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Comment by ipsum2 | Hacker News Reader

Does anyone know how his "The Downtown Project" (aka Vegas revitalization) is going?

I visited maybe 4-5 years ago. I had just read about Hsieh, and his business philosophy, and his attempt to revitalize downtown Las Vegas.

It was ... odd.

My immediate impression was favorable. A very quirky looking area -- a small outdoor mall, with the buildings framing a little courtyard area. Built out of shipping containers, or something that looked like that.

But the businesses. Each one was quirky in the extreme. A combination convenience/art supply store. A store selling nothing but socks. A store selling used luxury goods. Maybe one of these could survive in a high traffic area of a conventional mall, but there was nothing to draw anyone. There was a bar that had some odd twist, but I don't remember what the twist was.

I didn't see how the area could survive. It wasn't right in the middle of downtown LV, so I don't think they could rely on people visiting there. I'm sure there were people like me who somehow heard of it, and went to visit. But one visit was plenty. There was absolutely nothing to draw me back. And it was pretty deserted.

BLUF: it takes more than one man with a vision to create a tech ecosystem. It takes rich nerds who want to invest locally and stick around. Las Vegas will never have that.

I have lived in Las Vegas for 24 years. We moved here to raise a family because it is my wife's home town. (Her father was a scientist and manager with the federal government.)

I was and am in tech, working from home except for two years with one of the very few successful tech startups in Las Vegas from 2000-2001.

I wanted the tech-oriented revitalization to succeed, but it it hasn't and we are moving to Utah ("Silicon Slopes").

Preface: I love Vegas and feel strongly about my experiences at UNLV so forgive my passion. It is my own opinion at the end of the day.

As someone who grew up, went to school, and worked in tech in Vegas, I place some of the blame on UNLV and its computer science program.

The computer science curriculum taught at UNLV is designed to do nothing more than churn on casino gaming employees; it's so extreme that the only web development course doesn't even count towards your computer science degree. It's absolutely bonkers to me how students are trained from the start to feed right into the golden handcuffs of the casino industry and yet people wonder why Vegas can't get it's tech industry started.

There's just simply no local talent pool here as a result. The casino industry is, in my opinion, a solved domain with little innovation room for incoming passionate engineers. I remember applying to a big gaming company here for an internship while at UNLV, and they legitimately couldn't provide a clear answer to "How often do you innovate within your domain, and what are some examples".

I feel fortunate that I had already found an interest in topics outside the gaming industry and managed to land a job here for a tech company constantly moving the needle in a challenging domain.

You are totally right about this (and thanks for sharing your personal perspective). I used to think the CS program at UNLV was excessively backward or old-school, which it is, but the root cause is those golden handcuffs. What company do you work for in LV? If we should take it offline, I am bo@blnqr.com

When I visited Vegas a few years ago I tried to find some tech or entrepreneur events. It was strangely barren compared to what I had been used to in Utah. I'm not sure why. Maybe it was just too spread out? Too many other things for people to do? There was a desperate feeling I couldn't shake...

Money, money Everywhere, but not a dime to spend.

Anyway, I've just left Utah forever, and live in Arkansas now.

Have you driven the blocks around downtown Vegas lately? It's very seedy, full of pawn shops and payday lending stores, liquor stores and closed stores. Streets are dirty, numerous homeless people. I admire his goal of revitalizing it, but it didn't work.

If you think it has issues now, you should have seen it pre-downtown revitalization. I went to high school in downtown and you wouldn’t dare stray from campus. Literal meth lab houses would blow up in that area during PE class. It’s not perfect now but you feel safe walking there anytime of day. As for payday loans and all the other items listed, that’s just how Vegas works. It’s sad but I doubt a gambling town could be any other way.

Last time I was there was for CES, and they had a "completely" autonomous bus that went around the arts district of downtown Las Vegas. The autonomous bus was disappointing, but I actually thought that particular part of Vegas was looking pretty good. It seemed very hipster/gentrified and not at all touristy.

I think the revitalization project was at least somewhat successful.

It's too bad, because I really wish Vegas could somehow magically turn into a tech jobs hub. It's got a lot going for it: No state income tax. Cheap housing. Minimal regulation. Cheap, relatively private LLCs. World class restaurants. World class entertainment/shows (even if touristy). Casinos, if you're into it. If NorCal is a heaven for people who like outdoor activities, then Vegas is the heaven for people who like the indoors. The only down side is it's really hot, but going indoors fixes this.

If my employer opened an office anywhere near Las Vegas, I'd list my house and call the moving truck the next day.

Nevada lacks the three laws/regulations which make California, imho, popular for entrepreneurs:

* Limited non-competes

* Limited IP assignment clauses

* Limited anti-moonlighting clauses

It's hard to start a business when your current employer can block you from doing so.

For a long time, it's been quite obvious that these 3 laws are a cornerstone of why California had the tech boom. And yet almost no other state has managed to put these on the books! I'd be willing to bet that if Nevada implements these (properly), they'll attract a lot more tech startups.

True for small tech companies, but major tech companies routinely flaunt CA loopholes to lay claim all sorts of employee-produced IP, and prevent moonlighting. If an invention is similar to something your company makes or might one day make (which could encompass anything for a major tech company), then they can lay claim to it and prevent you from moonlighting working on it.

