But many young and inexperienced dot-com executives, she said, are the children of successful entrepreneurs who can offer valuable advice and experience.

In a 1999 cover story, the essayist Michael Wolff - himself a failed dot-com executive - announced a brave new world.

Books by former dot-com executives are arriving in stores.

Because of the sprawling layout, romantic couples, dot-com executives and wine tourists need not mingle.

But he isn't the typical dot-com executive.

There are, of course, dot-com executives who have more recently taken their companies public, for what they regard as sound business reasons, not a hit and run.

On June 28, 2003, Speight married Jaci Kathryn Hays, a dot-com executive in California.

Moreover, she said, the type of growth they will need to strive for will be much different than that prescribed by dot-com executives last year.

It seems equally impossible to justify the compensation paid to dot-com executives who run companies that produce unproven products.

Meanwhile, traditional companies with Web operations are enjoying the fact that dot-com executives are asking to work for them, rather than raiding them.