Celebrities can burn with the best of them.

Every year, they join the tens of thousands of people who flock to Black Rock Desert, Nevada, to brave the dust, heat, and wind at the counterculture gathering.

With elaborate costumes and their phones in hand, they Instagram themselves on the playa as they sweat, dance, and find themselves along with everyone else.

And this year — the 30th anniversary of the festival — was no exception.

Katy Perry was ready for dust storms with sunglasses and a pig snout mask. Her hair was also on point.

Model and actress Cara Delevingne was there with her sister Poppy and friends. 

She also ran into Paris Hilton.

Hilton dominated Burning Man on Instagram alongside her brother Baron.

Model Karlie Kloss was also at the playa, and even saw Cara Delevingne.

So did Scott Eastwood.

Heidi Klum took in the majesty of it all.

Model Nina Agdal had some awesome costumes.

And Diplo posed with some cool art.

Until next year, Burning Man!

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: We did a blind taste test of KFC and Popeyes fried chicken — here's the verdict

Burning Man has come and gone for another year.

The annual pop-up community and art festival in Black Rock Desert, Nevada, from August 28 to September 5 drew an estimated 70,000 people. Nowhere is that clearer than in one photo of the masses caught in quite the traffic jam leaving the playa.

Reddit user Andaroodleshared an image of dozens upon dozens of vehicles leaving the Nevada desert. 

It looks like an image straight out of George Miller's "Mad Max: Fury Road" (just with a lot more cars and minus the Doof Warrior, of course).

The 2015 film set in a future apocalyptic wasteland features a scene with dozens of makeshift vehicles racing across the desert sands in an epic car chase. The film is full of over-the-top vehicles and costumes that would fit right at home in the playa. In fact, many people make comparisons between franchise and the event, which is now 30 years old.

Of course, real Mad Max fans know there's already a festival dedicated to them and it's not Burning Man.

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: 7 things you missed in the new Star Wars Rogue One trailer

Some 70,000 people ventured to Nevada's Black Rock Desert for this year's Burning Man festival, which ended September 5.

And they certainly did it in style.

Burning Man fashion often looks like characters from "Mad Max" meet those from "Star Wars." Many "burners" this year sported things like rainbow goggles, neon shorts, and unicorn horns — that is, if they didn't go naked.

Here are a few of the most outlandish outfits spotted at Burning Man 2016:

SEE ALSO: 8 aerial photos that show the madness of Burning Man from above

At Burning Man, attendees eschew social norms and often wear their craziest costumes.

Many burners express themselves through fashion. Here's one participant with a mohawk, knee-length buckled boots, a fanny pack, reflective sunglasses, and a bikini.

To protect their eyes from the Black Rock Desert's sandstorms, people often need goggles. The woman pictured below brought a funky, space-age pair.

More than 65,000 people gather for Burning Man, the wild, weeklong festival in the middle of Nevada's Black Rock Desert each year. Since Burning Man began in 1986, its ever-growing number of participants have abided by its founding principles, which include "radical self-reliance,""radical self-expression," and "leave no trace."

As part of the festivities, teams of artists work together to build huge, intricate temples from reclaimed wood. At the end of the week, as part of Burning Man's "leave no trace" rule, they set them ablaze. 

Sculptor David Best and his crew started this tradition in 2000, designing the temples every year until 2007 and then again in 2014. Since then, other architects and artists have made their own creations. At this year's Burning Man, which ended September 5, Best returned to build a new temple.

Check out some of the most incredible temples that have been created over the years — including the most recent one — before they were burned down.

SEE ALSO: 20 of the most incredible works of Burning Man art ever made

The Temple Project by David Best and the Temple Crew (2016)

Instagram Embed:
http://instagram.com/p/BKAFJTzgsJ8/embed/
Width: 1200px

The Temple of Promise by Jazz Tigan and the Dreamers Guild (2015)

The Temple of Grace by by David Best and Temple Crew (2014)

Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk once said"Burning Man is Silicon Valley."

Judging from the photos of startup founders, tech workers, and venture capitalists that have surfaced since the annual counterculture festival began, we're guessing Musk is right.

We rounded up the best images of tech workers sweating it out on the playa.

SEE ALSO: 6 things people who go to Burning Man have in common

User experience designer Olia Birulia made the well-traveled trek from San Francisco to Burning Man, and made some friends along the way.

