Hsieh reportedly spends a great deal of time downtown, usually surrounded by a posse of ten or more. A genuine enthusiasm for Las Vegas shows up in the aesthetics of the built environment: the design review process makes sure that if a business puts up a new sign, they put up a neon one - or at least a reasonable imitation thereof. The Zappos CEO’s love of gambling, partying, the famously countercultural Nevada desert festival Burning Man, electronic music and, yes, llamas (word has it the border of the 60-acre holding is in the shape of one) appear to colour much of the neighbourhood’s new development. You can’t blame people for making the assumption: not only did the $350m the Downtown Project used to buy 60 acres of the city and invest in businesses established there come straight from Hsieh himself, but the look and feel of the resultant neighborhood-in-progress aligns closely with what few aspects of Hsieh’s personality the public knows. “I’ve never considered myself as being in ‘day-to-day management’ of Downtown Project.” The project is not Zappos’s push to revitalise downtown Las Vegas, despite its move from suburban Henderson to the former city hall – a 1973 piece of high governmental modernism located right downtown, near the fruits of much of the Downtown Project’s investment.Īnd nor is it technically helmed by Hsieh himself: “I am the CEO of but I’ve never referred to myself as the CEO of Downtown Project,” he clarified, too late, in a damage-control statement. The Downtown Project has long had trouble making people understand exactly what it is - and, perhaps more importantly, what it isn’t. Those with high hopes for the Downtown Project can find some relief in the fact that it hasn’t actually disintegrated, but they still have cause to worry at how the story of the layoffs got away from them - Hsieh soon came forward with clarifications, but the damage was done. I found America’s most ambitious private urban development effort continuing, if not apace, then at least at a pace. The story fairly demands an apocalyptic ending.īut that apocalypse hasn’t come – not yet. The euphoria does not prevent some some suicides occurring. The story presents no end of elephantine symbols, metaphors and ironies: Zappos turns Las Vegas City Hall into its new headquarters a hub of win-big-or-lose-everything technology startup culture opens in the centre of American casino culture Hsieh, in his role as eccentric and charismatic prophet (and author of a bestseller called Delivering Happiness), leads his followers into his future utopia in the desert. Gould’s tone fits with the drama that has characterised the Downtown Project since its inception. There were heroes among us,” he added, “and it is for them that my soul weeps.” A damning open letter from the Downtown Project’s former “director of imagination”, David Gould, called the operation from which he had just resigned “a collage of decadence, greed and missing leadership. Alongside portentous headlines announcing this “bloodletting” appeared claims that Hsieh had “stepped down” from his position of leadership of the project. Yet by late September of this year, the press – especially the technology press – had begun asking some serious questions, as the Downtown Project suddenly laid off 30 people – 10% of the total it then directly employed.
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