Julie Meyer

Born in Sacramento, USA

Favourite book: Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

Tries not to work longer than 12-hour days.

Hobbies: Windsurfing, going to spas, writing a book.

"I want to write a book which every father would give his daughter who is somewhere between 10 and 15 ... saying, girls, figure out what your unique contribution is to the world and then go for it.''

JULIE Meyer sat at the heart of the networking whirl that was the dotcom boom. As founder chief executive of the phenomenon First Tuesday, she hosted a monthly social event where kids with big ideas met investors with bulging pockets to strike the deals that took this revolution to such dizzying heights.

Meyer says: "At some point in early 2000, on the back of an envelope I came up with pounds 150m of deals that got done and that was just in London, not around the world.'' Then, of course, it all exploded. Big ideas turned out to be just that, with little financial sense but massive financial backing. Meyer and her partners got out just in time, selling the business for pounds 33m in July 2000.

Six years on and websites are once again selling and floating for eye-watering figures. But, say a chorus of commentators and, unsurprisingly the entrepreneurs, this time it's different. Meyer agrees: "I don't see another bubble at all. I wonder if I have a failure to perceive bubbles or something but I see this as a much longer slope. In the first run-up to March 2000 you had fundamental pieces of technology being put in, all of the cable going across the oceans.

"All of that has settled...