Instagram Embed:
http://instagram.com/p/BJ0mpAyhGNO/embed/
Width: 800px

Will O'Brien, an angel investor and COO of cloud analytics platform Keen IO, couldn't resist the chance to fly direct to Burning Man's pop-up airport.

Instagram Embed:
http://instagram.com/p/BJqPdf4AMK_/embed/
Width: 800px

Jessica Rose Yurasek (not pictured) manages social media strategy for clients like Twitter Video when she's not galavanting across the playa.

Instagram Embed:
http://instagram.com/p/BKBYGtqjEHo/embed/
Width: 800px

Roughly 70,000 people gathered for this year's Burning Man in Nevada's Black Rock Desert, which ended September 5.

The annual festival is known for brutal sandstorms, apocalyptic fashion, and the massive, eclectic art installations created by attendees.

The theme for this year's artwork was "Da Vinci's Workshop," and participants could interpret it however they wanted.

Take a look at some of the best art from the festival.

SEE ALSO: 20 of the most incredible works of Burning Man art ever made

"El Pulpo Mechanico" by Duane Flatmo and Jerry Kunkel

Instagram Embed:
http://instagram.com/p/BKBgD1YgegC/embed/
Width: 800px

"The Space Whale" by The Pier Group with Matthew Schultz, Android Jones, and Andy Tibbetts

Instagram Embed:
http://instagram.com/p/BJ3Byb_goVz/embed/
Width: 800px

"Tangential Dreams" by the Dream Team

Instagram Embed:
http://instagram.com/p/BJ016bMgug8/embed/
Width: 800px

By Dream Team members Philip Olivier, Eira Mooney, Maialen Calleja, Aaron Porterfield, Sebastian Morales, Antony Dobrzensky, Laura Nica, Karina Pitis, Hamish Macpherson, Jon Goodbun, Yannick Yamanga, Matthew Springer, Josh NG, Lola Chaine, Dror BenHay, Peter Wang, Charlotte Chambers, Michael DiCarlo, and Sandy Kwan

The legendary "Missed Connections" section on Craigslist is a beautiful mixture of absurdity, heartfelt longing, and wistfulness. And this is doubly true of those from Burning Man, the yearly festival in the middle of the desert whose very nature invites an intense nostalgia that keeps people coming back year after year.

And this year's Burning Man missed connections are delightful.

There are people who tossed pineapples back and forth only to have their blue-wigged potential soulmate melt into the desert. And there are those who just wanted to join in on the "snail crossing endeavors."

"You said how chill I was with my West Coast style ..."

Read on for this year's amazing Burning Man missed connections, and some of our favorites from last year as well:

Note: If you've never read a "Missed Connections" post before, Craigslist users often use tags like "m4w" (man looking for woman) to alert people to their own gender and the gender of the person they're looking for. Please also note some of the listings contain obscenities.

SEE ALSO: Here's what the inside of a 'fancy celebrity camp' at Burning Man looks like

'Tibetan Singing Bowls, Burning Man Temple — m4w'

"I gave you a Tibetan singing bowl session, you — girl from Palo Alto with beautiful eyes, at the Temple BM 2016 Saturday afernoon

"You said I 'put you under'

"I was distracted by so many things going on at the time and I could not remember your name, but you said you work with at risk youth and deliver energy healing in Palo Alto, you also mentioned you just bought your first bowl set. I just wanted to make friends.

— Patrick from San Diego"

'Burning Man: Freckled face — m4w'

"We met near 8:00 & G and your rode on my handle bars all the way to the restrooms at E. We sat and talked while I made you smile, you said how chill I was with my West Coast style. With freckles on your face and and my hair standing tall you gave me an address but I forgot to call. You kissed me once but I made you kiss me twice I was digging your body while my tattoos caught your eye. Hit me up when you get a chance I live in Denver now so I can be there in a flash."

'Burning Man: Rob w the voice from Boston via New Jersey via Greenpoint'

"You took care of me when I was sick and I never got to properly thank you. Your voice drew me in, with funny, sweet stories about your travels and your Polish parents. Even though I got sick it was an amazing trip because it brought me to you. You saved me and I wanted to explore the playa and you — but I was too out of it to articulate my true intentions. You're nonjudgmental, kind, with an open mind and hot...well you know — you're a SMF. I'll be in San Francisco next month or if you're still traveling come to Seattle and crash with me. I may have what you've been looking for and there is plenty of Metal in town.

