Herman Miller's Aeron Chair - The former gold standard of Internet startups.

Last Sunday's San Francisco Chronicle explores the world of startups and venture capital. In turns out that the new generation -- Web 2.0 -- of geek entrepreneurs are better managers of venture capital than their Internet bubble predecessors. Understandable given the conspicuous-consumption spending of the late nineties.

Today's startups if they have Aeron chairs at all have either have their employees bring their own in or find them in sales:

Gone are the Herman Miller Aeron desk chairs and the other technocrat excesses of the late 1990s when dot-coms burned through money and hype, throwing lavish launch parties, staffing up quickly and spending millions on Super Bowl ads.

Emerging in their stead is a post-crash generation of stingy startups using ingenuity to minimize the cost of turning raw ideas into viable businesses.

They hire slowly and avoid using recruiters. They take advantage of plunging technology prices. They generate buzz by word of mouth. They establish overseas operations to lower labor costs. They scrounge computers and furniture from the free section of community Web site Craigslist. And, when they raise venture capital, they hoard it, fearful of blowing their shot at making it.