Wall Street Execs Storm Burning Man

Portfolio:

Wall Street executives at Burning Man? You bet. Though there's nothing farther from the cutthroat, moneymaking world of Wall Street than the anticapitalist, anticorporate festival of radical self-expression known as Burning Man, we found several New York business executives and Wall Street types who are heading out West this week and staying through Labor Day. In the dusty, storm-ridden desert flatlands north of Reno, Nevada, is a place dubbed Black Rock City, home of the biggest little countercultural festival in the world.

"I first went out there in 2003 because a classmate from the Stanford Business School had an art project on the playa," says a senior executive for a major Wall Street company, who asked not to be named. One of the main draws for him and most of the other 50,000 participants expected this year are the massive collaborative art projects, like last year's giant Belgian Waffle or the 50-foot stick figure that gets torched at the end of the week--the burning man that gives the festival its name.

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Comments

[Eyeful]

01:31 PM on 08/29/2007

This is the first time someone torched the Man prematurely, and now Wall St. types are showing up. Coincidence?

[Jason357]

06:26 AM on 08/29/2007

I suppose they all ride their $30,000 Harleys to the event.

[OneVoiceInACrowd]

09:59 PM on 08/28/2007

I wonder if Michael Jackson's 50' laser shooting Robot will invade and torch the burning man at the end of the week?

[SouthJerseySteve]

05:46 PM on 08/28/2007

I saw that picture and thought it was a spaceship from Mars that invaded Earth and where was Tom Cruise to save me from the blood sucking aliens?

[mommadona]

03:31 AM on 08/28/2007

"Well, there goes the neighborhood."
You knew it couldn't last forever.

[Novista]

03:06 AM on 08/28/2007

“That’s the attraction. You create something from nothing, it’s remarkable for a short period of time, and then it’s gone,” such introspection!

He must have been reminded of the housing bubble. And Enron ...

[Blurp]

12:59 AM on 08/28/2007

Burning Man has jumped the shark.

[Zapatista]

12:31 AM on 08/28/2007

FEAR AND LOATHING AT BURNING MAN ... NO WONDER THE GREAT HUNTER S THOMPSON SHOT HIMSELF ...


WALL STREET A$$HOLES !

[PerryClease]

12:12 AM on 08/28/2007

Well as Yogi Berra reportedly said; "No one goes there anymore, it is too popular."

[Quaoar]

09:41 PM on 08/27/2007

Burning Man is becoming more and more corporate every year. I wouldn't be surprised to see the Republican National Convention take place int the Black Rock Desert next year.

[clevelandchick]

09:11 PM on 08/27/2007

Those assholes. I hope the festival goers cover those cynical greedy bastards in rubber cement and honey then and throw them on top of a fire ant hill.

And those loser Wall Streeters will be disappointed to know that this is the last Burning Man festival. After this year it's done. A bit behind the eight ball, just like their stock picks for the last few years.

[klawkat]

09:10 PM on 08/27/2007

Come on; this is an old-fashioned 'sex, drugs and rock n roll'get together.Aging hippie boomers try to recapture Haight-Asbury/Woodstock.One die-hard told me her 'friends' keep getting younger as her old ones drift away with marriage,kids and maturity.

[kwright]

08:16 PM on 08/27/2007

seriously, this is a business story? who cares?