
Vegas Tech, We Need To Talk - jzellis
https://www.evernote.com/shard/s10/sh/cb5049c0-54e7-477a-92a8-2f49e1fffbf2/96832700c99f170c665364a3414cf92a
======
akanet
I have mixed feelings about articles like these. On the one hand, I can see
how a more broadly integrated community yields benefits for everyone. On the
other, you can't help but feel that the author has a very recriminatory tone.
One wonders if he didn't have it out for the Downtown Project from the
beginning.

The use of self-deprecation and the "I'm no better than the people I'm
criticizing" apologism seems to justify the use of a broad range of ad-hominem
attacks. There is a lot of condemning the current approach of the Downtown
Project, but I'm not sure how it should be better run. The people that the
author suggests be consulted are by his own admission, "human scum." Should
Hsieh and co, build more affordances for poorer people? Should they also build
charitable social housing? Is merely being transparent enough?

I assume that Hshieh aims to build, essentially, a community that he himself
would be happy living in. If such a community is antithetical to the needs of
the current tenants of that area (which seems almost tautologically true,
sugarcoating by all parties involved notwithstanding), how should this
conflict be resolved? I think the core of the author's complaint is that Hsieh
and his compatriots are able to do what they like because of their wealth. I
submit that this is at least no worse than our other standard approaches to
solving conflicts at this scale - complaining or cajoling.

~~~
jzellis
I didn't have it out for the DTP from the beginning, honestly. I was excited
as anybody to see something new. But as I say in my piece, I'm disillusioned
by the inability to work with the existing community -- not just the super-
poor people in Downtown, but even the local cultural scene, whose input has
largely been ignored.

My anger comes from this: I don't believe that any community built upon going
in and tearing out an old one is a good community. I believe the key is
integration, not disintegration. Don't tear out the only local mini-grocery
and replace it with an expensive gourmet market. Consider everyone in the
community, not just the VCs and startup kids you're trying to attract.
Especially if you're ambitiously tearing down much of what was there long
before you arbitrarily decided to move into the area and start playing Sim
City.

I don't think that's too much to ask.

~~~
akanet
Thanks for responding, I appreciate the sincerity.

I think most communities that have undergone significant change have done so
with some asymmetry in power. If Hsieh deigns to consult with the locals, it
will necessarily take the form of charity. How is he to run these
negotiations? The local mini-grocery wants to stay, and Hsieh wants it to go.
The decision is binary and rests entirely on him. Asking Hsieh to consider
everyone's needs is difficult, especially given that he has all the bargaining
power. I was surprised your article did not more concretely enumerate the
community's concerns. I would hazard a guess that they are not nearly as
organized.

As for dis/integrating as a viable strategy for improving neighborhoods - I
think a lot of us here in SF would be mighty happy with a major, ground-up
overhaul to a lot of the city structure. You can't cross a chasm in two leaps,
etc.

------
snowwrestler
This is basically the same conversation that circulates around any
neighborhood improvement project; it doesn't really have much to do with Tony
Hsieh or tech except in the particulars.

Where is the line between improvement and gentrification? How can you maintain
the unique flavor of a neighborhood if that rents, prices, and property taxes
go up by multiples? How can you maintain "affordable housing" and clean up
urban blight at the same time? Etc.

~~~
edraferi
True enough, but just because it comes up often doesn't make it a solved
problem. In fact, I think it comes up so often because it's so damn hard to
get right. To the extent that the author is advocating for better
communication and transparency, I think that's probably a good step in the
right direction.

Of course there's a whole OTHER discussion here: private vs public city
planning. Is it really a good thing for a single investor to drive so much of
the development? Where is the local government? It seems that a city council
of some kind should be able to weigh in on behalf of the larger "community"

~~~
jzellis
Yeah, that's part of the problem. There's zero accountability. And in Vegas,
local government is only concerned with economic improvement -- everything
else takes a backseat.

We're talking about a city where the former mayor (whose wife is now the
current mayor) made it illegal to give food to homeless people. Swear to God.

~~~
edraferi
Really? That's.. pretty bad. Sounds like China during the Olympics.

My first reaction was "vote the bastards out," but then: casinos. Maybe you
can get a tech company to help crowdfund a new mayor who will constrain tech
investment? Wait...

------
rdl
Wow, every "bad" thing being ascribed to Tony Hsieh here seems _awesome_.
Turning the utter wasteland that was LV Downtown into something amazing is
worth some inconvenience to renters in the neighborhood.

I wish he'd do the same thing in the Tenderloin, Bayview/HP, or EPA.

~~~
jzellis
Hahaha, hey Ryan, I don't know if you remember me or not. But we also worked
for MedWeb at the same time a while back!

