Las Vegas and the Ugly Truth about Diversification
Las Vegas and the Ugly Truth about Diversification The next big theme I want to talk about is: “Las Vegas and the Ugly Truth about Diversification.” I used to live in Las Vegas, and I love it there. It's wonderful, beautiful—an amazing city. It’s one of the few places in the world where you can find the most amazing restaurants open at 6 a.m. Vegas is a boom and bust town. It does amazingly well when the world is happy and wants to travel and spend money. It does terribly when the world is not happy, cannot travel and does not want to spend money. I was in Vegas just before the financial crisis of 2007, running all the way into 2008 and 2009. I was there at the launch of some major brand, and everyone was so excited and telling me about how Celine Dion had just bought a house in Vegas. I don't know if that was true—real estate agents will tell you anything to sell property. Then the financial crisis came and everything collapsed. Vegas said they would diversify—whether they actually meant it is another thing. They didn't really diversify much, or at least the fruits of…