It's good to see that the operators of the "Internet Economy" have seen the light -- that the Internet is not really different than the world as a whole. It's just in a different stage of its life-cycle. That's beneficial for Internet-related firms, and they should continue to be optimistic. But things don't quite look as rosy as they did before the oft-mentioned Internet bubble.

Perhaps that's because Internet executives took off their rose-colored glasses. More likely, it's because they're a decade older and more seasoned. During the first Internet bubble, I ranted frequently about overoptimism that looked to me like a bunch of kids ignoring reality.

Finally, when the bubble burst in 2000, it caught many high-flying Internet companies by surprise. Even as the industry back then had shown signs of trouble, those young executives continued to spend freely. Their mantra was to spend for growth at all cost and to ignore implications related to profit.

As the financial industry started its recent downward spiral, I still heard some of that eternal optimism, with an underlying current of "It won't happen to us; we're above it." But in recent weeks, those overoptimistic predictions have started to become more realistic.

Even the ever-growing Silicon Valley contingent of Web 2.0 companies has been reacting to the real world in appropriate ways. In particular, companies have been reigning in their spending -- partially, it seems, due to prodding by investors, such as celebrated venture capital firm Sequoia Partners.

According to Gigacom, a Web magazine aimed at the emerging technology market, Sequoia gathered its portfolio companies together for a meeting where it greeted them with a gravestone saying "RIP: Good Times." The underlying message: Demand is going to soften, so mind your cash.

This is a message that doesn't sit well in Silicon Valley, where money grows on trees and spending freely is a way of life. It's in stark contrast to virtually every industry on earth, and even different from tech companies in other parts of the country. I've been running a tech company for several years, and we've been minding our cash out of habit (good habit, I hope), which is the way we have always run the business -- during good and bad times. It's good for us and it's good for our investors. And it goes along with what I learned when earning my MBA many years ago. Today's MBAs graduating into entrepreneurs may have additional tools that we didn't have -- but they still have to operate under the same laws of supply and demand, and are affected by external factors as much as their internal factors.

My recent discussion with an entrepreneur in Connecticut demonstrates sound judgment. His small company is doing very well (selling and supporting accounting software). He almost has enough work to support an additional hire but has chosen to not hire anybody. He'll stretch his current staff -- because he doesn't know what's around the corner. He'll make a bit more money in the short term, and not worry about the economy as much as he might have.

The current economic climate is bound to affect Internet companies, but the impact is not likely to be as drastic as it has affected other more mature sets of companies. Some of the factors may even help those Internet companies. But the time is here to be prudent, and this time, Internet companies have caught on.

So those of us who watched in amazement when Internet executives got caught in the bubble can be proud that our counterparts have learned from history.