Yours truly,
Oddy"

Today, we know Burning Man as an oasis in the Nevada desert where the tech elite and modern-day hippies gather in the shadow of some pretty crazy art installations.

Not too long ago, the annual festival was a bit more like "Mad Max" on the playa.

A video clip from 1997 resurfaced last week that shows a news crew from ABC's "Nightline" discovering Burning Man for the first time. The Huffington Post spotted it making the rounds.

This is Burning Man before it became a survivalist summer camp for adults, before the likes of Paris Hilton and Katy Perry turned out.

The reporter describes the event as "a loosely organized, frenetic explosion of community, creativity, and chaos," while footage plays showing attendees dance and riot around a burning human effigy (a long-standing Burning Man tradition). There are no luxury camps in sight, or electronic dance music DJs throwing it down before a crowd high on ecstasy.

A young man explains to the camera that he used to be shy and reserved.

"I thought if I came out here — in such an open atmosphere — I could really be myself," he says.

"It sounded like it was the last cool thing to do," another attendee, dressed in monk's robes and sunglasses, says.

The reporter mentions that the event is so remote, festival-goers must bring their own food, supplies, and lodging. Most so-called "burners" still rough it on the desert floor, but a growing number of attendees drop into luxe accommodations, known as "plug-and-play" camps.

Often at these sites, hired help assist the camp with production and concierge services around the cafeteria and lounge spaces. C-suiters shell out as much as $10,000 for a reservation.

Entrance to Burning Man in 1997 cost just $75. In 2016, it was $470, including a vehicle pass.

The costumes (or lack therof) were just as surprising two decades prior. People in the ABC news report wore Native American-inspired garb, tuxedos with masks made from tree branches, and pleather, lots of pleather. An occasional nude bicyclist rides across the frame.

Oh, yeah, and this happened:

If you've seen "Mad Max: Fury Road," you might think that instrument-wielding "burner" looks familiar. The flame-throwing guitarist on wheels from the movie became a cult favorite.

Watch the full news report below:

SEE ALSO: Vandals just decimated Burning Man's 'fancy camp' founded by the son of a Russian billionaire

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: A dancer created an incredible routine with geometric neon lights

Join the conversation about this story »

Steven Kotler is a performance expert and the coauthor of "Stealing Fire." In this video, Kotler explains why Google relies on creating group-flow states, and how Larry Page and Sergey Brin used Burning Man to find the right CEO. Following is a transcript of the video.

Google used Burning Man to find a CEO because they were interested in finding a CEO who's familiar with group flow.

So one of the things that happens at Burning Man — and there's recent research out of Oxford that sort of backs this up — is that Burning Man alters consciousness in a very particular way and it drops people into a state of group flow.

So, flow is a peak-performance state. It's an individual performing at their peak. Group flow is simply a team performing at their peak, and everybody has some familiarity with this. If you’ve ever taken part in a great brainstorming session, where ideas are kind of bouncing everywhere — you're really reaching ripe, smart conclusions.

If you’ve seen a fourth-quarter comeback in football. If you saw what the Patriots did in the Super Bowl. That’s group flow in action.

Google has relied very heavily since their inception on creating group-flow states. And when they were looking for a new CEO, they needed a way to screen for this, and it doesn't show up on most resumes.

They had a long history with Burning Man. From the very beginning, Larry and Sergey have been kind of rabid attendees. The center atrium at Google for years was decorated with pictures of Googlers at Burning Man, spinning fire, doing various things.

They had blown through and alienated like 50 different CEOs in the valley they tried to interview, and they found out that Eric Schmidt had actually been to Burning Man. So they bumped him to the top of their list, they took him to Burning Man to see how he would do. They wanted to know was he going to be able to let go of his ego, merge with the team, or was he going to stand in its way? And it turns out he passed the test, and the result is one of the most pivotal CEO hires in the modern era.

Join the conversation about this story »

Make Magazine hosted the 12th annual Bay Area Maker Faire this past weekend, drawing in more than one hundred thousand visitors.

The event is a celebration of "makers" of all sorts and kinds. Visitors could see 3-D printers in action, watch competitive drone races, learn how to solder, see fire-belching hand-made iron sculptures, find out how to keep bees or pickle vegetables, and sew their own clothes from scrap cloth. 

Begun as a relatively small affair, Maker Faire has become a huge and global phenomenon. Some 125,000 people attended this year's Bay Area event, which was held over three days, according to Sherry Huss, Maker Faire's co-founder. Last year, there were 191 maker faires in 38 countries that attracted some 1.4 million people, Huss said. 

