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The world is awash in a sea of capital. Vast pools of money controlled by moguls like Gates, Murdoch, Saudi princes, and new Chinese tycoons, money pouring from London to New York to Tokyo to Hong Kong and on around the globe. Hot money hunting for cool ideas: write a nifty business plan about PCs, the Net, the Web, and watch as the cash cascades in.

My partners and I are itching to be a part of this New Economy. Our plan is to raise a modest LP using OPM (Limited Partnership, Other People's Money). In return for letting us spend their capital, we'll give the moguls 80% of the upside. Our first task is to drill for funds. We don't need a gusher; a small hit, a couple of million, will get us started.

We embark on a two-year search for backers that takes us to the far-flung money pots of the world. And while global capital may have become borderless, we discover that global capitalists retain their own unique rituals. Money still talks, and if you want to grab a piece of it, you have to be savvy about the dialects.

Chairman of the Bored

I schedule a morning with BigCo, a New York media conglomerate. They have Picassos in the board room, big trees growing outside on the 51st floor balcony. Attending from BigCo: Corporate Planning, Corporate Development, New Business Development, and Strategic Marketing -- apologies from Financial Planning, who's on vacation. Everyone orders Starbucks, and then there's a huge fuss trying to sort out the tray of lattes. Finally I fire up the overhead projector.

They've heard it all before, of course. Hundreds of proposals every week, constant meetings. And they already have 80 MBAs reviewing internal investments. And it's so tough to justify investments to the shareholders. And all this pressure from Wall Street. And what if we use the money to buy something that embarrasses them?

"Like pornography?" I snap.

Corporate Development starts paging furtively through our prospectus. Finally they agree that it's impossible for them to make a decision at this meeting. I need to schedule a session with the Corporate Ventures people.

Time = Money

I phone a successful bond trader who cuts me off after 25 seconds.

"You're wasting your time and mine," he says. "And frankly, I'm more worried about mine. I do stuff I understand, like ball-bearing factories. And I never do blind pools. What do you think I am, nuts?"

Are You Sleeping?

He is bald. Drinks Perrier. Sits like Rodin's Thinker, gazing out of the window at the gray Paris roof-scape. He manages one of the largest pools of private capital in Europe from offices that stink of good breeding, longevity, and caution. Ancestors line the walls, and none of them looks pleased to see me.

I start out soberly, then become more animated when I suspect he is asleep. He speaks for the first and only time when I ask if he has any questions.

"Non," he says and then shakes my hand and glides out. His assistant wishes me luck. "It's good to start to build the relationship," she confides.

I'll have to remember to mention these folks to my grandchildren.