Not merely Julia Allison come the Valley, but a Jullia Allison only the Valley could breed; a fameball selling California's tech-money nexus on the notion it can turn its business ethos into a spiritual conscience. For attention-hungry Zuckerberg, the mildly political video above is just another in a series of high-profile lip dubs; for venture capitalist Tim Draper, another chance to clown. Kataoka, though, describes herself as a "Silicon Valley artist," and seems determined in certain scenes to elevate the clip into something of a performance piece.

Art and spirituality are, in fact, key to how Kataoka sells herself in the Valley. She is, on the most basic level, a blogger and Web entrepreneur, like virtually everyone else in the California tech enclave. Kataoka even attempted to hit her wedding guests up for free venture capital. But her ValleyZen blog offers big shots something special: the rare chance to blather on about their inner philosophy and intricate belief systems.

They leap at the chance. In one of four videos, Draper hugs and dances with Kataoka; book publisher Tim O'Reilly gives her a tour of his treehouse at home in Sebastopol; TV host Charlie Rose and Tesla CEO Elon Musk consent to backstage interviews.

The archetype for a ValleyZen sit-down is the one Kataoka did with her partner in the venture, uber attorney Bill Fenwick, who counts Apple Inc. among his clients.

Fenwick pitches Zen Buddhism as excellent preparation for corporate battle. With militaristic East Asian music in the background, he says:

There is an awful lot of similarity between the principles of Zen and what happens in a battle... If you can get enough people... to find commonality, you've got a force that's going to have to be reckoned with.

Kataoka also touts the practical benefits of Zen for venture capitalists:

It's a composure, a poised kind of calm that would allow to innovate and create and think of new ideas.

Innovation is not exactly a traditional religious selling point. But the dubious repurposing of Eastern religions into corporate strategy is hardly new, either; like Gordon Gekko in the 1987 movie Wall Street, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison has taken to using Sun Tzu's Art of War as a tactical business manual.

Kataoka is the perfect icon for this sort of awkward fusion. In a region overloaded with computer scientists and MBAs — men obsessed with numbers and code — there's something deliciously off-kilter about a "classical and jazz flutist" who claims "Japanese Samurai heritage" and specializes in a "2000 year-old art form of Japanese brush painting." She's drawn cover artwork for Wynton Marsalis, completed a commissioned portrait of 49ers Coach Bill Walsh and done extensive work for Stanford University. In fact, according to a student who attended the college in the late 1990s, her work became comically ubiquitous:

She... somehow managed to wrangle some deal doing art for the vast majority of official Stanford posters. So... every time you'd get a flyer for like homecoming or something, it'd look as though you were being invited to formal tea in Kyoto. It was weird.

Kataoka has drawn approving notices for her fashion choices. A pre-election encounter between the artist and Michelle Obama led the Fashion-y Blog to assemble the collage at left, adding,

"Drue does a really good job balancing funky and classic pieces. Her signature sleek '20s-style bob, bright red lipstick, and matching nail polish always make a statement, and she clearly isn't afraid to stand out."

Brush strokes, music, fashion, Zen: Everyone in Silicon Valley wishes they were this eclectic. The Bay Area man is supposed to be a renaissance man; it is not enough to be merely a venture capitalist or a programmer or a journalist, one should also be a rock-climbing, spiritually involved yoga instructor with a quirky electronic pop band on the side. Hence the local obsession with the annual hippie drug and art fest that is Burning Man.

If you feel like something of a let down in this regard, well, why not look to Kataoka and ValleyZen? In New York, where attention is worshipped via the media industry, those feeling insufficiently self promotional can look to the high priestess of fameballing, Julia Allison. In the Valley, where long hours coding or selling so often conflict with the eclectic ideal, Kataoka sells instead a facade of well-roundedness, with Pacific Century Asian flare to boot. And, soothing music and talk of Zen aside, she does so just as aggressively as her East Coast counterpart.

[top video via VentureBeat]

In a blog post, Draper, a principal at Draper Fisher Jurvetson, recounted all the political figures he met at the Alfalfa Club over the weekend — Sarah Palin, John McCain, Vernon Jordan, and other "Washington insiders."

