Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh is endeavoring to do something more ambitious than ever before. He’s trying to transform 1.5 miles of arid, dust-caked downtown Las Vegas into a bustling entrepreneurial center with up to $350 million of his own money. The question is whether he can pull it off without someone to simply say, “no.”

Rumgr, a Las Vegas-based app developer that allows users to sell items on their mobile phones, has raised $500,000 in seed funding from Zappos executives Tony Hsieh, CEO; Arun Rajan, CTO; and Fred Mossler. Also joining the round is Andrew Donner, CEO and owner of Resort Gaming Group. Rumgr is currently only available on the [...]

On Tuesday, TechCrunch reported that celebrity entrepreneur Kevin Rose has raised $1.5 million for his startup, Milk, from a “wide syndicate of Valley elites.” “Wide” may be understating things. Fully 24 angels participated in the round at what I’m told was a pre-money valuation of $15 million. Among those on the star-studded list: Twitter cofounder Evan Williams, [...]

People typically react in one of three ways after we publish something they’d rather keep secret: (1) No comment; (2) Confirm and spin; and (3) Deny, deny, deny.

But now there is a fourth path: Deny loudly via an official statement to other news outlets (who accept it as gospel), and then admit the truth nearly one year later.

The culprit here is Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh. When his company agreed last July to be acquired by Amazon, peHUB reported the following:

“The decision to sell hot online shoe retailer Zappos to Amazon.com was more in line with the interests of Sequoia Capital than the company’s CEO, according to two sources close to the company… [Sequoia’s] Moritz and Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh came into conflict about the company’s future. Moritz, the sources say, wanted Zappos to sell while Hsieh wanted to remain independent.”

Hsieh responded swiftly with a statement that read, in part: