To understand Silicon Valley, go to Burning Man!

September 2025

With the advent of AI, Silicon Valley is back as strong as ever.

The ranking of the world’s wealthiest person is now led again by an SV tycoon, the founder of Oracle Corporation. Most hyped AI companies like Anthropic and OpenAI are based in San Francisco. Not even to mention San Jose based NVIDA with all its South Bay based partners. If you wish to explore the potential of AI and thus of Silicon Valley and the San Francisco Bay Area, you may start with https://ai-2027.com/ai-2027.pdf

Some stated that “In order to understand Silicon Valley, you have to experience Burning Man” because Burning Man embodies the core values and culture that drive innovation in Silicon Valley—such as radical creativity, self-reliance, and collaborative experimentation.

Burning Man acts as a microcosm of Silicon Valley where unconventional thinkers gather to challenge the status quo and rapidly prototype new ideas. The festival encourages radical self-expression, communal effort, and making transformative experiences—values essential to tech entrepreneurship and startup culture.

Founder and CEO of Industrial Makers GmbH, Thomas Dittler, took part in this year’s festival as a member of camp “No Drama” in Silicon Village. Deeply impressed, dusted to the bone and 10 pounds lighter, he reflects on the experience: With such a community of boldly courageous, radically creative and genuinely kind humans from all over the world, anything is possible.