As the market grows ever more unfriendly to Internet companies, dot.coms are busy finding new ways of proving their worth. Nothing so mundane as tight management teams or polished business plans, though: instead, some are opting for location, location and location.

However, in Silicon Valley that has its own odd twist. The Margin had lunch last week with visitors from Palo Alto, the city in the heart of the Valley, who confessed that they were netting $10,000 a month . . . by renting out their garage to a new dot.com.

"It's crazy, but they all want to say they started in a garage, like Hewlett-Packard and Apple," said one. What Valley cliche will young companies exploit next? Will they require all staff to sleep under their desks, a la Yahoo cofounder David Filo, force them to live off gummy bears, Coke and coffee, or maybe just have the brilliance of Messrs Hewlett, Packard, Jobs and Wozniak?