Limited Brands CEO Leslie Wexner, for example, spent much of his $1.25 million 2007 security allowance toward "protecting" his corporate aircraft, yacht and 22,371-sq. ft. home. "Security has become a convenient excuse for getting shareholders to pick up the cost for the CEO's lifestyle,' corporate watchdog American Federation of State's director of corporate governance and pension investment told the Wall Street Journal. (Illustration by Richard Blakeley)

Speaking of which, the crowd included Chuck Phillips, the president of Oracle; Accel Partners' Jim Breyer; Google angel investor Ram Shiram; Gavin Newsom; former California governor Jerry Brown; Jessica Guynn of the Los Angeles TimesBarron's; AllThingsD's Kara Swisher; former Chronicle editor Phil Bronstein; MarketWatch's Therese Poletti; Craig Newmark; and renowned San Francisco socialite Denise Hale, who rather liked my tie.

Zittrain's book is about the tradeoffs between freedom and control, security and creativity. New devices like the iPhone provide a safer, smoother experience than the uncontrolled Web — but at the cost of having a gatekeeper, Apple, dictating what can and can't run on the device. That kind of chokepoint, in turn, makes it far easier for government regulators to get involved. The alternative, though, is not particularly attractive: an Internet ruled by spammers and hackers.

Like his counterparts in politics, Zittrain is seeking a third way. I couldn't help but think this impulse is driven by an early experience he related at the party: Getting beaten up in high school. (He thanked the hostess, Melanie, "for not beating up on me.") Having been bullied, Zittrain doesn't want revenge: He just doesn't want anyone to bully, or be bullied. This moderating impulse is seen in a passage where he discusses how neither governments nor citizens ought to be able to wholly circumvent the law through technology:

Perhaps it is best to say that neither the governor nor the governed should be able to monopolize technological tricks. We are better off without flat-out trumps that make the world the way either regulator or target wants it to be without the need for the expenditure of some effort and
cooperation from others to make it so.

And yet Zittrain's career could well exceed Lessig's. That he was able to fill a room — an impeccably furnished, tastefully modern room in one of San Francisco's wealthiest enclaves, at that — speaks to his draw. Liberal San Francisco politicans, self-made entrepreneurs, and the Web's wacky fringe can all find things they agree on in his work.

The danger for Zittrain is that his work might be nothing more than a justification for compromise and tradeoffs. Will he find a third way for the Web — or just point out the middle of the road? His calls for a "generosity of spirit" are reminiscent of the assumptions that turned eBay, a marketplace of strangers, into a very profitable community of traders. Hoping for the best really can pan out, as it happens. But the answers Zittrain will have to find, or inspire, are far more complicated than asking someone to be on their best behavior.

Larry Ellison spotted driving out of 2882 Sand Hill Road in Audi R8, probably coming out of the gym where he is rumored to work out.

(Photo by AP/Eckehard Schulz)

For those of you who can't understand why a man worth a reported $26 billion would bicker and argue over a few million in property taxes, Fake Steve Jobs explains that it's a matter of principle:

[T]he thing about being obscenely rich is that everyone around you is constantly taking advantage of you and trying to chisel you at every turn. The gardeners, the maids, the Bentley mechanic, the jet mechanic, the house manager — they're constantly skinning you, and you get pretty damn sick of it.

Last July, the Golden Gate Yacht Club sued Cup defenders Société Nautique de Genève [PDF], accusing the Swiss of hand-picking an unqualified challenger, the newly formed Club Náutico Español de Vela. The Deed of Gift, which outlines the terms and rules of the race, requires that a challenging club hold an annual regatta — CNEV held a regatta, with boats crewed by children, only after being selected as challenger.

Now it's SNG's turn to accuse the GGYC of trying to tilt the field. GGYC wants the race to be held in October, giving the Alinghi team only seven months to build their boat. The BMW Oracle team, meanwhile, started building their multi-hulled vessel three months ago. SNG wants the race held in 2009, and says that the GGYC originally agreed that any race would be held ten months after the legal decision had been handed down [PDF].

We are disappointed that GGYC is backtracking on this agreement and launching a new legal campaign seeking to undo what GGYC previously agreed to. Why not simply meet us on the water and settle this there?

I have to tell you Steve, I frankly think you show too much. Have you ever seen me jumping up and down in a monkey-dance, red-faced, out of breath, screaming, "I ... LOVE ... THIS ... COMPANY?" You need to be more Zen, cool, calm and collected, like ageless me.

Fake Larry continues:

Steve, you wear your heart on your sleeve. Bad move. A favorite phrase of mine from The Art of War is "All warfare is based on deception."

It would seem that no one else is interested in Yahoo and you may prevail in this costly battle that will drain your cash. If it goes to a proxy battle, the insults will fly. I never cared about that, because I believe in myself and only myself.

And if you win government approval, then your hell has only just begun. It can only be messy, especially as you try to decide things like Yahoo [Mail] or Hotmail? I hope those decisions will keep you forever occupied.

