exchange for their contribution totechnological advancement.

And don't forget the white-hotselling-out-to-the-public-to-raise-tons-of-money-and-maybe-get-richmethod, where the founders of Private No More Co. can still claimownership--along with a bevy of shareholders. Now no one'ssaying it's right or wrong. But aside from the fact that thistrend is altering the strict definition of"entrepreneur," some insiders fear wealth-centrictemptations--primarily of the IPO sort--will lead to business plansdevoid of substance and multimillion-dollar ad campaigns backingshoddy products. To investigate whether the old-fashionedentrepreneurial ethic of starting up for the sake of autonomyrather than making obscene amounts of money overnight still exists,we asked several young current and former business owners whatmotivated them. If anything, our findings were refreshing.

Granted, our test sample is small. But to our surprise, the oneentrepreneur who actually admitted to selling his company for theriches involved isn't the power-hungry playboy-type you'dimagine him to be. We can't numerically define JaysonAdams' wealth--but let's just say, despite retirement amonth before his 30th birthday, the now-33-year-old will be verywell-off in life. The Stanford grad's "How He GotThere" story didn't climax until he sold his 1995 start-upNetcode Corp., creator of a Java-based interface builder and objecttoolkit for developing Java applications, to Netscape in the springof 1996. Before that, Adams co-founded a software company and ane-mail-based subscription news service "way ahead of itstime," which sold for practically nothing in 1995 aftersuffering a lackluster response. But the wanna-be tech gameparticipant started at 12, when Adams taught himself to program thefamily computer. By 16, Bill Gates was his idol. Taking a companypublic was also on the teenager's to-do list. "Ididn't want to be a super-powerful person," he says."[Gates] wasn't even that powerful back then. I was justvery excited about computers and had lots of fun making them docool things. It was that, plus not wanting to work for 40years."

Something besides work is exactly what the undisclosed amount ofwealth has allowed Adams to do. Rather than surrender the remainderof his life to high-tech's hyperspeed world as so many do tosatisfy their competitive urges, Adams has been spending most ofhis time in Santa Monica, California, studying guitar and musictheory at the Musicians Institute in Hollywood. A recentTime article insinuated that an overabundance of time andmoney has turned Adams into a somewhat spacey, anti-employmenttechno-phobe. Not the case. Don't be surprised if you see this"pretty down-to-earth" guy, who owns no property andconsiders the "high life" pursuing his interests, launch"a media empire" exploring the best of art and music inthe future.

"Whatever I do start will not be a high-tech company,"says Adams. "Working at Netscape after the acquisition,I'd see people worth tens of millions of dollars working insanehours, not seeing their kids. What's the point,really?"

Name Of The Game

To the overly-ambitious lot of young entrepreneurs, putting in100-hour weeks has a little something to do with fear of either a)not being at the forefront of the next big thing, or b) relaxingfor two seconds and being edged out by the competition. For AriHorowitz, founder and chairman/CEO of New York City-based Opus360Corp., an integrated Internet solution platform, it's thelatter. "I'm working 24 hours a day, almost. And thereason? Competition," he says. "It's the first timein history when the new entrant has a competitive advantage overthe incumbent. If you have any experience doing this stuff,there's an unlimited supply of inexpensive capital available toyou. Private financiers are much more willing to fund [just] anidea."

That's what concerns Bo Peabody, the 28-year-oldfirst-generation Netpreneur who initially founded Tripod Inc. inpre-Web 1992 as a proprietary online service and sold it to Lycosin February 1998. "Almost every person I talk to is like `Iwant to make a million dollars, and I'm going to start anInternet company,' " he says. "As a result,I've seen some of the worst business plans where the word`IPO' is mentioned 500 times. If that's their focus,ironically, they're never going to get there."

But Horowitz, 31, who, like Jayson Adams, no longer needsto work, contends fast money isn't motivating his endeavors."If you're doing this for the money, go into investmentbanking," he says. "It's almost bad to an extent, butI have people who manage my money, so I don't really payattention to it." Horowitz adds that the $100 millionacquisition of his former company Gray Peak Technologies byUSWeb/CKS, a Santa Monica Web service firm, wasn't apremeditated get-rich-quick scheme from start-up. "We thoughtGray Peak was going to be a big, public [networking solutions]company," he says. "But USWeb had a very compellingbusiness model, and we felt we could leverage their sales channel,which would accelerate our growth and more rapidly increase thevalue for our shareholders." You'd figure Horowitz wouldendlessly tout the bottom line or market position of the200-employee Opus360 he founded in 1998, but he didn't evenmention its 1999 sales of $15 million. It was more important toexplain the rewards of receiving positive feedback. "The mostsatisfying thing is when people say `I think what you're doingis awesome.' "

Soul Providers

Becoming a brand people want to identify themselves with and beloyal to has always motivated Speakeasy Inc., parent company toSpeakeasy Café, a "casual and relaxed" Seattlestorefront offering Internet access, an espresso and pastry bar, anart gallery, and an 80-seat theater for film, video and plays. TheSpeakeasy Network offers Web design and hosting, along withRainMail, a network of public-access kiosks throughout Seattle. Butlowering the economic and technical barriers to Internet access wasprimarily why Gretchen Apgar, 34; husband Michael Apgar, 31; andMichael's brother, Tyler Apgar, 28, opened the first SpeakeasyCafé back in 1995 and launched Speakeasy Network's initialdial-up service in late 1997. Dreams of Euro-dragster-filleddriveways and membership in the dot.com elite? Nonexistent--to thatextent, anyway. "Gretchen, Tyler and I sit around talkingabout the challenge, our employees--who's doing well, who'drather be in a different job function--and how well we'rebuilding the business to scale," says Michael. "But wedon't talk about the money."

The claim's easier to swallow when you learn all thefounders still rent, and just last year Mike and Gretchen replacedthe "junker" VCR Mike had since college. "That'sa big deal for us," says Michael. "I mean, certainly, wewant to monetarily profit from the business and have alifestyle." But going public has never been "on theradar," according to Michael, nor been financially possible.Graduates of their father's school of entrepreneurship, he andTyler learned a no-nonsense business approach: Bring money in, payyour expenses, keep your overhead low, and pay your employeesfairly. With 50 employees and 2000 projections of nearly $15million--up $13 million from last year--the Apgars are nowexamining the bigger picture. "Everyone has to work for aliving, but we're having a fabulous time doing it, and we wantto provide a rewarding work environment for our employees,"says Michael. "At the same time, we're extremely excitedabout our growth last year and what we're looking at doing thisyear."

Speakeasy rests in the heart of Microsoft- and Amazon.com-land,but its café's street presence prevents the ISP side frombecoming "completely virtual." And because the Apgars areso in-tune with their goals and personal interests, they'veavoided becoming one of the money-hungry new-school entrepreneurswho people like Bo Peabody, now vice president of network strategyfor Lycos, find questionable. Peabody, "no slave to goldwatches or yachts," says location often catalyzes the downfallof good intentions. "Everyone's really grounded here in[high-tech hot-spot] Williamstown, Massachusetts, because it'snot like Silicon Valley, where everybody drives a Ferrari and triesto get a better house than the next guy," he says."That's a culture that just breeds bad products."Well, you can't always decide where you're based. Butthankfully, you can always keep your priorities in check.

Contact Sources

Opus360 Corp., (800) 445-5775, http://www.freeagent.com

Speakeasy Inc., (206) 728-9770, http://www.speakeasy.net

Tripod Inc., (413) 458-2265, http://www.tripod.lycos.com