Even after all this time, Maker Faire "still tends to be one of those amazing things that we've created, she said.

SEE ALSO: The world's largest gathering of inventors shows that anyone can make magic

Maker Faire Bay Area has been expanding in size and attendance since 2006, when it launched.

This is Fiesta Hall at the San Mateo County Fairgrounds, where the festival is held every May. 

Once they got to the San Mateo County Fairgrounds, visitors had their choice of exhibits to see.

Some parts of Maker Faire are like a smaller, more family friendly, Burning Man, complete with sculptures that have been set aflame.

This is "Pulse," a so-called fire sculpture by the Flaming Lotus Girls, a group of artists based in San Francisco. 

Chris “Douggs” Mcdougall is a professional BASE jumper, skydiver and wingsuit flyer with 20 years of experience. 

He’s done over 3,500 jumps from buildings, cliffs, antennas, and bridges all over the globe.

Douggs was among the very first people to BASE jump from Al Hamra Tower in Kuwait in 2013. He also did the first "Night Human Slingshot" in Dubai in 2012.

He is also a BASE jumping instructor and motivational speaker. With his talks, he draws from his experiences in the sky to help people embrace and overcome their fears. His latest one is called "The First Step.... to Safety."

To learn more about Douggs, you can visit his websites: douggs.com, learntobasejump.com, basedreams.com
And social media page: YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter.

Produced by Claudia Romeo

Join the conversation about this story »

Steven Kotler is a performance expert and the coauthor of "Stealing Fire." In this video, Kotler explains why Google relies on creating group-flow states, and how Larry Page and Sergey Brin used Burning Man to find the right CEO. Following is a transcript of the video.

Google used Burning Man to find a CEO because they were interested in finding a CEO who's familiar with group flow.

So one of the things that happens at Burning Man — and there's recent research out of Oxford that sort of backs this up — is that Burning Man alters consciousness in a very particular way and it drops people into a state of group flow.

So, flow is a peak-performance state. It's an individual performing at their peak. Group flow is simply a team performing at their peak, and everybody has some familiarity with this. If you’ve ever taken part in a great brainstorming session, where ideas are kind of bouncing everywhere — you're really reaching ripe, smart conclusions.

If you’ve seen a fourth-quarter comeback in football. If you saw what the Patriots did in the Super Bowl. That’s group flow in action.

Google has relied very heavily since their inception on creating group-flow states. And when they were looking for a new CEO, they needed a way to screen for this, and it doesn't show up on most resumes.

They had a long history with Burning Man. From the very beginning, Larry and Sergey have been kind of rabid attendees. The center atrium at Google for years was decorated with pictures of Googlers at Burning Man, spinning fire, doing various things.

They had blown through and alienated like 50 different CEOs in the valley they tried to interview, and they found out that Eric Schmidt had actually been to Burning Man. So they bumped him to the top of their list, they took him to Burning Man to see how he would do. They wanted to know was he going to be able to let go of his ego, merge with the team, or was he going to stand in its way? And it turns out he passed the test, and the result is one of the most pivotal CEO hires in the modern era.

Join the conversation about this story »

Larry Page is one of the most powerful people in the world.

The quirky, soft-spoken computer scientist cofounded Google with Sergey Brin in 1998 and now, almost 20 years later, still runs its parent company, Alphabet. 

So who's the man behind Google and how did he get to where he is today?

Here's his story.

Jillian D'Onfro contributed to an earlier version of this story. 

DON'T MISS: The crazy, eccentric, successful life of Google cofounder Sergey Brin

Gloria and Carl Page had their second son, Lawrence, on March 26, 1973. They both taught computer science at Michigan State University and filled their home with computers and tech magazines that enthralled Larry from a very young age.

They enrolled him in a Montessori school. Such programs are known to foster independence and creativity, and Page now credits "that training of not following rules and orders, and being self-motivated and questioning what's going on in the world" as influencing his later attitudes and work.

Source: YouTube

At 12, Page read a biography about the brilliant inventor Nikola Tesla, who died in debt and obscurity. The ending made him cry, and inspired Page to not only want to build world-changing technologies, but to have the business sense to know how to spread them. "I figured that inventing things wasn't any good," he has said. "You really had to get them out into the world and have people use them to have any effect."

