Its glass half-full again, the region retools for another revolution. Will it be boom and bust redux?
Russell Hancock has a job few people would have coveted over the past few years. As president and chief executive officer of Joint Venture: Silicon Valley Network, Hancock has been trying to figure out how the busted area might reinvent itself - no mean feat when the entire region seemed lost in a pessimistic cloud, its leading industries left for dead. You might think he pined for the boom days. Nope. "That period was a time warp. It meant nothing; it had nothing to do with reality," he says. "We're resuming life now as normal."

That's true, but only to a point. A lot has changed in the years since the boom began. Already, in the jobs being created, one can see the outlines of a Silicon Valley reinvented­ on the rebound. New jobs aren't coming from old standby industries like silicon chips and software design, but from areas like biotechnology, life sciences, healthcare, and nanotechnology. The valley has advantages in these areas - intellectual capital at area companies and universities, and a burgeoning R&D community, for instance - which are among the fastest growing in the U.S. economy. "These are clusters where we have assets," Hancock says. "Particularly when you're talking about things coming out of the national research labs and high-end university research labs. We're encouraged."

It's no surprise to old-timers that Silicon Valley's death has been greatly exaggerated. People have declared the Valley dead before, only to see it retool and accelerate again. The question is, what will drive the rebound this time? Who will benefit? Will it lead to another boom - and eventual bust? From the busy streets of San Francisco to placid Palo Alto to the land across the Bay, we probed some of the sharpest minds in technology. Despite continued unease, not to mention impatience for the next "revolution," we found a Silicon Valley convinced good times are near.