Connections: Silicon Man and Burning Valley

Abstract

Once a year, technology entrepreneurs drive out to the desert and set a 50-foot man-shaped bundle of sticks on fire during Burning Man, a bacchanalian expression of the values of Silicon Valley culture. Burning Man and Silicon Valley arise from the same geographic milieu, involve many of the same participants, and share important cultural values. The ten principles that epitomize its Burning Man's philosophy, including values of creative expression (radical self-expression, immediacy), social structure (radical inclusiveness, radical self-reliance, participation), and economic philosophy (gifting, decommodification, communal effort, civic responsibility, and leaving no trace) are very similar to the elements of the Silicon Valley economic habitat This article explore these similarities and what their implications might be for these two cultural environments.