'Silicon Beach' brings tech boom to Los Angeles

[Evergrey]

http://www.centredaily.com/2014/10/2...ml?sp=/99/188/

'Silicon Beach' brings tech boom to Los Angeles


In this Sept. 27, 2014 photo, a man in a dress shirt and sport jacket skateboards his way along the Venice beach boardwalk in Los Angeles. The relocation of tech companies to southern California is part of a growing movement of U.S. cities seeking to duplicate the formula that turned northern California’s Silicon Valley, slightly south of San Francisco, into a mecca of society-shifting innovation and immense wealth. RICHARD VOGEL — AP Photo


LOS ANGELES — So long Silicon Valley. These days entrepreneurs and engineers are flocking to a place better known for wave surfing than Web surfing. Amid the palm trees and purple sunsets of the Southern California coastline, techies have built "Silicon Beach."

In the past few years Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and YouTube have opened offices on the west side of Los Angeles from Santa Monica south to Venice and Playa del Rey. They are joined by hundreds of startups including Hulu, Demand Media and Snapchat, which nixed a $3 billion takeover offer from Facebook. Major Hollywood players like The Walt Disney Co. and Time Warner Inc.'s Warner Bros. have launched startup accelerators to help local tech entrepreneurs. The city of Los Angeles even hired its first chief technology officer, former Qualcomm executive Peter Marx, earlier this year.

"Historically, Silicon Valley has been the center of gravity for tech and startups but I think more and more, these types of companies can be built anywhere," says Erik Rannala, who moved from San Francisco to Los Angeles with his entrepreneurial partner William Hsu several years ago.

Rannala and Hsu oversee MuckerLab, a technology incubator in Santa Monica, California, that has invested in 45 startups such as flower marketplace BloomNation and online tuxedo rental outfit The Black Tux. Many of the ideas for the companies were hatched in MuckerLab's concrete-walled space, which is covered with white boards and sticky tabs.

The vibe is eclectic. No office-park chic here. Graffiti murals mix with coffee shops, foodie scenes, and boutiques. Companies allocate ample space for bikes and surfboards so employees can hit the beach after work.

Social media software maker Epoxy TV, founded by Juan Bruce and Jason Ahmad, is located in a Venice complex formerly owned by the late actor Dennis Hopper. They still get his mail. One of Hopper's sculptures adorns the yard and inside, there's a staircase to nowhere designed by renowned Los Angeles architect Frank Gehry. The Venice scene also has helped online razor service Dollar Shave Club recruit employees, according to founder and Philadelphia native Michael Dubin.

"It's very different to be at the heart of Venice than to be in the heart of Mountain View," says Epoxy TV's Ahmad. "Culturally it's just a vastly different place."

...

[LosAngelesSportsFan]

LA's tech scene has been booming over the last few years and its finally starting to get the VC thats required. Its started in Venice / Santa Monica and as rents have gone up and vacancies have dropped to less than 10 percent, it has spilled over to the adjoining communities and the tech scene is responsible for the boom in those areas. Now we are hearing of tech companies scouting Downtown LA as well so we are hoping the wave hits DT and pumps even more money and life into the core. With the expo line to Santa Monica at the finish line, you can go between downtown LA and Santa Monica in about 40 minutes so its bound to happen in my opinion.

[Quixote]

TrueCar
NANTHEALTH
Fuhu
Cornerstone OnDemand
Rubicon Project

Those are also worth mentioning.

[mello]

This is great for LA still waiting for something like this to happen in San Diego. We don't really have a lot of office space by the beach however. There is the dynamic of having Tijuana production and talent available which is unique. Talk lately of a boom coming with Tech innovators living in SD but having employees and production in TJ hopefully this gets rolling.

How many employees on average do these companies in LA have? Do they just have small offices that are 5000 sq. feet or less? Southern CA needs all the help it can get and there is bound to be some spill over from the Bay Area as it has been booming with Tech for so long now.

[MolsonExport]

the fake tits? i thought that was Van Nuys dept (Silicone Valley), but I guess the latter lacks a beach.


bodycosmetica

[llamaorama]

That guy on the skateboard; Don't let 1995 die. You are the bad guy from the movie Hackers. We are counting on you. Keep it alive. Preserve the dream. Love the look, I get my suit separates at Goodwill too and wear them with jeans all the time.

I know it's not an "innovative" organization in the slightest, but isn't ICANN in Playa Vista? I heard they were kinda important to the internet magic tubes or something.

[Quixote]

LA needs to build a more robust economy, and the best way for it to evolve and mature is by growing the tech sector. It needs to be a major leader in professional/technical services, aerospace/defense, and cleantech incubation. Also, there's enough local intellectual capital and resources for LA to have a larger presence in the IT and biotech sectors. Those don't need to represent as large a percentage of the economic pie as they do in the Bay Area and Boston, but it should have a sizable lead over NYC... which it doesn't, if at all.

Time to move away from the heavy focus on entertainment and international trade.

[krudmonk]

When the real Silicon Valley breeds bros, bros flock to their homeland.

[Shawn]

Fantastic for LA, we use Rubicon extensively as an audience delivery platform, it's industry best-in-class.

But good God, drop the Silicon Beach branding. There are dozens of Silicon Whatevers throughout the country, and there are just endless put downs available around what Molson posted above.

