My New Year's Resolution is to file my columns early. This one was written 10 years before deadline. SAN JOSE, Calif., Dec. 30, 2009 -- Only a decade ago, the Silicon Valley of California was viewed as technology's promised land, a place where bungalows cost $1 million and even the youngest computer programmer had stock options that seemed likely to be worth millions soon. But now, years after the Internet crash of 2003, it has become a region of jealousies and recriminations. Working relationships were poisoned when employees learned that top executives secretly hedged their positions, and thus did not suffer. Banks sued formerly wealthy entrepreneurs, saying they hid assets to avoid paying their debts. All that has happened even though many of the Valley's technology companies remain very successful, and the Internet-based economy continues to gain at the expense of the older bricks-and-mortar economy. But few of the companies have lived up to the high expectations that were factored into stock prices before they fell. Many of the highest fliers have vanished from the landscape, either going out of business or being acquired by competitors for a fraction of the prices their shares once fetched. Among the survivors, employees scarred by the collapsing value of their stock options now prefer the certainty of higher salaries. It is the fate of the once-bountiful stock options that has most determined the current pecking order in Silicon Valley. At the top are those who cashed in their options before the fall. Next come those who worked for companies that prospered. Their salaries have helped to offset the paper losses, and many companies repriced their options after prices fell, thus saving some value for the employees, before angry shareholders forced a halt to that practice. At the bottom, and perhaps the largest group, are those who did not cash out and whose companies were not among the winners. While many of them landed jobs at other companies, their wealth has vanished and some have lost their homes. Housing prices fell sharply after the options lost value, and have only recently begun to recover. Some financial institutions were severely damaged when loans secured by stock options became uncollectible. The inevitable jealousies reflect the seeming randomness of success and failure. There are tales of employees who did poor jobs but ended up rich, while their more competent and creative neighbors went bankrupt. Younger engineers are angry that they have no chance for the quick wealth their elders gained, and scornful of those who lost it. Nationally, the effect on the economy has not been as great as was feared. While some other regions with big stakes in the Internet economy were hurt, most notably Seattle and New York City, the effect on most of the country was limited. Consumers cut back, but not by as much as was expected considering the declining value of investment portfolios. Growth since 2003 has been far higher than it was in Japan in the years after that country's bubble burst in 1990. In part, that was because American nontechnology stocks were not nearly as overvalued. Investors have grown much more cautious. That is reflected in the diminished amount of capital available for start-ups, and in other ways as well. Even Microsoft, which became the world's most valuable company long before it paid its first dividend in 2004, now finds that it must raise its payout every year to attract investors.