It was the Tuesday before Labor Day, back in 2000, six months after dot-com-mania had peaked. But at eight A.M. that morning, the Peninsula Fountain & Grill in Palo Alto, California, was still filled with intense young men in the black and metallic-blue clothes of the haute nerd, chattering into their cell phones, pecking at their PalmPilots, or staring into their BlackBerrys.
At a red leather booth by a window, working his Palm VII while devouring slabs of French toast, sat venture capitalist Derek Proudian. Across from him, in a black cashmere Armani pullover, was Elon Musk, 29, a baby-faced fellow with soulful eyes and pouty lips, who’d just sold his first Internet start-up for $300 million, pocketing $22 million for himself. I was there with them, reporting a story on Silicon Valley’s nouveaux riches for Talk magazine and looking for an ostentatious lead character who might warrant skewering.