Of course, in Silicon Valley, an obsession with yachts isn't unusual, either. Though for Shaw to catch sharks like Oracle's Larry Ellison, his boss of six years in the '90s, he's going to need a bigger boat

It would also be a brutal comeuppance for Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff, who had a very public tiff with Ellison, for whom he worked at Oracle and once idolized. Benioff has since championed a "no software" marketing campaign aimed straight at Oracle; unlike Oracle's offerings, Salesforce.com does not require the installation of software. Selling to Oracle would require eating a lot of crow. Then again, if Benioff actually gets that price, it would cement his reputation as a consummate salesman. Perhaps that's worth an uncomfortable swallow. (Photo by Robert Scoble)

I am concerned that I may be giving up my youth, my right as a 21 year-old to be an irresponsible idiot from time to time.

Drunk dialing Dad in Paris after 3 bottles of Dom.

NetSuite says subsequent market demand may not immediately match share prices set by its auction-model IPO, according to the Wall Street Journal. Translation: The price could well drop. Somebody ought to warn Craig Ramsey, the Salesforce.com board member who invested in the company. Unless this is exactly what he wanted to happen. Crafty!

Since Ballmer assumed the role of CEO in January of 2000, the stock has declined almost 50 percent and has gone sideways for the last 6 years post-antitrust. Despite claiming pay should be commensurate with stock performance, Ballmer's compensation actually increased almost 32 percent this year despite the stock only improving by about 7 percent. (Over the same year, Oracle is up nearly 24 percent.) While executive pay is a real issue, it's never smart for one CEO to start pointing at another. It only invites invidious comparisons.

We have not been profitable on a quarterly or annual basis since our formation. We experienced a net loss of $23.4 million for 2006 and $3.7 million for the three months ended March 31, 2007. As of March 31, 2007, our accumulated deficit was $193.0 million. We expect to make significant future expenditures related to the development and expansion of our business. In addition, as a public company, we will incur significant legal, accounting and other expenses that we did not incur as a private company.

We host our services and serve all of our customers from a single third-party data center facility located in California. We do not control the operation of this facility. This facility is vulnerable to damage or interruption from earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, fires, terrorist attacks, power losses, telecommunications failures and similar events. Our data facility is located in an area known for seismic activity, increasing our susceptibility to the risk that an earthquake could significantly harm the operations of this facility.

Our data facility has no obligation to renew its agreement with us on commercially reasonable terms, or at all. If we are unable to renew our agreement with the facility on commercially reasonable terms, we may experience costs or downtime in connection with the transfer to a new data center facility.

There's more along these lines, if you have the stomach for making it through the entire S-1. Most investors won't bother, of course, which is why, despite NetSuite's flaws as a business, it might actually manage to go public. That's the point of releasing a prospectus, of course: Even if no one pays attention, you can't say you weren't warned.

Name: Vint Cerf
Age: 63
Schtick: Cerf invented the TCP/IP protocol in the 70s, making the Internet possible. He now chairs ICANN, the organization that decides, for instance, when to release a new top-level domain like .biz or .xxx. He's also a VP and "chief internet evangelist" at Google. And the dude knows how to dress, often wearing a well-cut three-piece.
Verdict: All that power makes Cerf seem like a Tolkein-style wizard or the Matrix's Architect. He's badass.

Name: Steve Jobs
Age: 52
Schtick: Apple's founder has always been cooler than the nerdier Bill Gates, but he still had a dorky hairdo and outfit. But how has he held up? Well, in the past decade, he's recaptured his own company, released the slickest looking personal computers and mp3 players, and adopted a casual uniform that copycat nerds try (and fail) to pull off.
Verdict: Okay, he does have an embarrassing love for U2. But that can't stop Steve from earning an overall rating of cool.

Name: Craig Newmark
Age: 54
Schtick: Newmark (who, by the way, looks 45 tops) has gone from being famous for starting Craigslist.org to being famous for not turning it into a billion-dollar business. He and his CEO Jim Buckmaster land in several news stories a year just for not gouging their millions of users for money; Craigslist only collects fees for employer postings and certain real estate ads. Craig represents the live-and-let-live half of San Francisco liberalism without the annoying babysitter-state part.
Verdict: Dig Craig's man-of-the-people flair; he works in Craigslist's unassuming office in SF's remote Sunset District, and he lives in the city's Cole Valley neighborhood where he holds court at the Reverie Cafe among the yuppies and their kids. But most importantly, Craig is the ultimate self-effacer; he likes to compare himself to George Costanza. Craig is subtly cool.

Name: Terry Semel
Age: 64
Schtick: Yahoo's always wanted to go Hollywood, and so has its CEO. Semel tries harder than any other tech exec to look cool, even arm-wrestling with Tom Cruise in front of an audience of his employees. Dude, look how tense Semel is in this admittedly pasted-out-of-context shot! Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, whom I've heard is awkward enough himself, reportedly called Semel an embarrassing uncle.
Verdict: Sorry Terry, you've been rejected from the frat. Maybe you can star as the clueless uncle in an Apple Jacks commercial.

