"We're like an old family who have been coming here for years," says Paramount chief Brad Grey of Allen & Co.'s annual conference in Sun Valley, Idaho. But after some 200 corporate potentates, media barons, and Wall Streeters park their Gulfstreams at the airport, an automotive pecking order emerges in their assigned ground transportation. Henry Kravis gets a Ford Explorer. For Jeff Zucker, a GMC Suburban! Is that Mike Ovitz in a…Subaru? Armed with mandals, BlackBerry belt holsters, and unfortunate biz-cazh attire, the gang's all here, 6,000 feet above sea level: the rulers (Rupert Murdoch, Warren Buffett, Bill Gates), the revolutionaries (Facebook's Owen Van Natta, Joost's Janus Friis), and the rejected (Terry Semel, George Tenet, Tom Freston). "It's very riveting and very cool," William Morris Agency overlord Jim Wiatt tells me during cocktail hour in the lodge the following night. "Where else do you see everyone from the mayor" — he motions to Mike Bloomberg standing next to us — "to the biggest guy in private equity, Jon Nelson? It's people who are really smart, and know how to make a lot of money, and you just hope something useful falls off and hits you in the head."

The daily schedule certainly encourages it. A cross between summer camp and B-school, there are panels and presentations in the morning (for example, "What Content is King?" moderated by Anderson Cooper and starring Sergey Brin, Barry Diller, and Jeff Bezos); power lunch by the duck pond (burgers, hot dogs, and, of course, bespoke salads — would you like shrimp with that Caesar?); afternoon golf, tennis, and fly-fishing; and, if you're one of the rotating cast of 50 or so who make the cut, dinner at Herb Allen's house, followed by a drink, or 10, back at the lodge bar, which doubles as a networking mecca. Any given night will find the likes of Dick Parsons and Meg Whitman plotting global domination in a back booth while soon-to-IPO hedge fund hitters Dirk Ziff and Daniel Och sniff out opportunity around the bar. In the wee hours one evening, Bezos loudly auto-justifies with the ever-untucked Harvey Weinstein (below) about why he opted to sell some Amazon stock — i.e., the 850,000 shares he unloaded back in 2003. "The way I think about it, I'm trying to maximize my life, not my wealth," says Bezos. "Senior executives are not good investors."

It's uncensored conversations like these that Allen & Co. wants to keep private, and the investment firm has hired no fewer than 34 armed security personnel to separate the media minions from the magnates who sign their paychecks. After I eavesdrop on Sling Media CEO Blake Krikorian's private demo of his Slingbox — a remote TiVo of sorts — for Sergey Brin (who, for all his net worth, is sporting odious red Crocs), the sentries get suspicious, and before long they are literally following me into the men's room, standing guard until I am done, and then marching me back to the lounge like an enemy combatant. All guests are required to wear name tags and, perhaps foolishly, I remind Sony CEO Sir Howard Stringer when I see him missing his. "Fffffuck!" he exclaims, making it sound princely in a way that only a knighted executive can. "It's up in my room and I'm going to go get it. I thank you." The rule also applies to significant others, which makes it easier to ID the hottest girls on campus; for those keeping score, the chatter favors Lachlan Murdoch's wife, Sarah; Kathy Freston; Bob Iger's wife, Willow Bay; and Alex von Furstenberg's girlfriend, Ali Kay.

If last year's conference was the tycoon version of Deal or No Deal — Google bought YouTube a few months after Chad Hurley played Sun Valley baby Jesus — this year is more like American Gladiators. When I ask Google CEO Eric Schmidt about Viacom's $1 billion copyright infringement lawsuit, he doesn't even hesitate to draw blood: "They made a mistake. They shouldn't have sued. Now it's a public fight, an ego thing, and they're not even making any money on it." And what of terrorists allegedly using Google Earth for evil? "I don't like it," Schmidt says, ice in his veins. "But where's the balance? If a judge calls up and says, 'Give us the fucking records,' we comply." He pauses. "Google Maps picked up a Chinese military sub! God knows what's going to happen next."