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]

#1 William Henry Gates III [Forbes]

So remember when you're fiddling with the height on your painstakingly designed machine — Stumpf took an extra year to make sure a 4'11" test subject could adjust it without standing — raise a Vitamin Water in toast to the man who put your comfort in control.

Bill Stumpf, 70, a Designer of the Aeron Ergonomic Office Chair, Dies [NY Times]
Photo by JDRF Capitol [Flickr]

• "This next wave is going to be bigger than anything that came before it, says [BEA cofounder William] Coleman."
• "Coleman is one of dozens of new barbarians plotting the Cheap Revolution."
• "They are embracing simplicity, unlocking prodigious new power and cutting tech costs by up to 90%, threatening the Silicon Valley plutocracy."

Yeah, a guy worth $50 million who was nearly a dot-com billionaire in 2001 is just the barbarian we need to threaten the plutocracy. Is anyone else worried for Forbes's sanity, or is it just accepted that everyone writes like BusinessWeek now?

All right, Valleywag's heading home early. We'll be back Tuesday. Have a great Labor Day Weekend!

The New Barbarians [Forbes]
Image by Paul Kidby, Discworld illustrator [PaulKidby.com]

It would be rude, of course, to just ask your Google friend, "Can you buy our drinks from now on?" So we asked a few Googlers how to separate the rich from the poor. The following tips all come from employees at the Mountain View Googleplex.

• "I'd say: 'Did you start before me?'" The rule of thumb, everyone agrees, is the start date. Pre-IPO employees made bank. But no one wants to reveal other magic dates. Just know that earlier is better.
• They drive a crappy car. The usual nouveau-riche status symbol won't work with Googlers. (There's a subtler sign in a Googler's car choice — more on that later.)
• Engineers are the real winners. No one's sure just how much richer the geeks are than the ad-sales wonks and other early Googlers, but there's definitely a class divide — not that anyone acts like it at the office.

Read on for the real secret to spotting a rich Googler in the parking lot.

• Rich Googlers keep a home in San Francisco and another in Mountain View.
• Their weekend plans involve airplanes and/or beaches and/or simulated zero gravity.
• They purchase a second car simply because they're curious to run an experiment on hybrid efficiency.
• They only go home to sleep, but they still employ a housecleaner and a gardener.
• They retire at the age of 28 and say that they kept working those last two years because they loved the job.
• "They hire a team of nannies. They have to hire a personal chef just to cook for the nannies." Okay, the cook was a joke, but this Googler was dead serious about the nannie squad.

The takeaway principle? It's all in the discreet expenses. Googlers "live like they're poor undergrads," says one of the company's newer hires. In other words, don't look for glam — look for conveniences and eco-friendly frivolity.

We think this more accurately represents Business 2.0's attitude. I mean, holy shit, $60,000 a month! That's as much as a respectable small business! Who can fathom this kind of wealth besides every damn millionaire in the Valley?

Mega-size version [Valleywag]
Earlier: A word about the photo in Business 2.0's Michael Arrington profile [Valleywag]
And: A picture of Michael Arrington lighting his cigar with a hundred-dollar bill [Valleywag]

As I told CNBC, I whipped up my article in five minutes. I figured Gross did the same. The man does a great job of taking this seriously on CNBC's On the Money. (In the intro, I'm talking about Larry Ellison, Oracle founder and owner of the world's biggest yacht.)

It's no Long Tail Theory, but it'll do.

The CEO Bought a Yacht? Then it's time to sell. [Slate]
Earlier: The State of Ships: How yachts kill companies [Valleywag]

• There's vodka on the desks. (Granted, it's Grey Goose, so we're not talking total squalor.)
• Boxes strewn about the floor.
• But what really clinches it are the rats in the ceiling.

Are Chad and his staff subsisting entirely on rat stew? There are other ways to cut costs, dudes.

So before the Freakonomics guys get their hands on this trend and ruin it for everyone, here's our chart of tech CEOs, ordered by color-coded company performance, each with a yacht proportionate to the CEO's real boat size.

The CEO Bought a Yacht? [Slate]
Oracle's future: What's a yacht got to do with it? [Computerworld]

Is it the Boeing 767 that Larry and co-founder Sergey share, which was recently getting refitted? Did Larry get to land while lying on the sofa, or did he have to make do with those hammocks he reportedly requested for the plane? Most importantly, why the hell didn't anyone publish a photo of the jet?

Google expertise for Aravind Hospital [The Hindu]

So if it comes down to a battle for Malibu (which we hope will be played out in the streets, along the lines of Baz Luhrmann's version of Romeo and Juliet), who would win? Mel may have some serious stunt-training in him (or at least some Drunken Boxing practice), but Larry could hire Chuck Norris as a stunt double — and everyone knows that Chuck Norris doesn't fight. Chuck Norris kills.

