(FORTUNE Magazine) – ICG insiders weren't all Net gurus or hotshot millionaires; many were ordinary investors who hit upon friends-and-family shares or executives at small Web firms who got caught up in the ICG wave. The list of the lucky includes everyone from a receptionist at Safeguard Scientifics to an ICG summer intern who was rumored to have been given shares worth millions of dollars. Indeed, just living in ICG's hometown of Wayne, Pa., dramatically boosted a person's chances of hitting the Internet jackpot.

At the height of ICG hoopla, John Sheehan gained local celebrity for his multimillion-dollar ICG shareholdings acquired through Safeguard Scientifics' long-term incentive compensation plan. Sheehan, a company troubleshooter, picked a decent time to retire and cash in. At age 59, he saw that his portfolio was larger than he could have imagined and sold more than 11,000 of his 30,000 shares. Though he didn't walk away with the $6 million or so his stock was worth at its height, he did garner $225,000. The shares transformed his life, he says. Family and friends treated him like a celebrity. "For a while there I could have been really rich. But I am rich relative to the expectations I had for myself as a young man," Sheehan says. Excitement over the stock even spread to his neighborhood stomping ground when Jim Landis, owner of the deli where Sheehan and co-workers lunched, bought $2,500 of ICG stock on the open market. Though Landis' investment at one point soared to $50,000, he hasn't sold a share. His holdings are now worth less than $250.

Many insiders, even those closely tied to ICG, haven't fared much better. Just ask Alan Hu, chairman of ICG-backed Collabria, which recently closed because of a lack of funding. Hu received friends-and-family shares as ICG prepared to go public and held on long after the lockup period ended. At one point his shares were worth about $3 million. By the time he did cash out on Dec. 1, 2000, his 27,500 shares, at $5.75, were worth $158,125--barely more than their initial $150,000 value.

Richard Perry, a 15-year investment banking veteran at Bear Stearns, took another route. He and five friends pooled their money to invest in ICG during the company's second round of financing. The link: One of Perry's buddies was Buckley's college roommate at the University of North Carolina. Perry, whose stake in ICG multiplied his net worth several times, sold shares worth over $4 million. He used a sizable chunk of the money to pay tribute to his grandparents, who still live in his hometown of Columbia, Tenn. Perry endowed two classrooms in his grand- parents' names, helping to complete a new 35,000-square-foot, $8.5 million humanities building at Columbia State Community College.

--Julia Boorstin and Seema Bhardwaj