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"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 a

"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.

slawco 13y ago
He was the one calling it the place a ghetto. As you mentioned, bringing in more economic wealth will surely be better for the skilled and non-skilled alike. My argument is saying too much tech is the problem and then saying but I'm going to teach html is backwards.
jzellis 13y ago
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 13y ago
  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.
- regularfry 13y ago
  > And they've shown zero interest in improving local education, either within the school system or independently. Surely that'll change over time? If there's an influx of well-paid young people now, within 10 years you'll have a pulse of well-off freshly-minted parents working its way through the system, some of whom are going to be incensed enough to fix the problems they see. In theory that sort of improvement shouldn't have to be centrally directed.
lmm 13y ago
SF is one of the most family-unfriendly places in the whole US. No-one can afford to live there with kids.

slawco 13y ago

He was the one calling it the place a ghetto. As you mentioned, bringing in more economic wealth will surely be better for the skilled and non-skilled alike. My argument is saying too much tech is the problem and then saying but I'm going to teach html is backwards.

jzellis 13y ago

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 13y ago
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.
regularfry 13y ago
> And they've shown zero interest in improving local education, either within the school system or independently. Surely that'll change over time? If there's an influx of well-paid young people now, within 10 years you'll have a pulse of well-off freshly-minted parents working its way through the system, some of whom are going to be incensed enough to fix the problems they see. In theory that sort of improvement shouldn't have to be centrally directed.

lmm 13y ago

SF is one of the most family-unfriendly places in the whole US. No-one can afford to live there with kids.