Tech execs: Where are they now?

Say what you will about Carly Fiorina; she sure is resilient. The former Hewlett-Packard CEO has yet to play her next card (at press time), but in view of her corporate, political, and academic connections, there’s probably no cookbook in the works. But what about other IT luminaries of days past — names synonymous with “game changer” and “golden parachute”?

Not long after the ink dried on the HP-Compaq merger, freshly knighted HP President Michael Capellas — an executive holdover from Compaq — valiantly waded out of that quicksand only to dive headfirst into the corporate tar pit of WorldCom, which was then mired in a $9 billion accounting scandal, a Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and a Securities and Exchange Commission probe. He survived and resurfaced as CEO and president of MCI, where he remains.

Hailed by Newsweek as “Citizen Case: The Man Behind the AOL Time Warner Deal,” Steve Case took his laptop and estimated $525 million portfolio and continues to be very rich and talkative, giving occasional keynotes and tending to his pineapple plantations in Hawaii. Note to Citizen Case: Update your ancient home page at AOL Hometown.

Others were not so fortunate. Just before the bubble burst, onetime Java co-creator-cum-Disney IT executive Patrick Naughton showed up for a rendezvous at a pier in Santa Monica, Calif., only to be led away in handcuffs by a “13-year-old” FBI agent with great legs. He reportedly copped a plea, paid a $20,000 fine, and served community service — at the FBI.

Speaking of the FBI, the so-called Fox Mulder of Silicon Valley, multimillionaire USWeb CEO Joe Firmage, in 1998 left the company he co-founded to promote his belief that many high-tech advances are connected with extraterrestrials. In addition to his philanthropic causes, Firmage now devotes himself to his latest venture, ManyOne Networks, which he claims will solve the bandwidth problem with a caching system for the Mozilla browser that offers “Xbox-quality experiences on a dial-up modem.” Last year he was on a mission to raise millions of dollars for the Earth Portal project, a Web site that will allow visitors to fly over a 3-D virtual earth. So far you can zoom over Texas — but only with a broadband connection. No rest for the weary?

And if you ever doubted the wisdom of reinventing yourself every five years or so, take a page from the résumé of Sock Puppet. OK, his present gig at online financiers Bar None, helping people with sketchy credit get more credit, doesn’t live up to his high-flying days at Pets.com. But his motto — “everyone deserves a second chance” — certainly fits. Talk about resilient.