41–48 of 48 posts
Sounds like he is trying to build Silicon Valley in Vegas. Reminds me of this PG essay: http://www.paulgraham.com/maybe.html Or this one: http://www.paulgraham.com/siliconvalley.html
One things they're missing is a major university. Not sure that would ever work in Vegas.
It's not really clear that this is actually a new startup, but regardless of that, investing in Las Vegas real estate strikes me as an extremely bold move.
Yes, extremely bold move. Take this as someone who had a company move to Vegas and more than half (including myself) the company left because of it. There is a certain type of people that can stand the culture and atmosphere that is Vegas, and intelligent tech people usually aren't that type.
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One things they're missing is a major university. Not sure that would ever work in Vegas.
UNLV is pretty big.
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UNLV is pretty big.
I suspect he meant "major" in terms of research and reputation more than size. Something to play the same role as Stanford/Berkeley in the Bay Area or MIT/Harvard in Boston.
I'd be really interested in doing a tech startup (well, moving one) to Las Vegas -- aside from a stupid Clark County registration law, and the risk of financial/social problems due to so many foreclosures, it would be great. Good infrastructure, cheap flights, super cheap housing (sign me up for a 4500 sf McMansion for $300k...), etc. Easy to get people to visit for a few weeks at a time, easy to get hotels, generall…
Wow, you sound like a cool outfit. Mind telling me more? :)
Since when did real estate speculation become a "startup?"
And he wants to develop more residential areas in the city with the highest foreclosure rate in the US? And among the cities with the most empty houses.
I hate to be critical, but...this seems like a bad idea. $350 million is also probably not enough money to create significant impact - to do anything on the scale of a neighborhood or borough, you are talking a multibillion dollar project.
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Your excitement about what Haieh is doing is awesome, but what does it have to do with Jobs? One of the biggest annoyances I have with the tech press is their tendency to throw Apple/Jobs into any article, no matter how unrelated. I'm gonna have to call your comment out for the same thing. I'm excited about it too, but the men had completely different approaches for different industries and, while I'm trying to stay…
Both are massively successful business leaders in IT both with different interpersonal approaches. I think comparing their managerial styles is interesting important, especially if startup try to emulate them.
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If he turns into Hank Scorpio, sign me up! In all seriousness, though, I think this could turn out like the SLU neighborhood here in Seattle. Paul Allen bought all the land and turned it into a major biotech hub, and now Amazon, tech stars, and others are taking it over.
Unless things have dramatically changed in the last 6 months since I left Seattle, SLU is still kind of a failure. The big vanity streetcar Paul Allen wanted got built, and is still as useless as ever. He wanted "mass transit" in his neighborhood, but it's neither frequent enough, nor fast enough, to really make a difference. SLU remains as isolated from the rest of Seattle as ever, except now a lot of people are for…