Silicon Valley Loves Black Rock City, but What’s in it for Burning Man?
Yes, we’re back at it. We told you there was going to be more around this (not so) mysterious Silicon Valley — Burning Man connection.
A really quick summary of the previous post for those of you who feel a little bit lazy today to read through the full version (don’t be! Check it out here).
It looks like people in the highest positions in Silicon Valley just can’t stay out of Burning Man. Why? Because the transformational festivals’ environment seems to be perfect to enhance creativity an experimentation, two attitudes that are dear to the tech elite. What is more, Black Rock City seems to give aid to co-creativity, community inspiration and innovation through self-expression, a push towards making Silicon Valley and its legacy less elitist, more prone to implementing systems that are partecipative, that care about the people who are involved in the creative and innovative process, and not only about a few managers out there.
What we also hinted to in the previous article was that Burning Man and its transformational ecosystem may need Silicon Valley too.
How can it be so? Why such a free-spirited, self-expression-triggering environment — a festival that since its dawn in 1989 has reached a capacity of almost 70 thousand people and a worldwide fame — should need the presence of just a very few entrepreneurs?
We’ll try to explain the connection starting from another transformational festival, radically different from Burning Man yet strictly bonded to it: the Further Future Festival.
Co-founded by two veterans of Burning Man, former lawyer Robert Scott and creative director Jason Swamy, Further Future is an high-end lifestyle & music festival taking place close to Las Vegas that has shortly become the go-to place for everybody that counts in the tech/innovation scene (do the names of Elon Musk and Eric Schmidt ring a bell?). But star-studded concerts and artsy (and pricy) accommodations are just the tip of the iceberg here.
As Further Future’s general show runner Russell Ward stated in an interview for The Guardian:
“This is top-league networking and business folks are all here in the guise of having fun. It’s designed around the music, but it’s about the business […] A ton of business will get done here. Entrepreneurs will get funded, investors will find their trajectories, service companies will meet and mix it up.”
This adds up to the first idea that Silicon Valley needs these transformational environments for business reasons. And not only.
Being born from two former citizens of Black Rock City and featuring much of its atmosphere (well, except for the fact that tents and RVs are super plushy here), Further Future is the example of how the tech elite is endorsing the philosophy of Burnin Man while spreading it.
In the same interview for The Guardian, Russell Ward stated that:
“ The future’s driven by people with an alternative world view.”
Well, transformational festivals such as Burning Man and Further Future may be the places where that very alternative world view is built and enriched — through radical self-expression, artistic prosumption, liberation from society’s restrictions, gifting economy. But apparently it doesn’t all stop when the party it’s over.
These festivals have started to be invested of meaning and responsibilities towards society itself. Still citing from The Guardian (Nellie Bowles did such a good job on this!), Facebook product manager Justin Shaffer stated that Further Future should be called to answer questions such as: “What happens post-capitalism? Even post-democracy? What about post-employment, when we have universal basic income?”
What we want to point out here is not how transformational festivals could actually answer these and more other social questions through their culture of disruption, innovation and change (did anyone sense a spoiler here?); our aim is highlighting how the influence that Burning Man & co. may have on society depends, on a substantial scale, on the use that the tech elite is going to make of their transformational experiences. As Robert Scott smoothly remarks:
“It’s important what we do here. That’s what we keep saying. We’re shaping the future. These are the people who not only can do it, but these are the only people who can.”
With these premises, it’s no wonder that Burning Man co-founder Larry Harvey is more than inclined to host the CEOs of important companies in the tech industry. Gregory Ferenstein for Venturebeat points out how Harvey “ […] wants more interactive art sculptures that bring strangers together on the street. He wants events that bring like-minded creatives to dance and mull disruptive ideas under the moonlight of their respective cities.”
Harvey himself sounds very clear about the type of experience he’d like to offer to the tech elite:
“I’d like them to have a soulful experience. I’d like them to feel connected to the great human experience in ways that will constructively influence the course of world affairs.”
So, we hope that now it’s clearer what we intended when we stated that Burning Man needs the Silicon Valley elite. You may also postulate that the need is mutual between these two worlds. In the most simplistic way possible, Burning Man gives to Silicon Valley the best ecosystem to implement ideas and solutions, while Silicon Valley has the material and human resources to spread the message to the world. Quoting Robert Scott again:
“We’re shaping the future. These are the people who not only can do it, but these are the only people who can.”
One of the most significant outlets of this mutual need could be Fly Ranch, an 800-acre property in Nevada born to host Burning Man all year round. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that some of the investors in the project are prominent names of the Silicon Valley — former Airbnb executive Chip Conley, Flipagram founder Farhad Mohit, Facebook vice president of product, ads and pages Rob Goldman, just to name a few.
The message that a place like this could help spreading out — extending the voice of transformational environments — is, without any doubt, powerful: leave out the routine way of thinking, rely on yourself and discover your potentialities to create something new, share ideas and things with others without expecting anything in exchange, be ready to fully express yourself and listen to others while they do the same. As Sarah Buhr from TechCrunch pointed out:
“ […] Silicon Valley could learn more about altruism and building for the sake of improving the world for others. […] Attending Burning Man could help Silicon Valley avoid building jerktech and use the potential of human creation for the advancement of all, not just a few.”
Alright, alright. We know what you are thinking. There’s an issue that we haven’t properly addressed yet. Silicon Valley people thrive while at Burning Man, ok. Burning Man needs Silicon Valley to spread its ecosystem into society, that’s a given now.
But how about those processes that Burning Man triggers into the tech elite? What about that precious contribution that needs to be spread out? Can it really bring innovation and, ultimately, change into society?
Well, we don’t want to give away too much. But surely we can leave you with this enlightening quote by two Italian innovators in the educational field — Lucilla Fiorentino and Alessandro Tartaglia from La Scuola Open Source
“Innovation is always social, otherwise it’s just profiting from people’s ignorance.”
As we’ve previously pointed out, these are just tiny bits of our journey into the world of Silicon Valley, Burning Man and Transformational Festivals.
If you feel like this could be your journey too, or if you’re just glad to take a look around in this ever-changing field, we have two tips for you. First: go follow Burning Man and Transformational Festivals publication here on Medium. Second: let us know if you have some thoughts on the impact of Burning Man & co. in nowadays society. We’d be glad to feature your ideas in our publication.
This content is part of the first research in the transformational festivals field: Blaze of Inspiration. The Impact of Festivals ‘from another planet’ on our society, backed by social big data.
Alessia Clusini, Martina Faralli.
