In today’s economy, with so many companies down-sizing and even going under, you may be wondering what your next move should be in terms of securing employment. Well, the internet is certainly one area of business that keeps growing and growing and growing. And not only are people finding ways to stay in business, they’re actually making real money at running internet-based businesses. Some are even making millions and others billions. Interested in knowing more about these modern-day tycoons? Let’s take look at who they are and how they did it.

Search Engines

Sergey Brin and Larry Page, the owners and creators of Google, were estimated to be worth $43 million in 2004. Since then, their business has continued to grow and these guys are presently two of the richest people in the world. Their internet-based information system, Google, is now worth an estimated $155 billion with a stock purchase price surpassing the $500 mark. One of the reasons Google has continued to grow and succeed is while others tread water or fail is because their service has been disruptive by consistently changing for the better and creating new ways of directing more and more traffic to their site.

David Filo, who was actually working toward obtaining a Ph, D in Electrical Engineering at Stanford University, co-founded and developed Yahoo! in 1994 and is presently estimated to be worth $3.12 billion dollars. And even though competitor sites like Google, AOL and MSN are giving Yahoo! a run for their money, so to speak, it’s managed to remain one of the most powerful and valuable search engines on the internet through joint ventures and other innovative concepts.

Internet-Based Auction

Computer Science graduate and creator of eBay, Pierry Omidyar along with his wife Pam, are estimated to be worth over $10 billion. Originally called ‘Auction Web’ at its actual inception, the eBay site was launched on Labor Day, September 1995 based on Pierry’s curiosity to see what would happen if all people had equal access for trading in a common venue. It has grown by enormous leaps and bounds since then with exceedingly high membership numbers in both the buyer and seller market, in addition to great expansions within their corporation as well.

Merchandising

Founder, President, CEO and Chairman of Amazon.com, Jeffrey Bezos, launched the site in 1994, after time spent working as financial analyst upon graduating from Princeton University. He was once quoted as saying: “I’m going to go do this crazy thing. I’m going to start this company selling books online”. Well, if crazy leads to success, here’s to it! Bezos is currently worth $3.6 billion and is ranked number 70 on Forbes’ 2006 list of the world’s wealthiest people.

You don’t have to be a genius or even a college graduate to reach the levels of success these people have. One great idea is all it takes – so follow your dream, work hard and you never know – you could be the next internet billionaire!

By: Gray Rollins