There’s something slightly absurd about the front-page New York Times article that ran on Sunday about San Francisco’s “rich young princes” (the Internet m/billionaires of our area), which focussed mostly on the remarkably un-glamorous lifestyle of 32-year old Max Levchin, a PayPal founder who is worth $100 million or so.

I say it’s absurd because it’s something I don’t think we’ve ever seen before in this country — obscenely rich people who don’t seem to care, or even want to acknowledge, that they are, indeed, filthy with cash.

According to the Times’ Gary Rivlin, Max is typical of the new breed of Silicon rich in that “they are happy to be wealthy… but many of these baby-faced technology tycoons often seem indifferent to the buying power of their money.”

Is it that these new mabillionaires have a bit of wealth guilt that they haven’t dealt with? Or is this a new form of snobbism, a sort of Silicon Valley psychology of status that says the more wealthy you are the less wealthy should you look. (Notice how Max dresses for his New York Times photoshoot — in what is likely his daily uniform of jeans and corporate-logo t-shirt.) Bling is for wannabes. Suits are for funerals. It’s not a new story, of course — we’ve been witnessing it since the late ’90s — but one sort of would hope that by now the story would change and the young rich would think about, I don’t know, acting rich for a change. Throw a party. Buy jewelry. At least wear a tie.

Thankfully (and I don’t mean this to sound sexist, but it probably will sound sexist, and I don’t know what to do about it) — but thankfully, there are some stylish young women out there who just might set these young men on the right track. I was absolutely delighted to read, in the Times piece, that “Mr. Levchin has moved into his second home, a more expensive one found for him by Nellie Minkova, his girlfriend of eight years who has become his fiancee.”

Photo by Michael Huang (via facebook.com)

The 29-year old Minkova (and by the way, lovers of Luxe have gotta love a lady with mink in her name), who was formerly a financial systems manager at PayPal, found a three-story, five-bedroom Pacific Heights home that cost $5.3 million (originally listed at $5.495 million.) They moved in about five months ago and, according to the Times, the living room is still stacked full of all of Max’s things because he’s been too consumed with work to unpack all his boxes.

If it was up to these guys, they’d all still be living in one-room apartments on El Camino Real, with a $200,000 sports car sitting in the car port. So thank you Neillie and all the other Nellies out there who are slowly but surely training their men to let go of some of their hard earned cash!

Real estate is a great way to do it, but it’s just the start. Big homes are great for big parties — fundraisers, charity events, cocktail parties, book signings, chic dinner parties. They’re also great for big art — like Andy Warhol’s Elizabeth Taylor portrait which is going to auction soon. And when having guests over, don’t you want to look your best? That’s what designer clothes from Barneys and Neiman-Marcus were made for, after all. See, there’s a whole world of fun spending opportunities out there.

Money can’t buy happiness, but it can buy a great view of the bay!

SFluxe’s message to the new rich of Silicon Valley — we all know you’re rich, so stop pretending you’re not. It’s annoying. Your friends know you’re rich, your neighbors know you’re rich, your employees like totally know you’re rich. We have been on to you from the beginning. So please do us all a big service, stop pretending and start spending. Conspicuously would be great, thank you. The bigger the better, big and tacky, like Trump-ugly big, okay?

Do you know that India’s richest man, Mukesh Ambani, is building a private 60-story home at an estimated cost of $1 billion in Mumbai? Do something like that. I mean, how do you think it makes my friends at curbed.com or valleywag.com feel to know that you don’t care enough about them to purchase one of the $50 million-plus homes that are available in the San Francisco area? It’s the least you could do, and you’d still have a couple hundred million to spare.

See more photos taken of the Levchin house when it was put on the market earlier this year, after the jump.