Off-topic: Bad economy foils Japan's Roppongi Hills
Roppongi Hills was the shining star. Without bankers money the sheen has worn off for the locals.
Dave Rosenberg Co-founder, MuleSource
Dave Rosenberg has more than 15 years of technology and marketing experience that spans from Bell Labs to startup IPOs to open-source and cloud software companies. He is CEO and founder of Nodeable, co-founder of MuleSoft, and managing director for Hardy Way. He is an adviser to DataStax, IT Database, and Puppet Labs.
If you're not familiar with Roppongi Hills, it's a giant development in Tokyo with high-end shops and housing. It's known for having lots of ex-pat bankers from Lehman, Goldman Sachs as locals and a bar/mating scene unlike anywhere else on earth.
But all is not well says the Times Online. The down economy and failing banks are dragging down the image of the area, despite a $4 billion developer investment.
It is Thursday night and Roppongi romance - or at least, the calculated brand of romance that used to be the currency in this Tokyo bar - is at death's door. Heartland, with its low lights and brushed-steel tables, has made its name as a favourite with the financial great and good and the occasional Japanese celebrity. In the warm months drinkers spill out on to the street. However, the bar that once boomed with British brokers, Australian traders, American hedge-fund managers and those Japanese women who would love them has fallen eerily silent. More damningly, says Heartland veteran and former Roppongi barmaid Eriko Masabuchi, it has gone "image down".
Roppongi Hills' bizarre (and sinking) subculture is profiled at the Times Online.
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