The little ticktock of the millennial clock will make US$115 billion for a crowd of clever programmers, Y2K business consultants, and, of course, lawyers, according to International Data Corporation. Here's a sample of who's cashing in on the dreaded Year 2000 Problem.
Steven Hock
Title: Attorney at law
Affiliation: Thelen, Marrin, Johnson & Bridges
Salary: $500,000 to $2 million
Hock earns his millennial millions defending computer companies whose products suffer from the Y2K bug. This year, Hock and his 28-lawyer team will represent Software Business Technologies in a $50 million class-action suit (the first major Y2K case to hit the courts), as well as three similar actions.
Jack O'Bryan
Title: Programmer/data systems consultant
Affiliation: Levi Strauss & Co.
Salary: $120,000 to $250,000
O'Bryan spends an average of 50 hours a week eyeballing code - miles of it - scanning for dates used in calculations or sequencing and then rewriting the code.
Cynthia Warner
Title: Acting director of the Strategic Information Technology Analysis Division
Affiliation: US Government Office of Information Technology, General Services Administration
Salary: $77,000 to $101,000
Warner is Uncle Sam's Y2K official, responsible for evaluating the Y2K effect on all federal agencies and hounding them to comply with official Y2K policy. She is also responsible for steering the federal Y2K logo through the US Patent Office.
ELECTRIC WORD
Time Is Money
