I was at Atlanta’s Startup Riot last week to test out an assumption I have about the social web’s impact on young entrepreneurs.  I am calling my quest the CEO project.

More than 60 startup companies were given 3 minutes to make their pitch to investors, entrepreneurs, job seekers and companies seeking M&A opportunties. The room was packed.

Jason Ardell was with one of the companies that presented.  He graduated from Georgia Tech in 2005. His company Feedscrub (blog) filters your news feeds to deliver the most relevant posts.

So were CEOs Mathew Sweezey and Duncan Freemen. Matthew’s company MechanixLoop uses the web to address consumer frustration with auto repair, and Duncan’s company Band Metrics (blog) is working to create web analytics for the music industry.

The social web is integral to their businesses.  It’s lowering barriers to entry.  It’s making it possible to cost effectively offer whole new services and draft off popular products like the iPhone, social networks like Facebook and search engines like Google.  But the social web also is fostering a state of mind and a whole new way of approaching business relationships.

In my mind, successful young CEOs embody that mindset.  Living on and off the social web, they:

• lack a fear of intimacy – They find sharing personal information on blogs and social networks like Facebook an asset in building business relationships.

• embrace Informality – It’s not about wardrobe. They don’t stand on formal, closed relationships. They will reach out to anyone who will listen or can help.

• understand asynchronous dialog – They gather information and make connections one to one or one to many.  They are comfortable with platforms like Twitter where strands of ideas are linked, mashed, shared and sampled in real and non real time.

• collaborate – Yes they protect proprietary information and remain stealth until ready, but they are not afraid to collaborate and share the wealth.

Take David Cummings. David knows a thing or two about young CEOs.  He is one and very successful as his panoramic view of Atlanta confirms. His company Hannon Hill Corporation provides strategic web content management solutions.

He is part of a group of very successful CEOs (Jeff Hilimire, Allen Graber, Suleman Ali, Wayt King, Mitch Free, Sanjay Parekh, Dave Williams and Dave Wright) who recently formed Shotput Ventures (blog), a technology startup accelerator fund that focuses on CEOs of capital-light web services companies and assists in the conception phase.

They plan to invest $5,000 per team and $5,000 per founder as part of a coordinated program that will have eight companies in the summer of 2009 in Atlanta.

The founders of Shotput Ventures are not about retreating to personal islands after achieving success.  They are about inclusion, not exclusion, heterogeneity not homogeneity, merit not privilege.  They are about giving back to the community not perpetuating old boy networks.

Even their website reflects that crowdsourcing spirit.  The logo came from LogoBee and the site was from CrowdSPRING where they received bids and posting their project online.  Price tag: a little over $1,000.

Armed with the social web, a new generation of CEOs here in Atlanta is rejecting cubicle farms and corporate ladders.  Instead, they are bringing the Web’s open platform to the real world.   They are creating informal support systems, taking advantage of community building efforts like Startup Riot and Scott Burkett’s Capital Lounge and mentoring programs like Shotput Ventures.

Especially in an era of corporate downsizing, I anticipate a growing number of young people will attempt the entrepreneurship route.  While history indicates that most will fail, the social web is giving a new generation of CEOs a fighting chance to succeed.

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