I co-founded Burning Man. The festival has lost its soul

Burning Man won’t let go of me. As one of the three founders of the festival, I am constantly approached by journalists and documentary crews, podcasters, and the odd publisher hoping to make a book about the festival I helped invent 36 years ago. Curiously, I get this interest even though I haven’t set foot in the Black Rock Desert since 1996. Everyone wants the same story: how a bunch of pranksters in San Francisco jumped into a bunch of janky vehicles headed for the desert, hauling weird props and camping gear and the components of a huge, man-shaped wooden figure, and accidentally built one of the most famous festivals on Earth. For years after I left, I avoided talking about Burning Man — I’d moved on to other things. But people keep asking, so here’s what I’ll say: What it became makes me a little sad.