[dc_denizen]

places like LB, the beaches, Venice etc seem like the perfect place for tech start ups.

go LA!

[Austinlee]

Originally Posted by llamaorama

That guy on the skateboard; Don't let 1995 die. You are the bad guy from the movie Hackers. We are counting on you. Keep it alive. Preserve the dream. Love the look, I get my suit separates at Goodwill too and wear them with jeans all the time.

I know it's not an "innovative" organization in the slightest, but isn't ICANN in Playa Vista? I heard they were kinda important to the internet magic tubes or something.

BWHAHAHAHAHAHA. You are my hero.

[Austinlee]

Originally Posted by Shawn

Fantastic for LA, we use Rubicon extensively as an audience delivery platform, it's industry best-in-class.

But good God, drop the Silicon Beach branding. There are dozens of Silicon Whatevers throughout the country, and there are just endless put downs available around what Molson posted above.

Says the guy from the Silicon Rice Bowl

[Shawn]

Originally Posted by Austinlee

Says the guy from the Silicon Rice Bowl

Ha, that's not too bad actually. But the real moniker they use around here is Bit Valley, a play on how Shibuya's kanji directly translate: Bitter Valley. Kind of clever.

[Swede]

La getting more tech companies makes sense. Most major cities are, aren't they? and that these tech companies tend to cluster... nothing new about that either.
I'm more interested in what took LA so long?

The suburb I grew up in has been called Sweden' Silicon Valley for at least 20 years. It got old over a decade ago.

[ukw]

A huge problem with these West-Coast tech areas is the skewed sex ratio. There are no women there. "What they don't want you to know," wrote one tech expert addressing young men seeking fortunes there, "is that you will be sexually frustrated and lonely."

[mhays]

That's probably true in any tech-heavy region, or at least in any tech-heavy neighborhood. It's most evident to outsiders in an urban area where people walk to work, like Seattle's Amazon-dominated districts.

[krudmonk]

Originally Posted by ukw

A huge problem with these West-Coast tech areas is the skewed sex ratio. There are no women there. "What they don't want you to know," wrote one tech expert addressing young men seeking fortunes there, "is that you will be sexually frustrated and lonely."

You are conflating the industry with a region as a whole. Only workaholics and/or workplace-socialized people, who never leave the tech sphere, experience this.

[Quixote]

LAEDC recently released a comprehensive report on LA County's high tech industry for 2013 (http://laedc.org/wp-content/uploads/...0141006_FF.pdf). The average wage across all sectors was about $87,000. That's where your high-paying jobs are. But they account for only 9% of the workforce; ideally it'd be 15-18%.

L.A. County Has Most High Tech Jobs in Country

By Melissah Yang
October 6, 2014

Los Angeles has more high-tech jobs than any other metro region in the country, including its northern neighbors in Silicon Valley, according to a report released Monday.

The county in 2013 employed more than 368,500 people in its high-tech sector, defined as businesses with a large proportion of technology-oriented jobs. The biggest high-tech segments for Los Angeles were in aerospace, wholesale production, engineering, consulting and computer software development. High tech made up 9 percent of all L.A. jobs, above employment numbers posted by manufacturing; accommodation and food services; and trade and logistics.

“Los Angeles’ tech industry is now as critical to our economy as our manufacturing and entertainment sectors – and we are outperforming New York, Boston, and Santa Clara County, in the heart of Silicon Valley,” said Mayor Eric Garcetti in statement. “If we want to keep it that way, we must ensure our workforce and our students are prepared.”

High tech contributed $58.7 billion in labor income and $108 billion to regional GDP. It also generated $21.8 billion in tax revenues for federal, state and local governments.

The 2013 report was authored by Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp., a nonprofit whose mission is to attract and grow businesses for the region.

http://www.labusinessjournal.com/new...-jobs-country/

[fflint]

Originally Posted by Quixote

LAEDC released a comprehensive report on LA County's high tech industry (http://laedc.org/wp-content/uploads/...0141006_FF.pdf). The average wage across all sectors in 2013 was about $87,000. That's where your high-paying jobs are.

http://www.labusinessjournal.com/new...-jobs-country/

In order to arrive at their conclusions, they had to compare apples with oranges and lemons. They chose to compare Los Angeles County with one Bay Area county (which they disingenuously refer to as "Silicon Valley"), with Cook County, with the City of New York, with Boston's entire MSA, and with the combination of Raleigh's and Chapel Hill's MSAs.

And don't get me started on what they are defining as "high tech." It's ridiculous.

[tech12]

Originally Posted by Quixote

LAEDC released a comprehensive report on LA County's high tech industry: http://laedc.org/wp-content/uploads/...0141006_FF.pdf



http://www.labusinessjournal.com/new...-jobs-country/

That's cool, except for the fact that the article is trying to say that Santa Clara county is the same as "Silicon Valley". It's not though, it's a part of silicon valley, not the whole thing. According to that report, Santa Clara county has 313,000 high tech jobs, which is fewer than LA county, but when you also include San Mateo and Alameda counties, so that you're actually including the all of Silicon Valley (and even SF, depending on how you want define "Silicon Valley"), I doubt LA county would still have more tech jobs.

edit: yeah, what fflint said.