Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and venture capitalists decamp to the Nevada desert this week for Burning Man, the annual jolly to celebrate “radical self-reliance”, gift-giving and co-operation. It culminates on Saturday with the torching of the effigy.

Burning Man is a playful experiment in how community can flourish away from private finance and rival companies. Its art theme this year is “I, Robot”. The irony is that technology titans such as Elon Musk, founder of Tesla and a regular “Burner” (event participant), are giants of the real economy.

The way the latter works was the topic of another gathering in a western state last week — that of central bankers at Jackson Hole in Wyoming. They fretted about the power and profitability of “superstar companies” such as Apple, Facebook, Microsoft and Google. Wages, prices and monetary policy are all heavily affected by these oligopolies.