A new
species of
millionaire who is wealthy on paper -- he or she owns millions in
stock after his or her dotcom
goes public but they have very little real money and their wealth fluctuates constantly with the price of their stock. Worse, they can't touch that money until after a certain period of time.
Dotcom millionaires are not completely new. Tech companies like Microsoft or Apple have been going through this for years. The difference is that these older tech companies have to actually have made a profit at one time or another before anyone will by their stock. Even the richest dotcommies like Jeff Bezos often run companies that have never made any money.
In this sense, some of these dotcoms are good examples of what P.T. Barnum once said, "There's a sucker born every minute."