Ben Pasternak, teen genius, is changing the social technology industry at just 19. Born in Sydney, Australia, Pasternak was raised in an average home with parents who supported him greatly throughout his upbringing. One day during a boring high school science class, Pasternak completed his first app, Impossible Rush. Impossible Rush and his second app Impossible Dial were wildly successful, pulling millions of downloads and were both the No. 1 trending app in multiple countries. The success of this young teen was the beginning of his career and lead to him being the youngest recipient of venture capital for technology at just 15 years old. He proceeded to drop out high school to focus completely on his career in technology. It was this decision as well as incredible opportunity that lead him to relocate to a $5,000/month New York City flat. Pasternak’s next project was an Ebayesque app that was specifically made for teens called Flogg. By the age of just 17, Pasternak was worth over a whopping 2 million dollars, but he was heavily restricted by his parents as well as business partners so as to not let the teenager waste it carelessly. He was named one of TIME magazines most influential teens in 2016.

This Australian teen is inspiring because he is true to himself and extremely relatable. He cannot cook anything other freezer-isle pizza, forgets to pay his rent, and refuses to learn how to drive. He believes that cars will be a thing of the past soon enough that getting a license is a waste of time at this point. Pasternak is your every day teenage with a brilliant method behind his success. He claims that the secret formula is truly understanding your target audience. Ben has accomplished this quite accurately because he is his target audience at old 19 years of age. While middle aged individuals try to crack the code and get into the mind of a teen, Pasternak is at quite the advantage. Due to this method of his, Pasternak has comprised his team of extremely young individuals, the oldest (COO) being 30. Ben Pasternak and his now business partner, Isiah Turner, are co-founders of the app “Monkey”. The high school dropout described this new venture as, “a randomized video-chat program for teenagers… Chatroulette, without the pervs”. Funded by $2 million in angel investments, Monkey quickly amassed hundreds of thousands of users who made more than 250 million calls. Pasternak and Turner describe Monkey’s purpose as to, “fill the loneliness void in teenagers’ by helping them make internet friends around the world, who they can then talk to on Snapchat.” Monkey has an extremely strict code of conduct, and prides itself as being a ‘safe space’ for young users.

Ben Pasternak is changing the way young teens are viewing their careers. Their entire perspective on entrepreneurship and social technology is being shaped in completely different ways. All of this and more is being accomplished by your typical teen with yeezys and a hoverboard.