Excerpts from “Tony Hsieh Is Building a
Startup Paradise in Vegas” by Susan Berfield published December 30, 2014 in
Bloomberg Businessweek.
When Hsieh met Ashton Allen, co-founder of
Rabbit!, he called it a “serendipitous collision.”
That was in 2010, at a conference in Hawaii.
[…]
“We’re maximizing long-term ROC and ROL,
return on collisions and return on
luck. We’re accelerating serendipity.”
[…]
“We’re starting to understand what
opportunities there are that could potentially both generate profitability and
also a return on collision,” says
Maggie Hsu, who’s focused on business development at the Downtown Project.
[…]
Now there’s a consultant who advises
entrepreneurs. His company is called ROCeteer (ROC, as in Return on Collisions).
[…]
Downs says the Downtown Project is
considering leasing some unused property to other developers. Hsieh would
become a landlord, earning a return on investment if not collision.
[…]
“When we first started, we thought we had
to invest a lot in residential, we thought we had to build high-rises or lots
of small spaces to get a return on collision,”
he tells the executives.
[…]
“Someone like me, I’m out in a collisionable way three or four hours a
day, seven days a week. So I’m worth about 1,000 collisionable hours a year.”
[…]
“We did the math on Jake. When he’s here,
he’s out about 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, for 12 weeks a year. So he’s
worth 1,000 collisionable
hours, too.”
Hsieh began to apply this metric to
investments that might not make money for a while. “Say we want 100,000 collisionable hours a year from an investment.
That works out to 2.3 hours per square foot per year,” he says, with a
slight smile.
[…]
“We’re kind of agnostic about what goes
into a space. It’s ‘are you going to yield those collisionable hours?’ If not, we can say no without judging the
quality of the idea.”
Determining the number of interactions
between people and their value had been Jorgensen’s job. He was the collision scientist, until he was
dismissed.
[…]
A recent public document from the Downtown
Project says: “Goal: 10 million collisionable
hours per year inside the llama footprint.” Llamas are Hsieh’s talisman; the
60 acres he owns roughly form the shape of one.
[…]
The former collision scientist is in an Airstream. Hsieh has one, too.
