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Comment by bluedevil2k | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

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.

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.

Have you been in the last two years?

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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