The "old economy" is dead. Long live the "new economy". That was the cry from the host of Britain's top bosses who, over the past 18 months, abandoned jobs with big corporations making substantial revenues to join start-up firms often struggling to find their financial feet.
Now slumping technology and internet share prices, combined with fears of a wider economic slowdown, have made dreams of instant riches a memory and brought a new reality to the sector.
Despite that, those who jumped aboard the dot.com bandwagon remain upbeat.
"I'm loving it, absolutely loving it," said Dennis Malamatinas, the 55-year-old chief executive of troubled US e-tailer Priceline's European offshoot, who quit as boss of Burger King to take up his new role. "The speed of this business is in credible. We launched a new television advertising campaign on Monday and on Tuesday our traffic trebled. I've been running brands my entire life but never experienced anything like this."
James Benfield spent 29 years with Marks & Spencer running marketing, home shopping, stores and e-commerce before quitting 15 months ago and joining confetti.co.uk, a weddings website.
"If you are looking to get a broader business education there cannot be anywhere finer to get it," he said. "You go through private placement rounds, auditioning for IPOs and financial crises where you say that if you did run out of money it'd be sad because you've built a great brand. So you try and do something completely different with the business."
Confetti did just that yesterday, going offline to publish a glossy wedding gift catalogue which customers can order over the internet, by phone or post.
"The beguiling promises of mass riches may not have materialised," admitted Mr Benfield. "But, as a test to see whether I can succeed in the world outside M&S without all the natural advantages a blue chip organisation brings you, it has been a fantastic education."
Former Asda boss Allan Leighton cited "learning" as one of the main reasons why he took the chairman's role at Lastminute.com into his portfolio of jobs.
Some like John Pluthero, the Dixons strategist who turned Freeserve from an idea on the back of a napkin into a £1.6bn company, have built business reputations on the dot.com boom.
Not everyone has found the switch so rewarding. Martin Coles quit after eight years as head of European operations at the Nike sportswear group to run pan-European e-commerce firm Letsbuyit. Less than a year later Letsbuyit has collapsed and Mr Coles is out of a job.
Tony Salter, former head of EMI's eastern Europe operations, suffered a similar fate when his music e-tailer, Boxman.com, went bust last year.
Sir Richard Greenbury, chairman and chief executive of Marks & Spencer until the summer of 1999, dipped his toe into the dot.com waters when he took on the chairmanship of a tiny AIM-listed software firm, E-comsport. It has been blighted by disputes over the direction the company should take.
Jim Rose quit a senior position at United News & Media in April 1999 to run auction house QXL.com. Analysts have been impressed by him, but integrating the numerous businesses QXL has acquired across Europe has been tricky and the company's share price has slumped 99% from its high.
Robert Norton co-founded health and beauty website Clickmango.com with Toby Rowland after quitting as a Reuters journalist to work on the internet. It collapsed and they are looking for new ventures. "People perhaps overestimated the short term and underestimated the long term," he said. "If you're looking to make money right now there are a huge number of reasons why you should stay put in your old economy job rather than jump into a start-up. But I'm still a big believer in technology long-term. The internet is still in its infancy."
The enthusiasm of Priceline Europe's Mr Malamatinas comes with a healthy dose of reality.
"When I quit Burger King I told my wife 'If nothing else, I want to have been a part of this revolution, whatever the consequences'," he said. "I'm incredibly upbeat about our prospects but if the worst really does come to the worst you can always go back to the old world."
