If the shameless flaunting of vast stores of personal wealth offends your sensibilities, look away now, because the world's second-richest man is building the world's second-richest house. Well, okay, we don't really know how the house compares to other domiciles built by people with far too much money on their hands, but we do know this: Larry Ellison (CEO of Oracle, member of Apple's board of directors, and Steve Jobs's bestest buddy) has started construction of his "dream home" in Woodside, California, and there's no way it's ever going to qualify as a "humble abode."

According to an Associated Press story forwarded to us by faithful viewer Adam J. Bezark, Larry's happenin' new pad will be "a Japanese-styled villa with man-made ponds, waterfalls and teahouse, and a moon pavilion." This impressive monument to excess is currently being built on "23 acres" of Ellison's land, and requires "moving 81,000 cubic yards of earth" and "importing more than 500 mature trees and 3750 tons of hand-chiseled Chinese granite." (3750 tons? Man, we'd hate to see the FedEx bill on that delivery.) Woodside's planning director, David Rizk, is a master of understatement as he calls Ellison's Kane-esque Xanadu "unique in magnitude, materials and architectural design."

So how does Larry's retro exercise in obscene dotcom-era spending compare to the infamous mansion of Bill Gates? Well, sorry, Larry, but Bill's still got you beat by a country mile-- or something like that. Larry may be sinking over $80 million into his ornate new digs, but Bill's pad is "more than 48,000 square feet," evidently a heftier spread than Larry's modest hovel. What's more, Bill's place is still "being expanded"; evidently the man discovered just how cramped 48,000 square feet can feel once you add a pool table to the basement.

We'd like to think that even if Steve Jobs succeeds in his plans for world domination, he'd still have the taste to refrain from such garish displays of wealth and power, but who knows? Perhaps in ten years Steve will buy the Coliseum, have it shipped to Cupertino next-day air, and command two thousand enslaved ex-Microserfs to restore it to a glory befitting Emperor Stevius's divine presence. But we bet he still wouldn't build a moon pavilion.