The Sean Parker Wedding Is the Perfect Parable for Silicon Valley Excess (opens in new tab)

This is absolutely disgusting.

I wonder if it had been a more prominent natural area, such as Yosemite Valley or Muir Woods or Yellowstone where he decided to build his castle. Surely he could afford whatever fines would be levied anywhere, but the public outcry would have been far more prominent, the beauty of the areas well-known and understood and agreed-upon.

These are places we have mutually determined to protest and hold sacred in our country. The National Parks and Forests, especially in the West, where there is some notion that the natural land—the wilderness—is above the petty desires of human folly. The green that grows trumps that which is printed, and no man can override it.

I grew up summers in Yosemite, in the high country, where in two days you can hike to places that perhaps no man has ever set foot. There is something sacred about that, not in a religious way but in a sense of truth and place and knowing the world which produced you by whatever means.

I know a grove of trees and a stream there. They is as nondescript and unremarkable as this one, except that they are absolutely remarkable for their beauty. If anyone built a castle there, I'd personally assist in bringing them to justice, and personally assist in restoring the land to its natural state. I'm thankful that the protection of the National Park and surrounding wilderness areas are present to prevent this sort of destruction in at least certain regions.

I'm not saying this is the ultimate slight against nature; far from it. It's a small thing. But it shows a lack of respect and carelessness that need not be rewarded, and in this case, I think the punishment and disrespect directed toward this event is entirely valid. We cannot prevent every use of the land, but we can encourage respect and understanding. In this case there was no respect and no understanding—especially not of riparian habitats and stream management—those regulations are there for good reasons and you can't pick and choose haphazardly whether you follow them.

If you've ever been to Big Sur, you know it's a special place, regardless of the imaginary borders we may or may not choose to lay down in symbolic protection. I'm happy that however small this infraction might have been, it will be met with fines and public humiliation. Silicon valley excess? That's up for debate, but who cares? It was dumb and disgusting.

It seems Mr. and Mrs. Parker should have purchased their own coastal land for their fanciful wedding. Surely they could afford to do so. They could have probably avoided public scrutiny. However, I think the author's indignation and clear bias are a little over-the-top -- I think he even came close to using the all-powerful "middle class" hammer we've been beaten over the head with so much in the last year or two: "Basically, what was supposed to be a facility that people of all incomes -- including the general public -- could visit had become a high-end resort...". Sigh. It's worth noting also the CCC is notorious for their zeal in enforcement. Ask anybody who owns property along the California coast, and you will hear story after story of severe enforcement. Most any project is deemed to have significant impact; consequently, only those with deep pockets can afford to obtain the costly permits. To Mr. Madrigal, though, this is "...also part of the new Silicon Valley parable".

This is getting a lot of bad press for Mr. Parker--my eco-aware friends on facebook (yeah, I know) are going nuts over this.

If I were him, I'd want to salvage my reputation and quick. Maybe donate some huge amount more (Wedding cost was $10M? Donate $10M.) and humbly apologize. Otherwise, he'll always be "that facebook guy who cut down the forest."

This is the sort of shit that "it's better to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission" devolves into.

I'm not sure a $2.5 million fine means very much when you have an estimated net worth of $2.1 billion.

Kinda reminds me of back when I used to grow organic vegetables for a living. Well, tried to. The farmer I worked with specialized more in meats and the like, and together me and him would drive down to Houston and The Woodlands to make deliveries, because that's how we operated, people placed their orders and we delivered at designated spots.

I learned a lot of things during that period, but the weird thing is, the one that really stuck was how weird people with money can be. Oh, sure, we had our share of middle class customers, but for the most part we delivered to doctors, lawyers, business owners and the like, who would thrown down anywhere from $200 to $1000 per order on meat and act like it was nothing. I don't think they really cared about some of the values that come with the whole local foods movement, or the values that come with organic farming, they just heard about some health fad, decided to buy this meat, and stuck with it because it tasted good.

This is just the same really, only on a much more epic scale. Yeah, these people were rich, but at best their net worth was around $5 million, so their obscenities were limited to just buying ridiculous amounts of meat for an absurd amount of money while bringing it back home to their McMansion in a new BMW or a Mercedes, sometimes a Cadillac Escalade if they insisted on being that revolting. When you have a net worth that extends beyond the billion dollar line, then the obscenity of your purchasing choices is virtually unlimited.

And yet, you have these other titans with net worths that dwarf the net worths of so many other people who could do the most obscene crap with their money...but they don't. There's no shortage of rich people who are generous with their money, but at the same time there's no shortage of rich people who are just weird with it. I've ultimately decided that the difference is that the former never gave much priority towards money in the first place, but they got it anyway, or they had priority at first but changed their minds afterwards because they have large minds, and now money is merely a tool for greater things. Then you have that latter group of people who really wanted money, and made conscious efforts towards that goal, but in the end small minds are limited in ambition, so they make limited amounts of money and flaunt their petty wealth in ways only a small mind can, with fancy cars, McMansions, and large quantities of really expensive meat.

Sean Parker is just another one of those small minds, only he was one of the few who got a little luckier than most, acquired wealth those little fish could never possibly hope to achieve, and spent it in a way a small mind typically would, by disregarding the natural legacy of an old growth forest so he can build some tacky castle in the middle of it, all the while letting his construction crew make all these amateur mistake, because once again, a small mind.

I certainly hope my mind is bigger than such frivolities, just in case.

From what I have heard secondhand he is very bright and very arrogant. This is what you should expect from him. The question is whether he is an exemplar or an outlier.

You should see Larry Ellison's compound on the peninsula.

In what way is it a parable? Example sure, symbol maybe, metaphor perhaps.

Yeah, yeah, so Sean destroyed some pristine wilderness for his lavish wedding, but I heard he drives a Tesla. All is forgiven!

Title is misleading. That's not excess. Excess is dropping $20k on a wedding when you have a mortgage and are only making $50k/yr.

What Parker did was tasteless, but not the worst thing people with money do sometimes.