Malibu owner No. 1, please step forward [SignOnSanDieago; Photo by Bart Nagel]

• CBS head Les Moonves met with YouTube CEO Chad Hurley and, according to onlooking reporters, got excited about putting CBS clips on YouTube. Note that NBC already partnered with YouTube, which could become the pimp for every major network. Watch and see if Hurley chats with Disney's Rob Iger next.
• The CEOs of Wal-Mart and Home Depot will show up later. Google's Sergey Brin didn't show yet.
• The guy making the Slingbox (a media home network gadget) wants "every single person in this place to buy a Slingbox." Sounds a little too salesmanish; my guess is someone pushes him out of the boat on river-rafting day.

YouTube Takes Stage at Media Summit [AP]
Earlier: Awkward moments at Media Mogul Summer Camp

• At the campfire sing and s'mores night, Rupert Murdoch asks Disney CEO Robert Iger to pass the marshmallows. "Gee, Rupe," says Robert. "Isn't a favor something friends do? And if I remember, I invited you to be my friend on MySpace five times? And you said no." Time Warner's CEO hands Rupert a jet-puffed and the conflict is defused.
• Everyone hates Sony CEO Howard Stringer. Not because he's either suing their technology company or getting sued by their media company, but because he makes everybody call him "Sir Howard."

• Yahoo CEO Terry Semel, Google founders Larry and Sergey, and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos build a fort and hang out trading stories and chewing tobacco. When Meg Whitman tries to come in, they put up a "No eBay CEOs" sign.
• Intel chairman Craig Barrett spends the whole week praising Steve Jobs, who isn't there, which frankly everyone was glad about.
• YouTube CEO Chad Hurley comes out of Time Warner CEO Richard Parsons's tent looking flushed and sweaty. He spends a lot of time gazing off into the hills after that.
• Nike chairman Philip Knight makes the stupid mistake of bringing one — ONE — pair of Adidas, and it's all over after that.

Friction to mark annual retreat [AP]

"They were wanting to know if you could move a sofa across the room during flight," he explained. "Could they sleep in the bed and take off and land while in the bed."

And it gets even better. For a September 2005 meeting at Google HQ, Jennings [the designer] was asked to deliver a "a full-size sofa mockup" for Brin and Page to test. They wanted to "sit on it, lay on it, then have comments about it. We had meetings that would last a minute, two minutes, 10 minutes, five minutes."

Why is this so embarrassing to Sergey and Larry? Because unlike other moguls who admit to a little indulgence, these two were proud of their reputation as "just two regular joes."

New from Google Labs: Google Sofa [Good Morning Silicon Valley]
Earlier: Sergey's an officer in the mile-high club [Valleywag]

The Google jet being custom-fitted for founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin is a monumental achievement in the size wars of Silicon Valley billionaires. Larry and Sergey's Boeing 767 outclasses all other corporate jets in length. As shown above, its impressive girth also dwarfs those of lesser moguls.

Those with a penetrating gaze will notice that the cockpit has been removed from the drawing of the 767, so any missing optical inches are due to the excised tip.

Earlier: Sergey and Larry's Google jet, mapped

Rising Sun, the 138-meter yacht: over $200 million

BMW Oracle yacht racing: unknown sum

Atherton estate: $25 million

Woodside estate: $200 million

Twelve properties in Malibu: over $180 million

Gulfstream V: $38-46 million

Harvard University donation: zip

Wealth of experience [IT Weekly]

While we've got some room to talk here, I forgot some details in the last post on this piece. Larry and Sergey, for example, fought so hard over Sergey's king-size that CEO Eric Schmidt had to step in. Eric's words of peace, according to the fired plane designer, were "Sergey, you can have whatever bed you want in your room; Larry, you can have whatever kind of bed you want in your bedroom. Let's move on."

And, of course, there's Larry's request to hang hammock from the ceiling. Turbulence is fun again!

Lawsuits Fly Over Google Founders' Big Private Plane [WSJ, no sub]
Earlier: Sergey's an officer in the mile-high club

At one point he witnessed a dispute between [Page and Brin] over whether Mr. Brin should have a "California king" size bed, he says.

Now, it's perfectly normal for Sergey Brin to want a roomy place to, um, sleep. So what's with Larry? King size beds were just a bit too gaudy for him? Double beds would make his flying palace seem like an everyday business expense? Unclench, Larry, unclench.

Lawsuits Fly Over Google Founders' Big Private Plane [WSJ]
Picture: Interior drawing from linked article

Summers, of course, was pushed out of Harvard after he implied that girls aren't good at math and science.

"It's official," said Oracle spokesman Bob Wynne. "The reason is the relationship he had with Larry Summers who leaves this week. Larry Summers was the brainchild of this whole concept. With his departure, Larry reconsidered his decision."

Disregarding Mr. Wynne's word choice (surely brainchild is not the word he wants), this would make a fine excuse. Except that Ellison didn't bother mentioning his change of heart when Summers resigned in March, instead waiting until last week's media frenzy forced his hand.

Hey, when Larry Ellison is running late, time had better slow the hell down.

Ellison reneges on $115 million donation to Harvard [SFGate]
Earlier: Perks of being Ellison: Saying "fuck you" with a safari [Valleywag]

A $31 Billion Gift Between Friends [NYT]