Charles Muirhead
25, British Internet entrepreneur
There aren't enough hours in the day to suit Charles Muirhead, and most nights the man can't sleep. "My mind's a hundred places at once," he says. "It's my biggest problem." Also his biggest asset, giving him enough ideas to be, at 25, a major player in the European e-economy. Five years ago, Muirhead went to study computer science at London's Imperial College. But he'd always liked building things more than studying them and soon turned his attention to building a business. In his first venture, he played online consultant, signing small firms up for Internet accounts, an audacious project for someone who didn't even have an account of his own. Emboldened by this foray into the nascent tech industry, Muirhead dropped out of college after his first year to start Orchestream with seed money from a family friend and an office in the basement of a London funeral parlor. Early on, Muirhead saw that Internet expansion would strain network resources and make information flow increasingly difficult to manage. So the company developed a control center, enabling managers to administer a system's traffic and components through a single user-friendly interface. The innovation established Orchestream as a leader in network management software. With Orchestream's IPO complete and an experienced management team in place, Muirhead has stepped back from the company, keeping only a seat on the board and a 5% stake worth an estimated $50 million. But the onetime aspiring architect has drawn up blueprints for other projects. Farthest along is iGabriel, an investment club for New Economy luminaries like Net guru Esther Dyson and Michael van Swaaij, international honcho for the auction site eBay. Muirhead is also launching a venture to fund film and music projects as well as a business exchange for recording stars that will "eliminate overhead and empower artists so that they'll never have to go through the major studios." Muirhead believes that "you've got to put in what you get out" and wants to develop more society-minded components to his projects. Though he has done well for himself, he worries about "the 21-year-old kid who's fanatical about what he's doing but is from an underprivileged background." iGabriel, for example, would be well positioned to provide backing for talented techies, while artists could get support from the as-yet-unnamed media fund. Muirhead laments that in his short career, there are a few things for which he simply hasn't had time. Vacation, for example. "I was supposed to take one the other day, and it just didn't happen," he says. At some point, he'd like to take a year off to travel. He also wants to settle down, marry and have a big family — and not, he says, "when I'm 50." But that doesn't mean he'll be shifting into low gear on the business side. "I think I'll always be involved part-time in a number of things," he says. "Sometimes, I just wish I didn't have to sleep."
— By Jeff Chu/London
PHOTO: POLLY BORLAND — KATZ
No. 3 of 4
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