Vegas Again

I’m in Vegas for the Black Hat conference. Vegas is always a bit of a trip for me every time I come here. On one hand, I have to appreciate everything built here. It’s vast and gigantic adult playground with genuinely impressive buildings. I walk around and go, damn this is crazy. And I always have fun here. The food is good. I like to gamble a bit. And there’s no shortage of things to do.

On the other hand, it is a melting pot of craze in lots of bad ways. It’s not my vibe generally at this point of my life and that’s okay. I’m here for work and will sprinkle some fun in there, so that’s where I’ll be focusing this time around.

Like any major Vegas conference, it’s going to be hectic and extra in both great ways and bad. I’m always interested to see how some companies are burning VC money in the exhibition hall with the structures they are building. The ROI of these conferences have to be positive, right? I’d be curious to see a detailed analysis for a large subset of companies and how much new business actually get drummed up.