Ben Chiu

In July 1999--before the pink-slip parties, before bulls became bears and Yahoo pulled the plug here on its flashing freeway sign--five faces from the Digital Revolution appeared on a now-famous Wired magazine cover. The oldest was a scant 35. Two were tech CEOs, one was in dot-com advertising, one claimed his work had "historical implications," one had become a minor celebrity chronicling the culture of the Internet. Four wore black.

In July 1999--before the pink-slip parties, before bulls became bears and Yahoo pulled the plug here on its flashing freeway sign--five faces from the Digital Revolution appeared on a now-famous Wired magazine cover. The oldest was a scant 35. Two were tech CEOs, one was in dot-com advertising, one claimed his work had "historical implications," one had become a minor celebrity chronicling the culture of the Internet. Four wore black.

The first months of 2001 marked the end of the digital gold rush. In March, The Times caught up with five prospectors who had made the July 1999 cover of Wired magazine. Few images had personified tech's hype and hope as much as that cover shot of those intense, unlined faces ("How Green Was the Valley," March 25). Four were workers who had followed the cultural buzz to Silicon Valley. The fifth was a buzz-maker--the young writer Po Bronson, whose books on the valley had made him a local celebrity.