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Enron's Kenneth Lay and Global Crossing's Gary Winnick weren't just spreadsheet jockeys, they were the last great heroes of the self-delusional business culture.

Clinton survivor George Stephanopoulos, the former Boy Wonder with the great hair, is now a Legitimate News Guy (with great hair). And he may be ABC's next big star.

The recent ridiculousness at Viacom -- 78-year-old chairman Sumner Redstone attempting to push out his successor, Mel Karmazin -- is just par for the course in the egomaniacal realm of moguldom.

We're all shocked -- shocked! -- by a certain energy company's balance-sheet sleight of hand. What were they thinking?! We ask. But Enronian accounting was merely New Economy boilerplate.

Talk, which saw itself as a great new vehicle of mythmaking, ended up becoming the embodiment of hype deflation. In an age of dashed expectations, Tina Brown is right on pulse.

Wunderkind Adam Moss was the handsome young glossy god, the guy who was supposed to change the magazine world -- and then he sought protective custody at the Times.

For boys like EchoStar's Charlie Ergen and Comcast's Brian Roberts who want to grow up to be Rupert Murdoch, there's only one endgame: Control distribution now -- at any cost!

The Times' op-ed writers, in adding e-mail addresses to their columns, have unwittingly dared to rouse a rabid beast -- and one with a lot of time on its hands. Trust me, I should know.

We tell ourselves we're different -- less frivolous, less selfish -- because the world's a different place. But our obsession with the change might just signal a different sort of self-absorption.

Mayor Rudolph Giuliani