(Justin) Frankel, then a laid-back, dude-speak teen-ager, didn't immediately get a full-time job. Instead, he raised enough cash to amuse himself by fixing friends' computers, spending the rest of his time with such hobbies as computer programming.

Frankel's shareware program, Winamp, quickly became the most popular player for MP3 sound compression files, the preferred format for Internet music lovers. "Once I did that and started making some money off it, it was like 'Whoa,' " Frankel says.

As the checks began to roll in, Frankel's company, Nullsoft, grew to the point where industry giant America Online paid attention. In early June, AOL acquired Nullsoft for more than $80 million in stock.