Too bad for the "dot snots," the arrogant dot-com founders who flaunted their status and cut an obnoxious figure in Silicon Valley.

Ever since the Nasdaq tanked, there have been a plethora of dot bombs and perhaps for this reason "dot bomb" edged out "dot snot" in the voting. My vote, however, would have been cast for "dot snot."

Why do I sense a technology slippage in this arena? Probably because Silicon Valley has become obsessed with dot-com operations that focus on business models instead of technology. The results of that obsession are a lot of interesting ideas and a lot of excessively rich kids — referred to locally as "dot snots" — who wander around town as if they own the place. Meanwhile, process engineering, the true basis for our wealth, goes to Taiwan.