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Neal Goldman, 36

Chief Executive

Inform Technologies

After his first year at the University of Pennsylvania, a disenchanted Neal Goldman wanted to drop out. "The work was too straightforward," he says. "I was hungry to be an entrepreneur."

His father convinced him to earn his degree and gain some business experience before going solo. Nine years later, in 1998--armed with an M.B.A. from Columbia Business School, mergers and acquisitions experience, and an annual bonus check from Lehman Brothers--Mr. Goldman left corporate America to start the first of a string of tech companies.

From the corner of his father's desk at law firm Goldman & Weintraub, he raised $40 million to start Capital IQ, a firm that provides data and productivity tools to the financial services industry.

"Neal is extremely driven and creative," says Steve Berger, chairman of nonprofit Doctors of the World, and Mr. Goldman's former boss at Lehman. "He will come up with an idea out of the blue."

Mr. Goldman, who built Capital IQ into a global operation with 1,000 employees, sold the firm to Standard & Poor's in 2004 for $225 million, then headed to Thailand for a two-week break. Later that year, he set out on a quest to organize online news for users. Through another startup--Goode Holdings, which invests in consumer goods and early-stage tech companies--he launched Inform Technologies. So far, he has raised $15 million in capital for his latest venture, and he has signed up top media clients like The Washington Post and Star Magazine.

"Someone has to figure out a better way to do things," he says.

- Amanda Fung

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