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.Stock options, which had appeared in the late 1980s to reward topexecutives should their company’s stock rise, took off in the techindustry as a way to compensate for start-ups’ low pay and longhours.Within the next decade, options had become the most likelypath to great wealth.Employees who got in on the ground floorbecame vested and exercised options at a much higher value aftertheir company’s IPO.21 At AOL, custom-support people making $7an hour in the late 1980s were cashing out big time, their stockWHO WANTS TO BE A MILLIONAIRE? 1995–225options and splits making them rich beyond their wildest dreams.A bookkeeper at that company with only five hundred shares ofoptions in the early 1990s could cash them in for $3.5 million in1999, not a bad return on investment.No less than 2,000 million-aires were created at AOL alone in the 1990s, many of them havingkept the company’s stock price constantly posted in the corner oftheir computer screens in order to have a 24/7 read on their marketvalue.22In historical terms, the tech company IPO made previousmeans of getting rich quick in the twentieth century—the stock tipof the 1920s, the big contract with Uncle Sam during World WarII, the gusher in the 1950s, even the junk bonds of the eighties—seem feeble.The ways of getting rich that had held firm for dec-ades, if not centuries—inheritance, education, membership in theOld Boy network, even, if absolutely necessary, hard work—seemedto have been chucked out the window, replaced by the well-I-could-do-that start-up of an Internet company.23 And while being a software geek in the mid-1990s required one to know how to writearcane code, have an intimate relationship with semiconductors, orat least possess a degree from Stanford, being a rich dot-commerin the late 1990s seemed to require only a ten-page business planand a thirty-second elevator pitch.The long, winding road to theAmerican Dream was now a shortcut.24As tech employees began to exercise their options through thelate 1990s, it became apparent that an entirely new kind of richAmerican was being born.RIMs, or Retired Instant Millionaires,the beneficiaries of huge, sudden, and typically unplanned wealth,represented a class that had not existed before in America or any-where else.The few mega-lottery winners every year usually hadtheir windfalls doled out over ten or twenty years, but RIMs gotthe whole ball of wax in one fell swoop, the psychological impactof which was hard to imagine.Although some cash-outs lived inthe DC area—all ex-AOLers—many more were springing up in ornear Seattle and Silicon Valley, ex-employees of Microsoft and In-ternet start-ups.The first wave of Microsoft RIMs were referred to226R ICHas the ‘‘Class of Two Thousand,’’ with many thousands more rollingout into the Puget Sound area as they too sold their stock.Predominantly thirty- and fortysomethings, RIMs with, as itwas known, ‘‘fuck-you money’’ kept busy pursuing their particularpassions, whether it was trekking in Nepal, opening a boutique,having a spiritual awakening, or devoting their time and money toa particular cause.Others were off and running on another start-up, having fun and seeing if lightning might strike twice.Very fewwere just lying on a beach or simply improving their golf handicap;their A-type personalities drove them to achieve something else or‘‘make a difference,’’ whatever that might be.Yahoo! alone created450 new millionaires from the $10 billion it spent on acquisitionsbetween 1998 and 2000, the overwhelming majority of them stillworking a few years later, not content to just sit on their ‘‘purpledollars.’’25 Most of the relatively few RIMs in New York, the beneficiaries of Goldman Sachs and Neuberger Berman IPOs, had not yetfound their next calling, however, leaving them at sea in a city inwhich one was defined by work (and how loud one’s money couldsay ‘‘fuck you’’).26A Beastly Frenzy ofConspicuous ConsumptionEven before the tech boom kicked into high gear, it was clear thatwhen it came to spending money, one era was ending and anotherbeginning.After a period of relative austerity between the late1980s and early 1990s, affluent consumers were again keen on lux-ury goods, the social taboo of conspicuous consumption fading fast.Despite costing about $6,000 each, for example, Mont Blanc’s gem-studded Prince Regent pens could hardly be found on store shelvesin 1996, and Chanel had a waiting list for both its $3,000 double-breasted tweed dresses and its $750 khaki pants.Other tony brandslike Lalique, Gucci, and Hermes were also back in a big way, help-WHO WANTS TO BE A MILLIONAIRE? 1995–227ing revive nearly out-for-the-count upscale department stores suchas Bergdorf Goodman and Saks.Managers of the Ferragamo storein New York’s Trump Tower were even limiting how many pairs ofshoes, bags, or jackets one could buy (just ten of each to a cus-tomer, please), an unusual but necessary step to ensure that everyrich dog could have his or her day in fine leather.27Like the domestic shortage of another flush time, the twenties,the American rich were also finding it hard to find good help thesebountiful days.This time it was the retail arena that was crampingtheir style; there were not enough workers to go around to tend towealthy consumers’ finicky desires.‘‘Several years into the boom,’’noted New York magazine in 1998, ‘‘so many consumers are willing to shell out for so many previously obscure services there just aren’tenough people to provide them.’’ High-end pet salons in the city,like Doggie-Do and Pussycats, Too!, were having major troublefinding qualified people to coif only-the-best-will-do pooches andkitties, and limousine drivers were also in short supply.Food serviceworkers at upscale restaurants were equally scarce, especially som-meliers, which were now a virtual necessity for any boîte intendingto cater to the money crowd.A good masseuse was worth his or herweight in gold, so much so that spas were recruiting them from outof town by offering juicy benefit packages.Like the maids, cooks,and butlers of three-quarters of a century ago, those in ‘‘service’’ inthe late 1990s were a hot commodity, and demand far outstrippedsupply.28Nowhere was the demand for the finer things in life greaterthan the eastern end of Long Island, which remained a stompingground for American and European rich during the summer.Spending the summer of 1998 in the Hamptons, Bruce Nussbaumof BusinessWeek found the place ‘‘so awash in money this season that it makes the Reagan years look downright bourgeois.’’ Nussbaum was in the midst of what he considered ‘‘a beastly frenzy ofconspicuous consumption’’; the East Coast put West Coast techmoney to shame when it came to pure excess
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