How do you get Google CEO Eric Schmidt to pose for a picture in Times Square? Tell him you love Burning Man! (I took this iPhone photo yesterday evening. He’s a nice guy.) Schmidt got his job because he was the only candidate who had been to Burning Man, a favorite destination of Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin who have been spotted at the counter-culture festival painted blue, from head to toe. What makes Burning Man so great that it attracts people from all over the world, leaders like the Google team who stood up to China’s extreme censorship by pulling out of the world’s largest, fastest growing market? It’s a festival that is dependent on and celebrates community: the well-being of people comes first, the exchange of money isn’t allowed, and the two-week long festival runs on gift-giving, art, and other forms of self-expression. In 2007, for my Portfolio story “Executives at Burning Man,” I interviewed a Wall Street trader (they’re not all bad) who said, “The Burning Man spirit, I’ve seen it overwhelm people out there. If everybody went once, the world would be a cooler place.” Maybe a financial reform summit needs to be held in a Winnebago on the dusty flatlands of Burning Man.