It turns out Abe has entrepreneurial aspirations. We had dinner in the downstairs cafeteria together (Indonesian Bamay with frozen yogurt and double espresso). He’s thinking of quitting and becoming a pixelation broker—going around to museums and buying the right to digitize their paintings. It’s a very “Rich Microsoft” thing to do. Microsoft’s millionaires are the first generation of North American nerd wealth.

Once Microsofters’ ships come in, they travel all over: Scotland and Patagonia and Thailand … Condé Nast Traveler-ish places. They buy Shaker furniture, Saabs, koi, Pilchuck glass, native art, and 401(k)s to the max. The ultrarichies build fantasy homes on the Sammammish Plateau loaded with electronic toys.

It’s all low-key spending, mostly, and fresh and fun. Nobody’s buying crypts, I notice—though when the time comes that they do, said crypts will no doubt be emerald and purple colored, and lined with Velcro and Gore-Tex.

Abe, like most people here, is a fiscal Republican, but otherwise, pretty empty-file in the ideology department. Vesting turns most people into fiscal Republicans, I’ve noticed.