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Their similar storylines are quite familiar by now. Two Stanford University students (in their early 20s) have an idea to change the world. They start a software company.

In their very early days, their big ideas catch the eye of Michael Moritz, venture capitalist at Sequoia Capital, whose reputation is that of a VC with a knack for taking the right risks. Sequoia invests.

Soon the students-turned-entrepreneurs-turned-rock stars find themselves at the helm of a company with a household name, a business worth billions of dollars, and a service that's nothing short of a cultural phenomena.

It's the inspirational story of Yahoo and Google. Two boys follow their dreams, take risks, and, to borrow from the book "The Alchemist," pursue their "personal legend."

For the two 20-something-year-old founders of Plaxo, it's a storyline they hope will come true for them.

"[There are] some definite similarities between our company, Plaxo, and those companies [Yahoo, Google]," said Todd Masonis, the 24-year-old co-founder of Plaxo along with 25-year-old Cameron Ring.

Plaxo, which was born in 2001, is a software company that's trying to provide a universal address book that automatically updates changes in contact information, such as numbers, home addresses, or jobs. In a world where workers flit from one job to the next, and my Rolodexes (yes, I still have them) and my Palm address book are filled with outdated information because of my laziness, it's easy to see the utility.

"We wanted to bring the address book out of the Stone Age," said Ring. "It seems silly to keep having to update an address book," he added.

Ring's comments underscored the dramatic behavioral changes and expectations we will see in the younger generations.

My nephews will likely be rolling their eyes at the thought of ever having a phone connected to the wall. Could it be possible that they will never have to update their address book as well?

When Plaxo began in 2001, Masonis was just 22 years old, and had just finished his degree in symbolic systems, which is computational linguistics. Masonis said he was living with his girlfriend while Sean Parker (who co-founded Napster as well as Plaxo, but has since left) was living on the couch. Soon enough, Masonis' girlfriend was financing both of them, he recalled. Ring was finishing his Masters in computer science.

Similarly, Yahoo's two founders, David Filo and Jerry Yang, were at Stanford University (both Ph.D. candidates in Electrical Engineering), when they started Yahoo in February 1994 as a way to track of their personal interests on the Web.

In 1995, Google's founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin met as Stanford University graduate students in computer science. A year later, 1996, the two began collaborating on a search engine.

In that year, Yahoo went public in April.

"It's kind of nice that when Google was getting off the ground, they could look at Yahoo having started its company, and when we were starting Plaxo, we saw that Google had gotten off the ground," said Masonis.

"We say we could be like them; we see they went to Stanford; we see how many degrees they got; they talked to Mike Moritz... They set a pattern," he added.

What did Moritz see? I asked.

"We came along with a big idea," said Masonis. "If it works, it will be a natural monopoly," he added, with a boyish yet devilish grin that gives one the sense that though he understood the low probability of such success, he had serious intentions of going for it.

After the meeting with Moritz, it took nine months before the founders received their first round of funding. In February 2002, Plaxo raised $2 million at a pre-money valuation of $7 million. At the time, Sequoia invested $1.8 million for 26 percent of the company.

"He [Moritz] likes to take a small amount of money and invest early on," said Masonis. "We were his first investment in a year [for Moritz]."

Similarly, Sequoia Capital also agreed to fund Yahoo in its very early days. In April 1995, a year after Yahoo launched, Sequoia invested $2 million. As for Google, it received $25 million in funding from Sequoia Capital and Kleiner Perkins in June 1999, four years after Brin and Page began the building blocks of what would be Google.

How did Moritz receive their idea vs. other potential investors, I asked? "The angels were about, 'You have to be in enterprise. You have to have a small idea with sales and a proven strategy,'" said Masonis. "[But] it takes all the risk away."

What was Moritz's biggest piece of advice? I asked. "Set the DNA of a company correctly," said Ring. "Hire the right people, though he didn't tell us who to hire."

"So, he didn't give you much direction there?" I asked.

"He likes to give entrepreneurs control. He provides the guidance but doesn't micromanage," said Masonis.

A year after getting Sequoia funding, Yahoo made its 1996 IPO debut. Eight years later, it's grown to be worth about $40 billion.

For Google, it will have been five years between the time it received Sequoia funding and an IPO. Its IPO is expected this summer at a valuation that could rival Yahoo's.

For Plaxo, it's unclear whether the similarities with Yahoo and Google stop here.

The company, now with 28 employees, faces challenges, such as enhancing its software to be less taxing on the Microsoft Outlook application, in which Plaxo is installed.

Additionally, other companies, such as Monster Worldwide , or start-ups, like Visible Path, Spoke or LinkedIn, are attempting to put together a universal phonebook of sorts.

But the boys don't seem too threatened by their rivals.

"Spoke is about meeting new people. LinkedIn is about sales leads," said Masonis. "Plaxo is staying connected to people you already know. Those other applications lose their value. Like Friendster, it provides instant gratification, but it doesn't last long."

So how does Plaxo compete today? Besides getting fresh cash from Cisco Systems , the company is now in its next phase of growth: monetization.

"We're planning ways to monetize that don't require 20 million users [or so]," said Ring. Plaxo currently has 2 million installed users. The recent deal with Yahoo is an example. Plaxo receives a fee for each search that a Plaxo user conducts in through Yahoo.

And, what are the next strategic initiatives after that? It seems Masonis and Ring aren't too sure, but they know one strategy they'll keep reinforcing is to stay focused.

"The best advice [given by Moritz] is to stick with it," said Masonis. "Stay lean and stay focused. If you try to do too many things, you'll definitely fail. We're solving one problem, and we're trying to do it well."

I recently went to Costa Rica and my guide, who runs Once Around Adventures , invited me to his home. Inside his living room was a computer, where a TV would normally be placed. He said he and his roommates watch movies on the computer.

Now, if Costa Ricans are watching movies on computers in their living room, it's only a matter of time when we'll all be watching movies on our computer in the living room.

That's why RealNetworks and Starz unveiling of a $12.95 monthly movie download service over the Internet makes more sense now than when the two companies announced this venture back in 2002.

Netflix sees it as inevitable as well.

Netflix plans to offer a downloadable movie service in the first half of 2005, said Ted Sarandos, who is responsible for buying movie content for Netflix from the movie studios. "It's like global warming," he said. "You don't know when it's coming, but it is."