I was talking the other day with a colleague about job satisfaction. He used to work in a very large and established company. He was miserable. There was way too much bureaucracy, work was uninspiring and his boss was a highly political creature. Finally he left. He joined a valley start ups. From $55,000 that he was making in his previous job, his salary jumped to $105,000 within two years. Job content was great. He felt glorious. A year later, he got laid off. For the next 9-10 months he didn't have a job. His savings got wiped out. He sold his car. He lost his confidence. He seriously considered trying to get into financial services in an entry level capacity (he did his MBA in finance and systems). His family reminded him that this would never have happened if he had stuck it out in his previous job. He has finally landed a job in a very large corporation. He now says that all he wants in life now is stability. He would never again trade stability for job excitement. He is also very clear in his mind that he joined an internet company not for the money, but because he was so incredibly unhappy in his previous job.

I think most of us who drifted into the Internet sector went in looking for cool stuff to do, not so much for money. Money happened to some. But the great majority of footsoldiers in the web technology space never made lots of money. They were in it for the ride. And it was a great ride. But looking back, we didn't substantially change the way things happen. The internet boom did manage to shake up the traditional mainstream fortune 2000 companies and made them substantially receptive to new technology (at least for a while!). But as I sit here and look at the corporate landscape in North America, I don't see any paradigm change that the web has wraught. The promises of web based collaboration, marketplaces and transactions et al remain largely unrealized.

Peter Martin, a deputy editor in Financial Times died last week of cancer. FT (which has a great web edition by the way) reprinted his reflections on the bubble years. It is very well written.