Source: Business Insider, Achievement.org

This year's Burning Man — the wild annual festival in Nevada's Black Rock Desert — will start on August 27.

One of the main spectacles at Burning Man are the outlandish, elaborate, and zany sculptures and structures that attendees create there.

Many are intentionally destroyed at the end of the festival, since part of Burning Man's mission is to leave no trace, but some have moved to other locations around the world.

We've rounded up 23 of the most stunning works from past festivals. Check them out below.

SEE ALSO: An inside look at Burning Man's 30-year evolution from beach bonfire to international mega-event

Bliss Dance by Marco Cochrane (2010)

After debuting at Burning Man 2010, the 40-foot-tall sculpture moved to San Francisco's Treasure Island and then permanently to The Park Las Vegas, an outdoor area on the strip, in 2015.

The Prairie Wind Chapel by Robert Hoehn and Wind Tribe (2015)

This airy temple featured a Victorian reed organ and two wood and metal pipe organs.

R-Evolution by Marco Cochrane (2015)

Constructed of steel rods and balls covered in stainless-steel mesh, and lots of LEDs, R-Evolution was a 48-foot-tall sculpture of a woman. It was part of a series by Chochrane that also included the Bliss Dance sculpture shown earlier.

In late June, 1986, Larry Harvey and Jerry James joined a handful of friends on San Francisco's Baker Beach in search of radical self-expression. They didn't come empty-handed.

Earlier that day, Harvey and James had collected scrap wood and built an eight-foot statue of a man. Later that night, the two hoisted it up and set it on fire. A crowd of 20 formed to watch it burn. Little did they know that a 31-year tradition had just been born.

Today, Burning Man draws more than 60,000 people to Nevada's Black Rock Desert. Over the course of a dusty, freewheeling week in late August, the festival celebrates notions of self-expression, civic responsibility, and art.

This year's Burning Man will be held from August 28 to September 5. Here's a look back at how one of the world's most surreal, iconic festivals came to be.

SEE ALSO: 20 insane structures built at Burning Man

For the first three years of Burning Man, the festival was held on San Francisco's Baker Beach. By 1989, however, Golden Gate Park Police had learned of the event and prohibited any actual burning. The event was a fire hazard, they said.

In 1990, Harvey and James decided to relocate to the second-largest and flattest piece of land in the US: Nevada's Black Rock Desert. At first, people didn't really know what to do once they got there. Some found hot springs. Others played music. But by the end, the 40-foot statue still burned.

By 1997, the secret of Burning Man was out. Wired called it the "New American Holiday" and CNN dubbed it "the world's most dangerous art festival."

It's no secret that Burning Man is a stomping ground for tech moguls. The annual counterculture gathering draws rich people and naked hippies under the shared assumption that the future is what you make it.

In his book, "Stealing Fire," author and performance expert Steven Kotler explains how the founders of Google — Larry Page and Sergey Brin — used Burning Man as a stage for interviewing the next CEO.

"From the very beginning, Larry and Sergey have been kind of rabid attendees. The center atrium at Google for years was decorated with pictures of Googlers at Burning Man, spinning fire, doing various things," Kotler told Business Insider.

Part of what appealed to the duo about Burning Man was the sense of community at its core.

"So one of the things that happens at Burning Man — and there's recent research out of Oxford that sort of backs this up — is that Burning Man alters consciousness in a very particular way and it drops people into a state of group flow," Kotler said.

"Flow," he continued, "is a peak-performance state. It's an individual performing at their peak. Group flow is simply a team performing at their peak, and everybody has some familiarity with this.

"If you've ever taken part in a great brainstorming session, where ideas are kind of bouncing everywhere — you're really reaching ripe, smart conclusions. If you've seen a fourth-quarter comeback in football. ... That's group flow in action."

According to Kotler, Google relies on creating group-flow states to get the best work out of their employees.

In 1999, Page and Brin had accepted $12.5 million from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, a top venture firm in Silicon Valley. As part of the deal, they promised the firm they would hire an outsider to replace Page as CEO — a common play to provide "adult supervision" to young founders.

They wanted the next CEO to be in harmony with these group-flow states. But they didn't really know how to screen for it. Then they met Eric Schmidt, then-CEO of software company Novell.

Here's a photo of Schmidt last year at Further Future, a Burning Man-like festival for the ultra-rich.

Schmidt took the CEO spot in 2001. Page would later describe the move to hire him as "brilliant."

