I'm a tech CEO who moved from California to Nevada after my home was burglarized. I feel safer in Las Vegas, which has nearly everything San Francisco had and more.

• Teddy Liaw is a tech CEO who left San Francisco for a Las Vegas suburb in 2021.

• Liaw said he was concerned about crime in the Bay Area and wanted a family-friendly, lively city.

• Since moving, Liaw said it's his mission to introduce others to everything Vegas has to offer.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Teddy Liaw, the 45-year-old CEO of the contact-center solutions company NexRep, who moved from San Francisco to Summerlin, Nevada, a Las Vegas suburb, in 2021 after he grew frustrated by crime in the Bay Area. Liaw founded the Vegas Tech Summit, a multiday tech conference promoting Vegas as a burgeoning tech center.

The following has been edited for length and clarity.

I absolutely loved the Bay Area. I loved the culture, the food, the people, the intellect, and the gorgeous views of the water surrounding an amazing city.

But COVID-19 absolutely wrecked the city. It's not the same San Francisco as before. It's still rebounding, and it's not all the way back yet.

I'd been living in San Francisco for about 15 years before I moved. I owned a condo on top of the hill that had a gorgeous bay view.

The Bay Area had so much to offer, including a thriving entrepreneurial and tech ecosystem that made very smart people smarter.

But during the pandemic, it seemed like crime was becoming more rampant. I don't appreciate it when people turn it into a homelessness issue because San Francisco has had homeless people before and found ways to provide services. That was the narrative during COVID. But it's not a homelessness issue. It was a safety issue.

At the end of 2020, my house was burglarized. My experience with law enforcement was not positive. That was the last straw.

I've got two young kids, and I asked myself: Is this the type of environment that will be safe for my family? The answer, unfortunately, was no.

Everywhere was on the table

I was considering Los Angeles, Washington state, and Texas.

I decided to go on a scouting trip to Vegas in January 2021, right in the middle of COVID. The trip opened my eyes to what Vegas had to offer, including new houses, clean living, and ample playgrounds for children.

There was amazing food of all ethnicities, cuisines, and cultures. Vegas has all the entertainment you could want not far from family-friendly suburbs.

It became a very easy decision.

Summerlin is a master-planned residential community about 20 minutes from all the action. You can't go more than half a mile without running into a park. We're in a desert, but there's a lot of greenery.

Summerlin is designed for families. The community has an amazing list of school options from preschool through high school, including some of the top private schools in the state.

Plus, I like to play golf, and there are so many golf options.

I got close to 7,000 square feet and two swimming pools here for the same price I got my four-bedroom condo in the Bay Area. I needed a house that my friends wanted to visit.

As soon as I moved, I started inviting friends to come and visit. Many of them ended up being overwhelmed by what Vegas had to offer. I convinced a bunch of my friends to move. There is a whole wave of people I "imported" from California.

Everyone is always concerned about the 110-degree Fahrenheit heat, but in just 35 minutes, you can be at Mount Charleston, which can be 25 degrees cooler. Yes, we're in a desert, but we can drive 35 minutes and find sledding in the wintertime.

Quite frankly, Vegas has over-delivered on quality of life.

Vegas is well on its way to being a thriving tech ecosystem

There's nothing as good for work as the Bay Area. It offered serendipitous opportunities. Back in the day, you could get in a shared Uber, sit with the vice president of some tech company, and have a great 20-minute conversation. Or you could be at a restaurant and overhear an executive's conversation next to you. That was the spirit of San Francisco.

That magic of the Bay Area hasn't fully made its way to Vegas, but it's going to happen.

When I came to Vegas, I started meeting with public officials and was appointed to the previous governor's startup and venture council.

I later founded a nonprofit called Vegas Tech Summit. The event has already attracted successful entrepreneurs and tech folks from all over the country who come and see what Vegas offers.

My goal is to make people see that Vegas has the potential to be a thriving tech ecosystem, and we're well on our way to achieving that. I see a lot of venture capitalists and entrepreneurs who have already moved here.

You can't replace decades of friendship. But I've realized that there are so many new people moving here, and everybody's eager to find good people and build community.

That's the spirit of Vegas.

Read the original article on Business Insider