The Reserved Riches Of Silicon Valley

MENLO PARK, Calif. -- Wealth is here if you know where to find it.

Fabulous home theaters are tucked into the basements of plain suburban houses. Bespoke jeans that start at $1,200 can be detected only by a tiny red logo on the button. The hand-painted Italian bicycles that flash across Silicon Valley on Saturday mornings have become the new Ferrari -- and only the cognoscenti could imagine that they cost more than $20,000.

Even at Facebook, ground zero for the nouveau tech riche, peer pressure dictates that consumption be kept on the down low.

"The message here is, 'Keep shipping product,' " said a Facebook executive who requested anonymity while discussing internal matters. "If someone buys a fancy car and posts a picture of it, they get ridiculed and berated."

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