Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Joe Downtown: Tony Hsieh leads Ashton Kutcher on downtown tour

Ashton Kutcher and Tony Hsieh

Joe Schoenmann

Zappos executive Fred Mossler, left, actor Ashton Kutcher, center, and Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh pause Thursday afternoon outside the Construction Zone speaker trailer near Seventh and Fremont streets. Hsieh was giving Kutcher a tour of many of the Downtown Project undertakings in the Fremont East Entertainment District.

Actor Ashton Kutcher ate Thursday afternoon at Eat restaurant and toured some of the many Downtown Project undertakings in the Fremont East Entertainment District, including the Container Park, with his friend and Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh.

A Zappos spokeswoman said the two have known each other for a few years, a relationship due partly to the fact that Hsieh is connected to a new University of Iowa class, “Reimagining Downtown,” that focuses exclusively on Downtown Las Vegas.

An Iowa native, Kutcher, 35, attended the University of Iowa before being “discovered.”

He was in Las Vegas at the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association convention. Kutcher co-founded Katalyst Network, described as a studio for social media and is regarded as the first person on Twitter to have 1 million followers.

In Las Vegas Thursday, he reportedly said about Twitter: “The media came and (expletived) it up.” (For more on that story, go to “CNNMoney.")

Walking with Hsieh and Kutcher were Fred Mossler, one of the top people at Zappos and a Downtown Project investor, and Jeanne Markel, Zappos Downtown Team director.

Joe Schoenmann doesn’t just cover downtown, he lives and works there. Schoenmann is Greenspun Media Group’s embedded downtown journalist, working from an office in the Emergency Arts building.

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