Net Dreams

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'If I'm going to work 70-hour weeks, I might as well do something purposeful,' he says buoyantly. After six weeks of looking, he took a job with Intershop Communicationsóto do 'business development.' But that turned out to mean cold-calling for the telesales division. After a while, he could no longer convince himself that this had anything to do with changing the world.

What matters to Scott is finding work he can love.

The Stoner
On the other end of the line is a chummy talker I'll call Michael Zilly who tells me that, yo, he'll be moving on out from Massachusetts next week. He says Silicon Valley is 'phat' and 'quite excellent,' and he calls me 'homeboy.' He wants to do the Valley, all of it. He wants to soak it up. This includes (along with snowboarding and meeting mall girls) being a kick-ass entrepreneur. He has hammered together a cardboard-thin featherlight 'keyboard' that uses touchscreen technology rather than plastic keys, a superportable typing accessory designed to be plugged in to Palms and other PDAs. He calls it the SupraNova, a cryptic reference to Naked Lunch. His hobbies are running up hills and smoking dope. He listens to Ice-T and Body Count and Parliament. He says we'll hang. 'Where's the party? Where's the girls? Where's the fish?' We trade e-mails, which he signs, 'Keep on rockin' in the free world.'

He needs to raise $80,000 in the next three months.

The Artist
At the bar in the Stanford Park Hotel, I strike up a conversation with a Taiwanese American accountant who tells me about a guy he knows who started a karaoke club in Taiwan but didn't want to do what he'd have to do to succeed, and has come to try life in the Valley. I'm instantly interested; which is a more ruthless place? The accountant promises to put me in touch.

Now, I'm trying to get the guy, Ben Chiu, to tell me about Taiwan. The information's not going to come without trust, so I ask a lot of questions about his background. Ben is wearing the exact same thing as his three employees: brown leather saddle shoes, dark hard jeans with the ankles cuffed, black belt with silver buckle, and a short-sleeved black polo shirt. He's 27.

It takes a while for Ben to understand that I'm interested in him, not in his technology. He's not used to anybody caring about his life story, and when he finally gets it, he goes 'Ohhh,' and walks out of the room. He returns with an artist's portfolio.

Inside are photos of his wild-animal paintingsórams and bald eaglesódone in painstaking, stunning detail. Every feather, every hair is rendered. Each one, hours of work. 'Anal, huh?' Ben says, embarrassed.

'You do these recently?'

'Not since I moved here.'

'How about dancing; you go dancing?'

'I used to go every night. In Taiwan. But not here.'

'How about karaoke?'

'Oh, sure. I still do that.'

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