I've been trying to avoid what-city-will-replace-SF chatter.

But I have strong opinions based on my experience in Las Vegas with my now passed business partner Tony Hsieh. https://twitter.com/rabois/status/1345473161068875776

First some history. Zappos moved to Las Vegas in 2004 and over time grew into a suburban office complex in the suburbs.

As we outgrew our campus we considered building something traditional...but that path didn't feel right.

Separately a few of us were hanging out in Downtown Las Vegas. Not the strip, but the old strip.

The area east of Las Vegas Blvd along Fremont St had a small but thriving community of bars, coffee shops and generally cool people.

It was 2010 so it also had some failed condo buildings and vast swaths of empty land.

We were certainly not the first to see the potential of living in a walkable Las Vegas, in fact the work of the early pioneers were *why* we did it.

Through a developer friend we learned that Las Vegas City Hall was moving and the old building (which resembles a toilet bowl) was about to be be razed to build a stadium.

A very long story later, we announced we were moving our HQ there.

At the time I led product for Zappos.

Tony asked me to step away from tech to build the campus. I knew nothing about real estate development and it was a 6.5 acre, 300k sq foot rehab with a $60M budget.

At that point our vision was limited to the campus complex. We envisioned something like NYU, where the city and the campus blend coherently.

Meanwhile Tony and I had moved to one of the downtown condo buildings that was 95% vacant.

Our 9-5 was doing Zappos things and from 5pm to the wee hours of the morning we were meeting with anyone who would say yes to sitting down.

We hired experts, sat down with TED speakers, you name them, we met with them.

Large institutions wouldn't touch Las Vegas. It was the center of the universe of the economic debacles of 2008-10.

The top floor 3BR I rented was once selling for almost $2m. The building failed and so did its bank.

My rent was $1500.

Tony's way of describing our vision was "to create the most community-focused large city in the world."

We weren't trying to create another SF, in fact both of us had lived there and even in 2010 we were pretty clear about its issues.

More importantly we didn't think that kind of hub needed to exist. We agreed with @SteveCase...startups should thrive in lots of places.

We were obsessed with figuring out the recipe that made such a place work.

We felt that a thriving startup hub has four things:

1) proximity to interesting people from different backgrounds
2) space to gather
3) upwardly mobile opportunities of all company sizes
4) affordable, high quality of life

Las Vegas was already an incredible place to live and raise a family.

Diverse & incredible food, cheap housing, good business climate, great outdoor life.

But everything was distributed across the large metro. It lacked density of #1-#3.

We weren't the government. #4 wasn't our thing.

We were fortunate to have city and state partners to work with. We shared our opinions but otherwise left #4 to them.

#1-#3 were our focus.

So we launched a company outside of Zappos, Downtown Project.

And over the next year we acquired and redeveloped ~41 acres of land and buildings.

We launched funds focused on investing in small business entrepreneurs, early-stage startups, art and education projects and a ton more.

Nearly $500M.

Someday I'll write a thread about the technicals of managing all of that acquisition, development, government relations, etc.. It was wild.

But back to tech hubs.

Tony's reach was a secret weapon.

He would invite interesting people to Las Vegas and we'd put them up for free in one of the 40+ apartments we'd rented and furnished in our building.

He inspired and I moved dirt and spreadsheets.

Our (large) team built schedules tailored to each of them to help them collide with others and experience the neighborhood.

A LOT of them moved there.

This was all very public. And at this point I should make note that our work was not perfect.

We were learning as we went and received a lot of praise and criticism.

I could write a million words about what we learned. Here are a few:

Access to early-stage capital is critical for a startup hub.

BUT, equally as important an ecosystem of big, medium and small companies.

Big companies are a breeding ground for great talent. They are also a safety net for startup teams that fail.

You'll take more risks when you feel confident you can get a job if you fail.

Zappos was one of those big companies but we needed more to make the recipe work.

It was a chicken and egg problem.

Big tech companies follow the talent and talent follows the big tech companies.

This is hard to get right.

Regarding local-focused VCs.

Early at @VTFCapital we only invested in LV-based companies (or those willing to relocate).

We deployed more $ in Nevada than any other VC to date.

Our local focus only created a lot of opportunities for startups in the short-term but in many cases did those companies a disservice.

Later stage VCs don't care about the economic impact, they care about momentum.

Location-focused VCs generally aren't successful.

They develop a reputation of being more economic development oriented than good company oriented.

If you invest in a company primarily because it's based in your city/state and it creates 30 jobs, what happens to those jobs when it can't raise an A round?

We thought of Brad Feld and adjusted course.

You're more useful to your community if you are a successful VC who happens to be based there.

So to sum it all up, I'm rooting for a lot of great cities to become places where great companies can thrive and people can live awesome lives.

The recipe is complicated.

More importantly I'm not sure another SF *needs* to exist anymore.

And for those that say well what about access to VCs

Venture capital investment hit at a record in 2020 when everyone used Zoom....