She vows never to take a cut in pay for options again, and to make sure that she can quickly explain what her employer does.
ERIC TAYLOR (not his real name) believed in the promise of the Internet enough to set aside his recently earned medical degree. Instead of practicing as a doctor, in August 1999, he joined LiveBids.com, which had just been acquired by Amazon.com and aspired to put traditional, high-priced auction houses on the Web.
SAM TROUT
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His new life was no easier than being a hospital intern: He spent three weeks of every month in airports and hotels, working sleep-deprived 18-hour days to help LiveBid's customers with the new technology. Despite a grueling schedule, Taylor says he was excited to be building on an uncharted frontier, pioneering with a young, dynamic, and swelling company. And he acknowledges the motivational power of stock options.
He was out of town last January when his department was gutted from 36 people to five. With nothing left for him to do, he was reassigned to an overseas position with Amazon that was to start in April—when the market dove.
"I had moved out of my house, packed up everything I owned, done all the paperwork," he says. "Then, when I was supposed to leave, almost to the day, instead of leaving, I was let go." He had more to lament than unvested options: "I had no place to live."
After crowding into his girlfriend's small apartment, Taylor found a new job after six months, putting his MD and Web skills to use with a company that operates medical treatment centers. He's left the dot-com world, insisting, "I just don't want to be a part of any company that seeks to acquire money without earning it."
Ed Lazowska, the chair of UW's Computer Science department and a vigorous industry booster, dismisses the dot-carnage as a minor blip. He points out that there are still eight jobs for every computer science graduate and that plenty more startups are initiated every day.
Sure, B2C is dead, B2B is pass黠but tech entrepreneurs have already moved on to the next new, new thing. "They're now called Internet enablers, technology enablers, wireless plays," says headhunter Teresa Dahl, who specializes in staffing startups. The furious pace of her business hasn't diminished, although she's noticed greater caution.
Heather Johnston, IT Recruiter for Xypoint, an established wireless Internet services company, has noticed the difference. As recently as last March, she observes, companies like hers that didn't have a dot-com after their name had a hard time attracting candidates. "Now it's a complete 360; everybody has gotten so burned. I get a ton of r鳵m鳠all day long."
Stubborn faith in technology keeps people chugging into the tech industry from a wide variety of professional tracks. Bieler's experience hasn't dampened his ardor. He cheerfully spouts well-worn platitudes about how "the Internet is going to be as common as anything in your house." Donovan says he still believes in risk, that his was an empowering experience, despite the debts it left him with. Deborah McDaniel, for one, enjoys the thrill of working in the environment of new technologies and would readily do it again. "Maybe I'm crazy to be so optimistic," she shrugs.
