But he is not above a little strategic flaunting. Slide hired a Hollywood props firm to create life-sized versions of the sheep and other icons from its SuperPoke Facebook app, displayed like museum exhibits at the party. Could rival RockYou afford such a gratuitous show of wealth? With their latest funding round not quite locked down, unlikely. It's considered bad form to spend money while you're out raising more. And that was Levchin's point in throwing the party: It's not quite that he was spending money for the sake of spending money. He was spending money to show that he could.

Investing in companies, even at late stages, is a relative bargain because of the strong euro, and once a company goes public, the returns are doubled again because companies trade at a much higher price-to-earnings ratio on average than the do in Europe. However, after telling a story about entrepreneurs turning land in southwestern France being managed by the government into a newly productive wine region from which guests were tippling the bounty, Wellington's Eric Archambeau explained that the new office was going to focus on business development. "Who needs another VC in Silicon Valley?" he quipped.

One of the companies in which Wellington has invested is Seesmic, the online-video tool founded by the crushingly gregarious Loic le Meur, who bent our ear over enabling his company's technology in our comments. If it means TechCrunch's Michael Arrington might drop by to share some of his deep thoughts, then I might just be able to make Le Meur's case with our publisher.