He was such a prodigy that in the internet spendathon of the late 1990s a venture capitalist gave him £25m to develop a computer search engine. At 19 he was one of the UK’s youngest self-made millionaires, but a year later the dotcom bubble burst and he sank. Aged 20, on the morning that his name was published next to Robbie Williams’s in The Sunday Times Rich List, Way was so penniless that he did not even have enough money for a Tube ticket.
He has since clawed his way to success again. He runs a consultancy for new businesses, lives in a swanky flat in Mayfair, central London, has a pretty girlfriend and holidays exotically. But his nosedive to failure changed him. “Back then I was young, gifted and extremely annoying,” he says as solemnly as if the period he is referring to is 40 rather than four years ago. “I was more concerned with appearances than what I stood for and there was a part of me I really didn’t like.”
To tackle the problem, Way decided to learn how to be good. For a new Channel 4 programme (The Secret Millionaire, 9pm, Wednesday) he spent 10 days on a council estate in Hackney, east London. He worked in a youth club and lived in a flat-share on the notorious Murder Mile (a fitting sobriquet — gun deaths there are on par with Chicago). No credit cards, no mobile, no methuselah of Cristal at the Cuckoo Club.
“In terms of look and feel, Hackney didn’t shock me a bit,” says Way. “It’s only four miles from where I live, after all. What did shock me was when they warned me that if I had an altercation with somebody I could be shot or stabbed.”
He spent his first night in a cold sweat with a pool cue wedged under the door. “In the beginning I felt physically threatened all the time because violence is everywhere there.” But after two days as a youth worker at the Pedro Club he began to change his mind. “The community opened up to me.”
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At first he thought the problem would be poverty, but he soon discovered that all the kids had mobile phones and plenty to eat. “What I began to understand instead was how the murder rate is so high there. They’re all so angry, so tightly wound, they’re like pressure cookers and when they blow they don’t even know what they’re doing. Family issues, drugs, limited opportunity and their own stupid ‘respect’ culture makes them dangerous, even though at heart they’re decent.”
Way became friends with Ufu, who runs the centre, and would watch agog as he skilfully set about defusing the constant fights that broke out. “It’s all the time. They will fight over anything — where they get to stand in the dinner queue, who gets to play pool next, who has the best trainers. It sounds corny, but there is so little love there. They’d all been taught to fight for everything since they were tiny and were much too proud about the stupidest things. I understand that, though. I used to be very proud too.”
He had gone with the idea that he would donate some money at the end of his stay, but sitting in his grotty room on the estate he realised money alone was not going to help: “I’m a great believer in the broken window theory — the idea that if you can solve the small problems then the big problems take care of themselves.” So he donated £25,000 to the centre so it could build a recording studio that would generate an income and encourage more kids in off the streets. “Intelligent money,” he smiles.
He sees himself as part of the new trend for giving back: “It’s becoming more common because, though the divide between rich and poor is still vast, the general standard of living for everyone is going up. Rich people feel like they have more in common with poor people these days, and in some ways our lives aren’t very different. The only thing that is really different is our opportunities.”
To counter this he now donates time as well as money, visiting the centre once a week. “They need my expertise more than they need cash. And I like it there. I didn’t have the easiest childhood myself so I know what it’s like to fight and not have very much.”
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You do? I thought you were the perfect dotcom whiz-kid? “Oh no, I had a complicated childhood — lots of divorces. My mother and father divorced when I was five. My dad and his new wife divorced when I was 13, then I lived with my dad on my own for a bit, then I went to live with my mum. I was pretty badly behaved and we all used to fight a lot.
“Why do you think I’ve always worked so hard? I was desperate for some stability. And money-wise, the reason I want financial security is because I never had any as a kid.”
The Ways lived in Devon and although his mother was a teacher and his father an accountant, work was erratic and money was tight. “Some months we were really poor and my dad nearly went bankrupt. I know what it’s like to keep money in a shoebox.”
Way was also severely dyslexic. “At school they told me I would never read or write. When I was seven a teacher even took me aside to explain how I would never make anything of myself. Nice, right?” He snorts. “I guess I’ve been proving her wrong ever since.”
Although his reading ability has never progressed beyond that of an eight-year-old’s, what his primary school teachers did not know was that Way’s IQ was over 150. “I was great at logic and problem solving because my dyslexia allows me to assimilate information very quickly.” He even says he would like his children to be born dyslexic. “It’s amazing what our brains can do.”
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Because he was so lousy at spelling (ironically, he still cannot spell “business”) his parents bought him a laptop when he was 11. It was a good move. By 15 he was offering his IT services for £14 an hour and by 17 he had left school and hired three full-time staff.
“I was running a nice little business turning over £60,000 a year when these investors from Jersey saw me on a documentary about young businessmen and rang me up going, ‘We’ve got lots of money, would you like some?’ ”
Way arranged for the venture capitalists to come to his office to talk, clearing all the desks out of his single room and installing a big conference table to make it look as if it was the boardroom of a much larger company. “I talked through my various ideas and eventually they said, ‘How much money do you need?’ Without thinking I said very seriously, ‘I need £25m’ — and they gave it to me! Those were the days.”
There was, however, a catch. As Way was still a teenager he was told he could have the money only if he agreed to a series of unusual restraints: no drinking, no altering his appearance in any significant way, taking a minder with him if he wanted to go out after 10pm and — most insane — no sleeping with girls he had known for less than three months. A further clause stipulated that all prospective girlfriends were to be vetted by the company.
“God, it was rough,” laughs Way. “I was 18 and they were telling me I couldn’t have sex, but then what can you do? Twenty-five million is serious dough when you’re a teenager.”
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They gave him a penthouse flat in Jersey, £150,000 a year in salary and a ton of equity in their joint venture, Waysearch. On paper he was worth £18m and eventually he moved to London, rented an expensive house in Notting Hill and, once his curfew was lifted, ate at the Ivy every other night. “Cafe de Paris (the nightclub) became my second home,” he sighs, “but though I was surrounded by people all the time I felt very isolated.”
There were some highlights. Gordon Brown presented him with the award for Young Entrepreneur of the Year and the following summer he was summoned to the White House, where he advised the US government on mobile technologies. Then the cheques from work stopped coming.
“At first they said it was a clerical error,” says Way. “But after three months they told me they were ditching the project and would not be honouring my salary and diluted the value of the stock to nothing. I was young and stupid and hadn’t saved a thing, so then my girlfriend left me.” Was she a gold-digger? “Put it this way, she liked the good life.”
Way was washed up. As tensions with his family were still high he went to live with his friend Chris Moss (the branding guru who came up with Orange, the mobile phone group) and his family in Newbury, Berkshire. “I did nothing for a year because I was so embarrassed to be this whiz-kid has-been. It took me a while to realise that losing everything was a phenomenal experience. It made me good.”
Aside from rolling up his sleeves at the Pedro Club, Way is now desperate to make a difference in the world at large. “I want to become the Richard Branson of environmental technologies,” he announces grandly.
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Does he admire Bill Gates and other über-philanthropists? “To an extent yes, but I always say if you want to save the world then you should really do it yourself.” Now if only he can teach the children of Murder Mile to think the same way.