University Communications

Although the dot-com craze has generated criticism for creating a class of self-centered young millionaires, the Anderson M.B.A.s entering the Internet world appear to be motivated less by crass materialism. Henry will make about $80,000 a year, plus stock options. While that's hardly poverty wages, it also is well below the obscene amounts of cash some dot-com types are raking in.

"There's definitely an emphasis on what makes you happy," Henry says of her classmates. "I live with two Anderson students. Neither one of them have jobs. If you accept a job with these dot-coms, they want you to hit the ground running. Because of the economy and the amount of work that goes into the degree, it's a great time to be graduating."

Dot-com entrepreneurs may be running the world, but the world also is running them. Take Judy MacDonald M.B.A. '88, the CEO of Kibu.com, the new digital hangout for teen girls that launched May 1 with $22 million in funding from venture capitalists like Netscape cofounder Jim Clark.

She is talking on her cell phone as she commutes from her San Francisco home to Kibu's Redwood City headquarters. "Can you call me back in five to seven minutes?" asks the preternaturally calm 38-year-old executive. "I need to get gas."

Back on the cell phone, MacDonald's gotten gas and had the car washed. She's also fielded another call, with an Anderson professor, as it turns out. "It's a good thing I answered the phone," she laughs. "That was Bill Cockrum. He always scared me because he was so intimidating. I just called him yesterday. We're looking for a director of finance, so he was calling me about candidates."

Now, still talking on her cell phone, MacDonald calls her assistant on her car phone. "Cynthia, it's Judy. I'm trying to send a fax. Can you call me?" A few minutes later, the assistant has called, the fax has been sent. MacDonald, sounding somewhat mortified by all this high-tech activity, apologizes. "This is the first time I've ever used both at once," she explains of the phones. "One came with the car."

MacDonald reflects an alternate face of the Internet generation. Seasoned, more well-rounded. She's worked for a large company but also has run her own business. For seven years, she was marketing manager for Hewlett-Packard's multi-billion-dollar Deskjet Printer Division. After growing disenchanted with HP's rigid corporate structure, she left to cofound, with another Anderson grad, PrintPaks, a company that produced multimedia craft kits for families. In January 1998, they sold the company to Mattel. Although the products were great, "We should have raised more money in the second round. We didn't have enough money for marketing, so people hadn't heard of us."

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