What I Was Doing at 16

At 16, my daily routine consisted of three things: video games, anime, and masturbation, in whichever order circumstances permitted. When my school career counselor asked what I wanted to do with my life, I said something about media. He nodded, left the room, and I went back to what I was doing.

Charles Bahr, Dean Körzdörfer, and Urs Meier are between 15 and 16 and have already founded an advertising agency. TubeConnect is built on the premise that most companies have no idea how YouTube and Instagram actually work—and that these three do. They consult brands on what young audiences respond to, which is a service that should theoretically be unnecessary but never is.

Dean, who looks about 12 but will almost certainly be rich within a decade, put it plainly: Because we grew up with these digital media, we naturally have a completely different relationship with them. It’s probably impossible for an adult to understand why we spend ten hours a day on our phones. He’s right about that. The gap between people who have always had the internet and people who had to acquire it as adults is a real cognitive one, and it only gets wider.

The easy move is to smirk at teenagers playing at business, throwing words like "social media" and "influencer" around like currency while accurately roasting the terrible advertising of established telecoms. But the alternative—the cohort whose highest ambition is a minor role on some throwaway reality show—is considerably worse. These three are building something. That counts for more than I would have managed at their age, and I’m honest enough to admit it.