Although its more than five years since Web 1.0 came crashing down, many from that era still strut their stuff at these events, including Netscape's Marc Andreesen, , and every VC who wants to find the next Google.

But the hype has more reality in it now, and that reality was palpable at this event. The Internet is bigger and there's a whole lot more money flowing through it than in 2000. The Internet has gone global (only 20 percent of Internet users were North American in 2006, according to Morgan Stanley's Mary Meeker).

And rather than exuding a get-lucky mentality, participants here seemed to accept that there's lots of competition and commoditization out there, and that if you build something, it had better deliver real value to users at a low price.

Even Google , with CEO Eric Schmidt, for example, warning the collected entrepreneurs to "never trap an end-user's data, let them move it around if they want ... we're even going to do this with search data; it will keep us honest."

And nobody blinked when Chinese Internet kingpin Jack Ma said his company planned to launch a Web-based enterprise software suite. Why wouldn't he, if he has the developers, the capital, and the local market knowledge?