San Francisco's charity benefit opening of Star Wars: Episode I was the only one of 11 held across the country that Jedi master George Lucas himself attended. The opening, laden with West Coast techies, raised more than $500,000 for San Francisco's Boys and Girls Club. But what did they think of the movie? "I kept waiting for it to suck and it never did," said Adobe Systems founder John Warnock's son Chris. PlanetOut co-founder Tom Rielly plans to bring his whole company to see the flick. In other venues, The Force was stronger for some than for others: Bill Gates could get in to see it; presidential frontrunner George W. Bush couldn't get tickets.

    Intel Chairman/ex-Time Man of the Year Andrew Grove says companies that have yet to open up shop on the Internet are in peril. "In five years, there won't be any Internet companies because they will all be Internet companies. Otherwise they will die," Grove said in a Los Angeles speech, noting that even junkyards have gone online to acquire cars and parts.

    House Science Committee Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., R-WI, is gloating about the House's rejection of funding for Vice President Al Gore's Earth-cam, which would have beamed images of the globe 24 hours a day for Internet broadcast. "It's interesting that though NASA is now threatening to recommend a veto of a $41 billion bill over a $175 million program, not one member was willing to stand-up on the House floor today and offer an amendment to continue funding Triana. I interpret this as an overwhelming rejection by the House for the Triana program," said Sensenbrenner.

    Alexandria high-tech investment firm managing director Mark Warner is hooked into the Northern Virginia tech world, and hooked into politics in his closely-fought 1996 U.S. Senate run. (The Democrat won 47 percent of the vote, to 52 percent for incumbent Sen. John Warner, R, who is no relation.) And now, he's hooking into cooking, or at least restauranteuring. He's investing in the Majestic Cafe in Old Town, but still needs a chef. Warner's cuisine will be "nouvelle American" and the place "slightly hip," he says.

    Former Thomson CTO Jim Rutt is taking the helm at Network Solutions. Since Gabriel Battista left the domain name registrar in November, Michael Daniels has been acting as chief executive. Rutt's challenge? Make NSI work — and make money — now that its government-endorsed monopoly is no more.

    Adi Shamir — the "S" in RSA Data Security — has designed a system that can easily break encryption codes that were thought inviolable.

    Hollywood's insider on the outs, Michael Ovitz, is rebuilding his career by investing in e-commerce.Checkout.com will sell music, videos and computer games over the Net, and also promises streaming audio and video, live events and personalized content. Ovitz headed the immensely powerful Creative Artists Agency before beginning a star-crossed presidency at Disney.

    This columnist attended Harvard Divinity School for a year, rarely seeing the dean, Ronald F. Thiemann, before dropping out of Harvard a la Gates. Now Thiemann has dropped out, but for "conduct unbecoming" — he stashed porn on a Harvard-owned PC he used to work from home, and was turned in by HDS's tech shop. The Lutheran minister had been dean for nearly 13 years. He has been put on a one-year sabbatical and moved out of the dean's residence, but is still being paid his Harvard salary.

    Is all this surfing making you sleepy? New surveys show that too much Web can make you weary. The drive for information has become a full-time task. Sixty-one percent of managers report that their social activities are cancelled through the need to deal with excessive information, according to one poll; 42 percent say the stress is making them physically sick. And a full half take work home almost every night.

    Send comments and contributions to Peter J.M. Orvetti.