Maybe we have to wait for the "Clueless"-style update, in which Adam Verver is an Internet billionaire building a pleasure palace in Seattle, to understand that.

Why doesn't he just say he doesn't even want to be an Internet billionaire?

The latest Internet billionaire, for example, is not some lucky Stanford graduate student or nocturnal Seattle programmer barely past shaving age.

This is increasingly the reality in an age of Internet billionaires, the working poor and a middle class left largely alone by government to deal with vast economic changes.

In a country with Internet billionaires, acclaimed film directors, and N.B.A All-Stars-all under age forty-the sheer scale of his influence can be striking.

The rating system has certainly not caused the Mavericks' turnaround by itself, but Mark Cuban, the Internet billionaire who owns the team, said it helped.

In the magazine industry, though, Ms. Winfrey is known for selling more magazines than bikini-clad models, Internet billionaires or even pregnant actresses.

Is it the technology that kindles the entrepreneurial spirit in the Internet billionaires, or is it the stock market?

Last week, Mr. Augustin joined the ranks of Internet billionaires himself when his company, VA Linux Systems, went public.

Michael Saylor, Fairfax County's very own Internet billionaire, has become a pariah, his crippled company, Microstrategy, a symbol of all that was wrong with the tech bubble.