Millionaire-itis - a new disease

Who Wants to Be an Internet Millionaire

Sunday, October 01, 2000

By Cristina Rouvalis, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

Millionaire-itis is the obsession of our times. We fixate on the TV show "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" and the most cunning "Survivor." Everywhere you look, there is another story about dot.com riches or stock-market wealth. It's a new national pastime, fantasizing about becoming suddenly rich and telling your boss you're outta here.

"There are a lot more wealthy people," says Stephen Goldbart, a clinical psychologist who co-founded the Money, Meaning and Choices Institute in San Francisco. "It makes everybody else working regular jobs feel left out."

And nothing elicits millionaire-envy among working stiffs than those stories about young dot.com millionaires who made their wealth through Internet savvy.