California's tech boom was created by semiconductor companies pourit toxic waste into the ground and rivers.

I'd add that those are more significant to create a liquid labor market than to empower founders. The other missing component to a startup scene is reckless venture capital. Even if you found in another city you'll probably need to travel to California to get funding.

Where I come from, the business culture can be described as somewhere between complacent and cautious that borders on cowardice. There's really no other choice but to bootstrap or relocate to California.

You forgot the state income tax.

Vegas is not bad for outdoor activities either. World-class rock climbing, good hiking and mountain biking, 2 hours to the Grand Canyon, 2.5 to Zion National Park, 5 to Mammoth (not close but no worse than Los Angeles). Alex Honnold owns a house there.

If I ever achieve my dream of being a seasonal nomad, Vegas just might make the cut.

Outdoor activities are available, and the seasonality is probably no worse than other parts of the country with inclement weather, but it's pretty shocking to see hiking trails closed from May 15-Sept 30, for example. Not a mundane detail.

https://www.nps.gov/lake/planyourvisit/summer-hiking.htm

Vegas summers are brutal no doubt. There is a fair amount of hiking and climbing in the Spring Mountains though, that's generally nice in the summer. But in town the heat just never lets up for several months. It's not uncommon for it to be 95+ degrees hours after sunset.

Personally, I probably wouldn't live in Vegas. I'd live somewhere at a higher altitude in that area of the country. But a lot of people equate Vegas with The Strip which isn't really fair.

Yeah, the redeeming feature of Vegas as a conference destination is that there are great long weekend or week trips to have from there. Also Death Valley. (Grand Canyon is >2 hrs though.) Utah NPs beyond Zion. Etc. Don't like Vegas itself but lots to like about the general region.

Yea, you guys are right--the region really has it all.

Las Vegas is great for outdoor activities. I've lived here for 24 years, out west toward Red Rock, and we do a lot of hiking, rock climbing, mountain biking, camping, skiing/boarding is close at Mt Charleston. Soccer teams, excellent parks. Even Pickle Ball LOL

I probably wouldn't mind Vegas except for one extremely important thing. The whole place reeks of cigarettes and I can't stand it. I don't ever want to live in a place where indoor smoking is legal.

Have you been in the last two years?

Weed is now legal there, so it smells like that outside everywhere.

Agree, Vegas doesn't fit with the tech hipsters and eco friendly Silicon valley types.

Oh man that sounds great, I've always been disappointed that I missed out on the era when smoking in the office was okay.

I had 2 years of smoking in the building before it was banned and I don't miss my clothes constantly smelling like tobacco smoke.

TBH, I find Vegas restaurants mostly underwhelming. If you're on an extremely generous expense account of course there are lots of celebrity chefs. But I've found otherwise, even off-strip, generally pretty mass produced food.

I'd love if Reno was this good, much closer to Tahoe.

I visited Detroit in May 2016 and was very taken aback by the revitalization. Granted, it was Memorial Day weekend + Movement Festival [0] so the city was certainly not in it's normal day-to-day look, but Dan Gilbert's money [1] appeared well spent to the eyes of a visitor. I learned about it from talking to my Lyft drivers, who all seemed to think positively about the effort.

[0] great techno music in the genre's birthplace

[1] Founder of Quicken Loans - recent article with some extra context https://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/2020/07/09/dan-gi...

If you put aside economic problems Detroit just has so much more going for it in terms of history, culture, location, small business, family ties etc. than Las Vegas. That is why dumping money into it has shown immediate returns. When you say Vegas 100% of people are going to (justifiably) think casinos and not much more.

Unfortunately Gilbert seems to be at the end of his life. We'll see if Detroit can continue its revitalization without his money.

It looks even much better than 2016 at least earlier this year before the pandemic. Haven't been there since the shutdown.

According to the newspapers, poorly. Very little to show for it.

That's exactly right. The best bookstore in town shut down. The best coffee shop is still there, a wonderful place, but not much else, sadly. (Disclosure: I am a 24-year local in tech who really wanted it to work.)

Did he or others invest as much as was originally implied? I remember it being spoken of as a long-term project. If it was a little shipping container mall, that's a bit of a meagre attempt. You'd need to loss-lead dramatically to attract people across from The Strip to visit.

Great question, and you hit it squarely: Hsieh and company did not invest the $350 million (!) as originally announced https://www.technologyreview.com/2013/07/17/15645/zappos-ceo...

For just part of $350m, you could comfortably bankroll 20 small businesses to effectively create the dynamic you wanted. Couple that with some drawcards to lure tourists across, free travel, etc. That would've worked.

You got that right, 20 startups or even 200. And they might have made a great return. Instead, they focused on bars and public art (which I think is cool btw) and made a fundamental real estate mistake by loudly announcing where they were going to buy and how much they had to spend.

I can't speak to how well the project has been doing, but just last week I happened to listen to his 2014 Long Now Foundation talk on this project. I didn't even know who he was before this talk, which was simply next in my podcast feed for this subscription. Maybe the ideas he espoused aren't universal to US areas, but I found plenty worth mulling.

https://longnow.org/seminars/02014/apr/22/helping-revitalize...

Massive and complete failure.

The PR they generated for it was crazy... would love to read a post-mortem.

Very poorly. VTF folks have also moved on.

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