Startup Land only says something poignant about itself by accident, and this time is no exception: the grand prize in an upcoming venture capital sponsored hackathon is a chance to degrade yourself in a booth full of money.

Politicians have historically left Washington to land cushy jobs on Wall Street. But as the alpha males of banking have decamped to California in pursuit of startup riches, Washington's revolving door increasingly opens to Silicon Valley, not Wall Street. Now techies are charming the latest D.C. free-agent: former Obama flack Jay Carney.

This week, New York magazine profiles Re/code's Kara Swisher—attempting to parse how a rabid reporter who knows so many of Silicon Valley's secrets still enjoys the adoration of its executives. The feature also touches on the "clusterfuck" that is contemporary tech journalism.

Silicon Valley fetishizes youth—the 20-something, white, over-worked male who will write code until his wrists tingle. That's just great, unless you happen to not be those things. Case in point: a new lawsuit against Twitter complains the company fired a 57-year-old employee because of illegal age and medical bias.

Tim Draper, legendary venture capitalist, has a plan to cement Silicon Valley's status as the most-hated locale in America: make it its own state. It sounds crazy, because it is—but the insane campaign's supporters say it's actually headed to ballots.

New Yorkers agree: Airbnb's subway ad campaign is trying too hard [via Twitter]

Seattle police have cleared an Uber driver of rape charges, but have kept the investigation into sexual assault "active and ongoing." Komo News, which had access to the police report, said the victim had been visiting Seattle from Texas and was on her way to her fiancé's home.

The pending Silicon Valley wage-fixing settlement is a dud, but the upshot is a trove of private executive emails put into the public record. New court documents, first reported by the Wall Street Journal, show the leadership at Google in a fit over a very new rival.

Now that former Facebook president Sean Parker has his billions from Silicon Valley, he's tackling DC next, funneling cash to politicians that specialize in "compromise." And in Parker's mind, those who compromise happen to be Republicans.

Charles Gasparino, the surly bull market bruiser of Fox Business News, managed to get kicked out of this summer's dullest event. But he doesn't care: the whole thing "wasn't worth going to" anyway.

Investor Fred Wilson on how the underdog becomes the overlord: "The same could be said of Google, Twitter, YouTube, SoundCloud, Uber, and all of the dominant networks that are emerging around us. From laughable toys to dominant monopolies in less than a decade."

Over the weekend, Gurbaksh Chahal, the former RadiumOne CEO who was fired after pleading guilty to domestic violence, published and then deleted a blog post (printed below). In it, the raving solipsist and serial deleter revealed he would launch a new startup.

Secret, the anonymous gossip app, just raised $25 million in venture cash. According to the New York Times, this values the company at over $100 million.

Maria Zhang, a top executive at Yahoo, is being sued for sexual harassment, wrongful termination, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. The complaint was filed today by Nan Shi, an engineer supervised by Zhang, and names Yahoo as a defendant.

Yahoo, the last living fossil of the internet dinosaurs, is coming to grips with its own mortality. The lumbering tech giant once bought 48 acres of land in Santa Clara for a massive office expansion. Now it's turning the land into a parking lot.

Fox Business correspondent Charles Gasparino made quite an impression at Allen & Co.'s rural schmoozefest this week. Both on Twitter and in an on-air segment, Gasparino complained about being mistreated by the private security guards hired for the Sun Valley conference. But sources told Valleywag that good time Gasparino was the instigator.

Lyft's east coast expansion is already hitting serious legal traffic. Despite billing itself as the savior of New York City, the city's tax commission was quick to declare the e-hailing startup illegal. Now the state's attorney general and the Taxi and Limousine Commission have placed a temporary restraining order against the startup.

Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert must have the hot hand. The Comic Sans-loving billionaire just won the dramatic toss up for LeBron James. Gilbert also boxed out other investors for a spot in a new round of funding for Rap Genius that is worth $40 million. Backing braggarts, it seems, is now an investment philosophy.

Several centuries ago, executives behind the AOL-Time Warner deal met in private at the annual Sun Valley oligarch conference to plot their own demise. To this day, business reporters are still flown to the sleepy Idaho town, hoping something, anything, will happen. But it doesn't. Sun Valley is fucking dull.

Barry Diller, chairman of IAC, which owns Tinder, isn't sweating the sexual harassment suit. "We've been doing an internal investigation that is not yet complete, but so far has not given us any reason to believe that the CEO was engaged in any negative practices."