Living The Late Shift

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But for the cast and crew in the engine rooms of these Internet dreadnoughts setting sail for IPO land, the reality is that many of them will never see stock-option millions. Some can't sustain the grueling hours. Still others won't stay at the company for the four years it takes the typical options package to vest--i.e., for the shares to become sellable. "The options are what lead people onward," says Patrick Neeman, director of development at the website . "But these people waiting for the big IPO are just waiting forever. The only people who get wealthy are VPs and above." And here's another reality check: for every 10 companies that offer employees options packages, only one ever actually goes public.

What happens to the unlucky many who don't get rich by the time they are 30? In a field that relies on the young, older programmers become increasingly unemployable because their salary demands are likely to be out of line with start-up budgets and their skills to be perceived as obsolete. Computer-science professor Norman Matloff of the University of California at Davis points out that 20 years after college, only 20% of programmers remain on the job. Most no longer work in high technology.

But for the Netfiends at , the long odds don't deter them from long hours. There is in this cluttered, cramped studio, amid the computers, monitors and digital video cameras, a palpable messianic fervor that this is incontrovertibly the right place to be. The future is happening here, and how can you put a price on that?

Skat, the Web host, looks up from her monitor and says, "Pseudo is about hiring young kids who live the Net and don't know about equity positions." As for Skat, well, she's a little older now, and she's working out her own deal--which will, of course, include stock options.