[rdl]

What non-industry rich person would actually want to attend? (maybe a few non-devs in law or vc, but you already get non-devs from tech companies)

There are plenty of rich tech people. If I were worth >$100mm, and couldn't get in on the drop, I'd probably be ok donating $10k (well, moving another charitable contribution for the year up to this) for a ticket.

I don't think Jay-Z is likely to want to attend.

[k-mcgrady]

That makes sense. But as this is such an important event for developers I don't think anyone should be given preference - especially based on how much money they have to spend. It's great to give money to charity but it's not something anyone should be given preference for.

[rdl]

I suspect sufficiently "important" people can already get a pass, through backdoor requests to Google. This would at least turn it into a positive externality. (although I suppose in the "google gives a pass to Friends of Google, it gives some benefit to Google to be able to confer special access).