I think you're completely wrong, though. It's not convenience, it's survival.
But I also know you and I are on total opposite ends of the economic belief
system, too. :-)

~~~
rdl
Wow, small world!

You're right -- I'm fine with destroying marginal communities or cultures as
long as the individuals are somehow taken care of. I think it's individuals
who have rights, not cultures or communities. My experiences with Downtown and
North Vegas were...not pleasant, although I've pretty much avoided the area
entirely for ~8 years, so maybe it has improved, and DTV seems likely to be a
continuing part of that.

~~~
sakura_k
For many people, culture and community are a major part of their identity and
well-being. Destroy that and you've destroyed a part of them. What does
"taking care of" individuals mean when you posit that their entire community
should be destroyed, just because you had some unpleasant experiences in their
neighborhood?

Also, there aren't many people bothering to somehow take care of the
individuals, which says a lot about the self-declared DTV majority culture.

------
PakG1
This article shares emotions and themes that come with criticism of most big
redevelopment efforts. That standard operation is to kick all the poor people
out. I'm not saying it's right, but it is common. The emotions expressed in
this article are not unique.

That being said, on to my real comment. When I read _Delivering Happiness_ , I
honestly could not feel that I would ever want to work at Zappos. It seemed
that you would have to spend 100% of your life with fellow Zappos co-workers,
or else you would just not fit in. It really did feel like I was reading the
operations manual for a politically correct cult. Obviously that's fine for
Zappos. They don't want people like me. They want people with whom they can
party outside of work, seemingly _all the time_. But I wonder how many people
in the world are really like that.

------
nugget
They need to improve the local schools. This is by far the largest barrier to
recruiting real, stable, sustainable talent to the area.

------
Pxtl
As a resident of one of this continent's many bombed-out post-industrial
hellholes, if you don't want Hsieh, we'll take him.

I'd rather the local gals be selling $12 lattes than $12 handjobs, thanks very
much. And as for the bums and druggies being displaced, maybe with money
flooding into the community the government and local community groups will
actually be in a position to _help_ them rather than preserving their habitat
like some kind of exotic wildlife. "We must protect the population of the mid-
town doorway-pissers!"

------
danbmil99
Meta-comment: there needs to be a Wikipedia alternative that has an entry for
something like "Vegas Tech".

~~~
edraferi
Just copy/paste this in and watch the edit war

edit:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Articles_for_cre...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Articles_for_creation/Vegastech)

~~~
danbmil99
right, the process is stacked against anything not "noted" by the MSM. Major
open source initiatives have no page. It's just dumb.

------
ChuckMcM
I wish someone would buy up the old Gemco building at the intersection of
Boulder Highway and Sahara and do something useful with it. The last time I
someone made a run at it the owners were apparently "waiting for a big hotel"
to come around and buy them out for millions. What a waste.

------
rosettesor
[born and raised in vegas; now a software developer in the bay area] watching
downtown transform into what it currently is has been both inspiring and
discouraging. thank you for your thoughts on this issue; i hope open
discussion ensues

------
gonzo
I'm old enough that I saw the original screenings of "The Jungle Book" and
"The Shakiest Gun in the West" at the Huntridge. I was born in Vegas, my
father was born in Vegas, his father moved here to work on the dam during the
depression.

After helping Danny Greenspun start several local tech things in the early
80s, I made a break for Texas.

So, no, I'm not "local", even though as I type this I _am_ in Vegas, helping
my father deal with a bunch of crooked Mormons in Southern Utah.

Vegas could do worse than Hsieh, and people here should be happy that anyone
is interested in rebuilding the unnatural act that is Las Vegas.

------
jlubawy
As a background: I'm a Las Vegas native who lived there for 18 years but moved
to California to go to school and find a job as an electrical engineer. My
parents both moved to Las Vegas when they were young, ended up going to school
at UNLV, and they are still working and living in Las Vegas to this day.

\---

The reason states like California attract the worlds best and brightest
engineers is because of its institutions of higher learning. Would Silicon
Valley exist as it does today without the Stanfords and the Berkleys, I don't
think so. Much of the rest of California benefits in the same way:

    
    
       * San Jose      - 5.8% employed are engineers (http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_41940.htm#17-0000)
       * San Diego     - 3.0% employed are engineers (http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_41740.htm#17-0000)
       * Los Angeles   - 1.9% employed are engineers (http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_31100.htm#17-0000)
       * Reno, NV      - 1.3% employed are engineers (http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_39900.htm#17-0000)
       * Las Vegas, NV - 0.9% employed are engineers (http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_39900.htm#17-0000)
    

At UNLV, less than 5% of all students are engineering majors
([https://bigfuture.collegeboard.org/college-university-
search...](https://bigfuture.collegeboard.org/college-university-
search/university-of-nevada-las-vegas)). Compared to the major California
schools (and the University of Nevada: Reno) that is a pitifully small amount
of students and it mirrors pretty closely the percentage of the population as
a whole:

    
    
       * UCSD        - 14% engineering majors (https://bigfuture.collegeboard.org/college-university-search/university-of-california-san-diego)
       * UC Berkeley - 12% engineering majors (https://bigfuture.collegeboard.org/college-university-search/university-of-california-berkeley)
       * UCLA        -  8% engineering majors (https://bigfuture.collegeboard.org/college-university-search/university-of-california-los-angeles)
       * UNR         -  8% engineering majors (https://bigfuture.collegeboard.org/college-university-search/university-of-nevada-reno)
    

For Las Vegas to compete as a technological powerhouse we need to work on
retaining local talent from the high schools because as someone who has seen
many friends (including myself) leave Las Vegas for a better education (and a
better overall experience), I think this is one thing that cannot and should
not be ignored.

