Both Excite and its new owner At Home were bankrolled at their births by venture partners at Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers. John Doerr, a member of the firm who is generally credited with putting together the AOL/Netscape deal, sits on At Home's board, while partner Vinod Khosla is on Excite's board. Hmmm...

    They are the magazine that says "Nee." Fortune Magazine has hired Silicon Valley bureau chief Eric Nee away from Forbes in the latest volley in the scorched-earth war between the business mags. To replace Nee, Forbes has targeted Elizabeth Corcoran, the Washington Post's Silicon Valley correspondent, but she may not want the job.

    TNT will air a teevee movie in May titled "Pirates of Silicon Valley," starring ER's Noah Wyle as Steve Jobs, and formerly missing-in-action teen actor Anthony Michael Hall as Bill Gates.

    Quanta Computer's initial public offering has made Lin Pai-li a billionaire overnight. Lin, who was born in Hong Kong, founded Quanta in Taiwan 10 years ago, and holds 24 percent of the company's shares. Their value: a cool $1.24 billion. Quanta, Taiwan's largest notebook computer maker, went public on Jan. 8 and its stock immediately became the highest priced on the Taiwan Stock Exchange.

    Robert Honeycutt has been hired as CEO of Quote.com after two years of effort by the company, which had a hard time getting Honeycutt to walk away from the Berkeley-based financial software firm Barra. Quote.com has had two CEOs in the interim.

    New media firm Quokka Sports has stolen David Riemer from old media ad firm J. Walter Thompson, where he handled Dime Lady Candace Bergen. Riemer will serve as vice president of marketing.

    Susan Scott is leaving online privacy-certification firm TrustE following the expiration of her contract, restless with the nonprofit arena. No word on what's next for the ex-CEO of Upside Magazine.

    David B. Wright, CEO of Amdahl, starts a two-year term as chairman of the Silicon Valley Manufacturing Group, a public policy trade association that represents 130 of Silicon Valley's largest companies. Wright played pro football for six years before joining IBM and later Amdahl. Wright has made education his priority for the new year, and may bring in business leaders and politicians for an education summit. Carl Guardino begins his third year as CEO of SVMG. Before joining SVMG, Guardino worked for Hewlett-Packard and former Assemblyman Rusty Areias, D-CA.

    Sen. Pat Roberts R-KS will chair the new Emerging Threats and Capabilities subcommittee of the Senate Armed Services Committee. The subcommittee will oversee policies and programs that counter national security threats such as terrorism and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, including infowar. An additional focus of the subcommittee will be the policies and procedures related to the export of technology to foreign countries and foreign military sales. "In this time of increased global aggression and terrorism, it is critical that we address these issues to maintain America's national security," Roberts said in a statement.

    USWeb founder and former CEO Joe Firmage had left the company to focus on another project: his beliefs on aliens and UFOs. Firmage is promoting his extraterrestrial views, found in a 600-page Web-published book called Kairos: The Truth. Even the UFO community is split on Firmage's views; Firmage has suggested that advancements like fiber optics and computer chips came from aliens.

    Apple has pulled its ad from Super Bowl XXXIII; it would have been Apple's first Super Bowl spot since 1985. No word on why the company dropped the ball, but Fox is now scrambling to sell the time slot. Apple may be best known for its 1984 ad directed by Ridley Scott, which portrayed a dark vision of an Orwellian IBM hegemony.

    Three-Five Systems CEO Vincent C. Hren unexpectedly resigned from the company just five months after taking office. A spokesman for the company said that while Hren made the decision to leave on his own, the company's Board of Directors was looking for an individual with more technical know-how than Hren has to make the company a fully integrated display-technology company. The company's chairman, David R. Buchanan, will take over as president and CEO until a new CEO is named.

    Howard Schultz, founder of Starbucks, has made a grande move to the Drugstore.com board of directors.

    "We don't always have to be the first rabbit out of the gate," Lycos veep Jeff Crown has been quoted as saying... but have you ever been to a rabbit track?

    His wish was their command. From Microsuit 99 evidence: Chairman Bill sent e-mail saying "It would HELP ME IMMENSELY to have a survey showing that 90 percent of developers believe that putting the browser into the operating system makes sense... Ideally we would have a survey before I appear at the Senate on March 3rd" before the Microsuit 99 trial began, and lo, it was done.

    Buzz? Rumors? Hate mail? Self-promotion? Fire it off to Peter J.M. Orvetti.