Sell vaporware to space cadets.

$$: $225,000--$1.5 million per year, with absolutely no ceiling if the firm you are working with turns into a Google of some kind.

The upside: As long as the bubble is full, you're golden. And there's never any need to prove yourself with real results, because people don't want that, they want simply to feel that there's somebody thinking about all of it, and that's you.

The downside: Hard to see if there is one. Whatever it might be, if you're a really good bullshitter, and I know you are, it will take ten years to discover it.

The dark side: Your entrepreneurial friends in this area, who have the courage to push the envelope on the outside of corporate life, are now multitrillionaires. You are slogging along on less than a million a year.