Joe Avella and Kevin Reilly contributed reporting to a previous version of this article.

SEE ALSO: There's a 'Burning Man for the 1%,' where the tech elite dance and sleep in luxury pods

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Here's why Google went to Burning Man to find its next CEO

Burning Man is many things.

It is a place where 65,000 people descend on a 7-square-mile patch of Nevada's Black Rock Desert, getting whipped by sandstorms and, of course, burning "the man."

But as the "leave no trace" rule declares, Burning Man is not a giant garbage can. Everything set up at the start of the week must come down.

This before-and-after image, created by the Daily Overview with satellite imagery from DigitalGlobe, reveals just how great of an undertaking that can be. Slide the bar to see the transition.

To make sure the "leave no trace" rule is upheld, Burning Man relies on a Playa Restoration Team (The "playa" is the land used during the festival).

Crews of people determine which areas have the most trash — or, as Burners call it, "matter out of place," or MOOP.

They color-code the areas based on severity, green being the lightest MOOP areas, yellow being moderate, and red being the most moopy — Burning Man's words, not mine — and have a line of people clean up each area.

Then the transformation back into an ordinary desert is complete.

SEE ALSO: An inside look at Burning Man's 31-year evolution from beach bonfire to international mega-event

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: 8 scary facts about a world with 11 billion people

Over the weekend, 70,000 people known as "burners" will descend on a remote swath of desert in Black Rock City, Nevada to dance, sweat, and find themselves at the 2017 Burning Man festival. Attendees will be treated to surreal art installations, workshops, and all-night parties.

Devotees of the decades-old festival have taken the free-spirited philosophy of Burning Man to their own countries and launched affiliated events where the same principles endure. Photos of these gatherings show they're more or less the same, despite being thousands of miles apart.

Let's take a closer look at three regional Burning Man festivals in the world.

This could be a photo of a Burning Man event anywhere in the world.

It happens to be Midburn, a six-day arts festival in Israel.

The first Midturn took place in 2014, two years after a group of friends came home from Burning Man and decided to create events that would channel the spirit of the festival.

Among the 70,000 or so people who will make the trip to Black Rock City, Nevada, this weekend for the start of Burning Man will be some of the most influential people in Silicon Valley. 

Every year, some of tech's top execs join the annual festival, dressing in shiny costumes and exploring the art installations just like everyone else. 

The unwritten rules of the festival encourage anonymity and privacy. But the attendance of some of the CEOs and founders has been revealed by one of their enthusiastic peers on Medium. And many members of the tech elite have found their time on the playa — Burning Man speak for the dusty dry lake bed where the festival takes place — so life-changing that they couldn't help but speak about it publicly.

While nicknames and creative costumes often make it difficult to know if you've run into someone famous at the festival, a little knowledge can go a long way. These are the powerful techies known to hang out in Black Rock City.

Who knows? You might just run into one of them on one of the festival's famous art cars. 

SEE ALSO: An inside look at Burning Man's 31-year evolution from beach bonfire to international mega-event

Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX

Not only has Musk taken more than one pilgrimage to Black Rock City, he's also gone on the record touting the annual art festival as an integral part of Silicon Valley culture. 

Musk has even been spotted covered in dust at In-n-Out, a popular stop for Burning Man attendees seeking their first post-festival meal. The restaurant draws crowds in no small part because of its proximity to both the freeway and the event. 

Sergey Brin and Larry Page, founders of Google

Brin and Page have reportedly attended the event repeatedly over the years, enthusiastically. To disguise their identities, they've worn full spandex body suits, according to published reports. And they've encouraged Google employees to attend, even running a free shuttle bus to the event.

But no anecdote captures Google's relationship to Burning Man quite like the story of Brin's separation from 23andMe CEO Anne Wojcicki.

The couple separated in 2013 because Brin was having an affair with one of his employees, Amanda Rosenberg. After initially keeping the separation secret, Brin reportedly decided to publicly reveal it before that year's Burning Man, because he planned to attend the event with Rosenberg. 

Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of Google's Alphabet

It's not hard to find photos of Schmidt in the sort of Mad Max-meets-clown attire that is so common at the festival. But attending Burning Man hasn't always been a chance for Schmidt to get in touch with his wild side. 

Brin, Page and Schmidt have all said publicly that Schmidt worked his way into the Google CEO job while networking at the festival. Google's founders reportedly picked Schmidt because his love for the event indicated he would fit in well with Google's culture.