Here's his advice to Michelle Obama on how to set herself up as Marie Antoinette 2.0:

I also met Our First Lady, Michelle Obama for the first time, who is charming and stunning in person. I suggested that she go out shopping with her daughters for a press event to get people buying things and getting this economy moving again, and she said, “Great idea. Go tell Barack—go tell the President that.” So I did. He looked across at her and smiled. I think we have a great President.

Also, Draper wants to hire former Florida governor Jeb Bush as a venture capitalist. It sounds like it was a lovely time. Except for all those same insiders who are destroying our country from the inside:

My conclusion there: I think our capital should move out of DC. The people there are too insulated from their country. They become a cancer for the people who come to Washington trying to make a difference. Not many of them made any real connection between our business environment and our economy. Even my limo driver there was trying to get more money out of government, not realizing where that money was actually coming from. The NYC drivers know.

Given Draper's political background, perhaps his lurching between hero-worshipping and backstabbing isn't that surprising. Draper, a Republican, chaired three fundraisers in Silicon Valley for George W. Bush, then declared himself for Barack Obama in 2008. He gave no money to John McCain, but wrote that he was "the nicest man ever" when he met him at the Alfalfa Club event. (McCain must be, for not snubbing Draper after that financial diss!)

Then again, Valley insiders know not to expect consistent behavior from Draper, an excitable sort who's known to strip off his shirt and burst into song to celebrate companies he's funded (as in the clip above). But his bizarre persona likely won't play as well outside the fruits-nuts-and-flakes atmosphere of northern California.

What we still don't get: Why is Jesse Draper bothering? Most videobloggers we know are hoping to parlay a career covering tech — and by "covering tech," we mean "flouncing around on camera with an iPhone" — into a Hollywood star turn. With "Valley Girl," Draper is going about things backwards.

Armstrong makes for a nice story, but she's far from exemplary. The Times gets this much right: So long as women bloggers stick to topics that publishers know they can sell ads against, they're in business:

To the disappointment of some women who want sites that focus on serious issues like politics, advertisers are not interested in every kind of content. They gravitate to the tried-and-true topics of women’s magazines: fashion, beauty, celebrities and love life.

But blogging is now a crowded space, and it's next to impossible for an unknown to start blogging and attract a sponsor-defying audience. For any woman looking to get a piece of those blog dollars now, her choices boil down to allying with a larger publisher, and sticking to writing about beauty, babies, and other aspirational homemaking hints.

Oh, you were hoping to get paid by rich white men like Tim Draper to write about girl power? That's almost as cute as the baby outfit you just picked up at Kidiniki for your nephew.

Her favorite quotes:

Jesse: I feel bad for all the homeless people
Katharine: I know, they should all go to shelters
Jesse: But I think these are the homeless people who refuse to go to the shelters.
Katharine: Well then why don't we use them for genetic testing!

A longer trailer for her new show:

An interview about her show:

Her prior claim to fame, appearing on Nickelodeon's "The Naked Brothers Band" as Jesse Cook:

Jesse also does comedy. Sort of.

What does an online-ad company have to do with an energy concern? Like Enron, Glam's true business isn't selling; it's arbitrage. Glam grows its revenues, rivals say, by acquiring ad inventory from websites and then attempting to sell it to media buyers at higher prices. Buy low, sell high is a time-honored business model. But it's not a recipe for exponential growth spurred by viral marketing, as Hotmail and Skype were.

Nothing in Glam's business encourages a Glam advertiser to sign up other advertisers; nor does it spread from publisher to publisher unbidden. All Glam has going for it is the size of its wallet, which is why it's so desperate to raise money. Only with fresh capital can Glam continue its ad-buying spree, providing the illusion of growth that will allow it to gather more money, preferably in an IPO. At some point, investors will be left holding the bag. Maybe that's where Draper sees a connection: He unloaded Hotmail to Microsoft and Skype to eBay long before their buyers figured out there was no money in them.

DFJ's Melton is clearly no dummy; Stanford's not in the habit of issuing degrees to the like. But she joins an investing team filled with other back-benchers. Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen and Starbucks chairman Howard Schultz have also put money into Redfin, but Allen and Schultz tapped underlings to serve on Redfin's board. If Draper, Jurvetson, Allen, and Schultz really intend Redfin to upend the real-estate industry, why aren't they backing it personally? Clearly, Redfin isn't a star of their portfolios, or an idea that really captures these Internet dreamers' imaginations. They're aiming for a base hit at best — which is why they bunted when it came to picking their board representatives.