Name: Larry Ellison
Age: 62
Schtick: Oracle's founder is married to the lovely and witty (at least at this party I snuck into at the Ellisons' guest house last summer) romance novelist Melanie Craft. (People also allege that he fools around on the side, but we get the feeling Melanie doesn't mind.) The dude looks like the lost brother of Chuck Norris and George "You're gonna like the way you look" Zimmer from Men's Wearhouse. He recently joined his own yachting team; he owns more of Malibu than Mel Gibson. His son's a Hollywood actor. Steve Jobs took the photos at his wedding.
Verdict: As the kids say, dude is peeeyamp!

Name: Geriatric1927
Age: 79
Schtick: Peter Oakley doesn't live in the Valley or run a tech company; he's the most famous elderly person on YouTube. He's posted seventy videos, mostly stories from his long life.
Verdict: Wikipedia says he's been called "the coolest old dude alive." I've no idea who said that, but they were right.

Photos courtesy of Getty Images; photo of Geriatric1927 from Wikipedia. Nick Douglas writes for Valleywag and Look Shiny. Editor Nick Denton pitched this story to Douglas with, "Your best items are written from the perspective of callow youth."

But their bosses? Well, not everyone can be as liberal as Craigslist founder Craig Newmark. Check out these tech execs who donated to the Republican party — including a certain man in black who decided to "Think Different."

• Michael Dell: $754,100 R, $17,800 D. Dell's founder is the Big Kahuna of GOP donors. He threw $250k at the Republican National Committee in '02.
  
• Bill Gates: $70,292 R, $55,266 D. Plays both sides of the aisle (and all over the country), with another hundy thou going to political action committees.
  
• Meg Whitman: $117,101 R, $10,000 D. While eBay founder and progressive philanthropist Pierre Omidyar almost exclusively donates to Democrats, his CEO Whitman does just the opposite.
  
• Larry Ellison: $103,000 R, $123,200 D. Gave $100k each to Progress For America (established to support Bush's 2004 campaign) and Americans for Peace Through Strength (big on defense spending, down on Kerry).
  
• Terry Semel: $267,000 R, $242,818 D. At Warner Brothers, Semel donated almost entirely to Democrats until '91. After a whopping $100k soft-money contribution to the RNC in 2000, he joined Yahoo as CEO and has given mostly to Republicans. Is he just leaning right as he ages, or is there less pressure to look like a Democrat now that he's out of Hollywood?
  
• Steve Ballmer: $61,142 R, $42,450 D. The Microsoft CEO's biggest drop was a $25k contribution to the RNC in '04.
  
• Eric Schmidt: $6500 R, $219,216 D. The Google CEO seeded plenty of Democrats over the past few years, but he tossed cash at a few Republicans including Senator Orrin Hatch and Bush.
  
• Michael Arrington: $1000 R. The TechCrunch blog founder gave to Tom Campbell's Senate campaign in 2000 Since then? Nuffin'.
• Jerry Yang: $ 28,000 R, $123,441 D. This past year, the Yahoo co-founder donated $75k to the Dem Congressional Campaign Committee and $20k to the GOP. In '03 had a $2k gift for President Bush.
  
• Steve Jobs: $1000 R, $254,700 D. Donated to one Republican in 1982: Pete McCloskey, an anti-war Nixon opponent in the Republican presidential primaries. McCloskey later endorsed Kerry against Bush.
  

This is an installation of Diggbait, a daily column by Nick Douglas, who also writes for Eat the Press. He likes robots, cocktails, and mayors who say "Bitch set me up."

Oracle's Larry Elllison seems to work well as animated cartoon as Valleywag posted earlier today. This video posted on youTube by OneRichAsshole chronicles Larry Ellison hitting Malibu and running into a drunk Mel Gibson. The video is episode one, we here at Valleywag eagerly await the next installment.

Larry Ellison: One Night In Malibu [youTube]
Did Dell Hire JibJab to Handle Advertising? [Valleywag]

Dell's Michael Dell, EMC's Joe Tucci, Oracle's Larry Ellison, AMD's Hector Ruiz and Intel's Paul Otellini, drunk on power and hubris made the most upsetting corporate ad I seen to date. Even the poor Linux penguin is debased in this flick, but Larry jumping out in gold armor is priceless.

Someone in Dell marketing is going to get fired, because if this was meant to be viral I want a vaccine. A shiny nickel if you can sit through the whole thing.

[youTube]

Rumors of the Oracle's Linux have been swirling all over the Geek Wire for almost a year. O'Reilly's OS Dir has already called the Ubuntu the winner, and Red Hat Linux the loser.

[OS Dir]
[ZD Net]
[CBR Online]

He drives to auditions in a silver Ferrari and goes home to a waterfront spread on Malibu's ritzy Carbon Beach...you don't know whether to hate him, try to become his new best friend or simply admire him for having nothing to do with Oracle.

David seems to have inherited the Aura of Awesome from his father, without the accompanying kind-of-a-dick-itude of the man who reneged on his one philanthropic promise: a medical research endowment for Harvard. Then again, the reports from "friends" of David haven't yet poured in. Those stories would fit just fine in the comments section (just pick a username and password, and we'll approve the account if your gossip's good) or in an e-mail to tips@valleywag.com.

Billionaire's son flies on his own [SF Chronicle]