Projects like the _Downtown Project_ will only help retain smart young people
in Las Vegas, it then becomes a process that keeps building on itself.

------
wilfra
Awesome read. This guy seems like he'd be fun to have a beer with.

That said: he reveals his hand at the end. His startup ideas have been
rejected, he's been told he has no chance of being funded in the future and is
generally disliked by the Vegas Tech community. So this is his butthurt
revenge (whether he realizes it or not).

That doesn't mean anything he said is untrue, but it means it's a certainty
there is another side to this story that would paint a much different picture
of the nature of the interactions between "Vegas Tech" and the downtown
"locals".

Having lived in Vegas for awhile, one key element he didn't mention which
could by itself explain why they keep to themselves, is safety. There have
probably been naive startup kids who have been mugged, conned, attacked,
hustled and worse. The easiest defense to this is to stick together and not
get involved with outsiders.

~~~
jzellis
Honestly? I've never sought money from the DTP, nor do I plan to. I have lots
of other contacts for VC if I seek it. :-)

My point was that I don't need them, which is why I'm okay with saying this
stuff where others in the community aren't.

But you're right: there are other sides to the story. If it interests you,
seek them out!

[Edit: actually, I spoke informally to some of them very briefly, very early
on in the timeline of all of this, about investing in my startup. I'd
forgotten that. But it never went anywhere and after a bit I realized it would
have been a bad fit anyway.]

~~~
velodrome
Nevada seems to rank pretty well as a business-friendly state.

Is Las Vegas/Nevada a good place to start a tech company?

------
tomphoolery
I don't relate much to this article but "I'd like to suggest that you find a
nice, quiet sofa in the Beat upon which to curl up on and go fuck yourself" is
a pretty funny insult when you think aboutt it...

------
slawco
tl;dr: Waaaah, the people with the money are making the rules and instead of
doing it better myself I'll just write some clever insults from my corner.

This is no different than dropping a Walmart in the middle of a small town and
crushing all the family businesses. It's not utopian but it is how nature
works. Those with the biggest teeth control the ecosystem. The only difference
is the modern world has decided to use a point system to measure power. Don't
like it? Strap on your entrepreneur hat and do it how you think it should be
done.

Oh, and teaching the "locals" who in the "ghetto" how to write HTML is not
going to change anything.

~~~
velodrome
"Oh, and teaching the "locals" who in the "ghetto" how to write HTML is not
going to change anything."

This argument is dumb. They are not going door to door asking people if they
want to learn HTML. Code School, Code Academy, Khan Academy do not expect the
local community to learn to code. Those who are interested will go seek them
out. It's more like - if you build it, they will come.

The people in the "ghetto" are kind of trouble in the short term. But they are
in trouble everywhere. If these mogul(s) can pull it off, they can help create
a more viable jobs pool. There needs to be more influx of money into the
ecosystem, improvement in quality of education, and a shift away from the
casino business.

Basically, Las Vegas needs to be more family-friendly if it expects to be like
a tech hub like San Francisco.

~~~
jzellis
Agreed, and we're actually going off of the Codecademy/Khan Academy course
tracks for what we're teaching.

But I don't think the moguls are creating more jobs here. They're importing
people from elsewhere -- I'd say literally 75% of better of the Vegas Tech
crowd hasn't been in town for more than six months. And they've shown zero
interest in improving local education, either within the school system or
independently. Unless you count Ruby meetup groups as education, which I
don't. ;-)

~~~
velodrome
I recently saw a PBS documentary on the birth of Silicon Valley. At one time,
it was place that had nothing except cheap land and lots of farms. Las Vegas
is kind of like this.

The key is to attract smart people. The problem with Las Vegas (or Nevada) is
that the amount of engineers per capita is very low (about half of that in
California).

Also, business does have an impact on higher education. If you look at
Stanford or Cal, they have a strong program in computer engineering. UCLA, USC
both are strong in medical sciences. UCSD strong in biopharma. It could be a
chicken and egg thing - at some point businesses will demand skilled technical
people from the universities and will adapt their programs accordingly.

Meetups allow me to learn from my peers. I would call that an educational
tool. I suppose it depends what kind of meetups you go to...I like the
powerpoint kind.

