Mr. Hsieh, who died at 46, tried to revitalize a corner of the city by attracting others entrepreneurs.
It was his own personal sandbox, a real-life Sim City that he spent $350 million to build in a neglected corner of Las Vegas, just north of the flash and crowds of the Strip. Tony Hsieh, who died at 46 on Friday from injuries suffered in a house fire earlier this month, was known for running Zappos, a giant online company that sold shoes. But the biggest imprint that Mr. Hsieh left behind is perhaps in downtown Las Vegas, which he transformed with the money he made selling Zappos to Amazon in 2009. “How many opportunities in a lifetime do you have to help shape the future of a major city?” Mr. Hsieh asked in a 2013 speech, in which he vowed to turn downtown Las Vegas into “the most community-focused large city in the world.” That year he moved Zappos’ headquarters into the old City Hall building. He tried to increase the number of what he called “collisions” between interesting people in streets and cafes by adding public art and making downtown more walkable. He pitched his friends on moving their start-up ideas to his sandbox, luring hundreds of entrepreneurs. He called his effort the Downtown Project, and it attracted glowing — if sometimes wary — reviews. As Mr. Hsieh’s transformation moved forward, though, more people began to question the tech executive’s charge into the city. Several people quit the Downtown Project soon after it started, including one key employee who blasted the investment company’s management in an open letter in September 2014 as “a collage of decadence, greed, and missing leadership.” That month, Mr. Hsieh abruptly stepped down from the project as it laid off dozens of employees. He moved out of a luxury apartment and into an Airstream trailer in a trailer park he had built downtown where he kept alpacas as pets. Critics argued that his project had made the city more expensive in a state where affordable housing is already difficult to find. Mr. Hsieh said in 2016 that one of his biggest regrets with the project was not building housing quickly enough.
