5 ms·

I've been living in West LA since 2008. It's certainly exploded recently in terms of startups as Google, Snapchat, Riot Games and SpaceX have expanded their pre

I've been living in West LA since 2008. It's certainly exploded recently in terms of startups as Google, Snapchat, Riot Games and SpaceX have expanded their presences. The West LA area has always had a strong tech presence from the gaming, advertising, and defense industries though, going back many decades.

Hydraulix989 10y ago
I was kicking around the idea of looking for a tech job in LA a while back. The names you mentioned seemed to be the ONLY ones worth pursuing. It's just not the same as San Francisco.
- danielmorozoff 10y ago
  You can always work at jpl
- LAMan5000 10y ago
  Yeah, I moved here about two years ago. The other big difference between LA and SF is like, the penalty for not working close to where you live is absolutely brutal. Taking BART or the subway is moderately annoying, but driving from the Silver Lake to Venice every day is absolutely horrifying. So in Venice you got Google and Snapchat, although apparently most of Google is getting moved down to Playa Vista, you got a handful of small startups, lots of VR companies led by people with media rather than technical backgrounds (maybe that's fine?), and that's about it. Nearby you got EA in Playa del Rey (kill me), you got some old companies in Santa Monica and a couple more startups that don't seem interesting necessarily. Even SpaceX is a pretty far cruise from the Santa Monica/Venice area, but there are a bunch more companies that hire engineers in that El Segundo area, but not necessarily ones that you would want to work at. It's interesting, certainly, and I think the Snapchat IPO will lead to a lot of rich guys suddenly turning angel and so on. LA has basically never had any real exits until very recently (dollar shave, snapchat), which has limited the development of the ecosystem. Every old guy in LA is like "did you know I founded Myspace?" Based on my time in LA, I would have to estimate the number of founders of Myspace around 3-500. Also stamps dot com. In summary, I would say LA is pretty much like New York City circa 2005. The complete secret weapon of LA though is UCLA. The quality of graduates coming out of UCLA computer science is staggering, and from the hiring side, they're not competed for or recruited as heavily as say Stanford kids.
  - kaspm 10y ago
    Worked in Tech in Los Angeles since 2000. Although lesser known as "tech" companies, there are several companies that have large investments in serious technology in LA: Disney NBCU (specifically Fandango, parts of former M-Go) Ticketmaster/Live Nation eHarmony Edmunds.com The Honest Company Other Tech companies left off the list: Hulu Yahoo (much smaller than before) AOL Hyperloop One and Faraday Future are coming up
    - Hydraulix989 10y ago
      Interesting, they're all media companies.
      - dba7dba 10y ago
        Yes. In LA almost all serious tech jobs are media company related.
        disordr 10y ago
        Factual.com Location Data company with some serious tech chops.
        tzs 10y ago
        What about aerospace and defense?
      - kaspm 10y ago
        Perhaps "media" is too broad a term. I think there's a concentration of certain types of industries - entertainment video, gaming, ecommerce, adtech, automotive, some fintech, some social media. What there isn't a lot of is "engineering", "cloud", "enterprise" technology. The GitHubs, Herokus, AWSs of the world are not yet here in LA. For those of us who are engineering focused, we generally do tech for companies that don't "sell" technology to other engineers, that's focused in SF and Seattle. Not any less valid just a different audience.
    - santaclaus 10y ago

Hydraulix989 10y ago

I was kicking around the idea of looking for a tech job in LA a while back. The names you mentioned seemed to be the ONLY ones worth pursuing. It's just not the same as San Francisco.

danielmorozoff 10y ago
You can always work at jpl
LAMan5000 10y ago
Yeah, I moved here about two years ago. The other big difference between LA and SF is like, the penalty for not working close to where you live is absolutely brutal. Taking BART or the subway is moderately annoying, but driving from the Silver Lake to Venice every day is absolutely horrifying. So in Venice you got Google and Snapchat, although apparently most of Google is getting moved down to Playa Vista, you got a handful of small startups, lots of VR companies led by people with media rather than technical backgrounds (maybe that's fine?), and that's about it. Nearby you got EA in Playa del Rey (kill me), you got some old companies in Santa Monica and a couple more startups that don't seem interesting necessarily. Even SpaceX is a pretty far cruise from the Santa Monica/Venice area, but there are a bunch more companies that hire engineers in that El Segundo area, but not necessarily ones that you would want to work at. It's interesting, certainly, and I think the Snapchat IPO will lead to a lot of rich guys suddenly turning angel and so on. LA has basically never had any real exits until very recently (dollar shave, snapchat), which has limited the development of the ecosystem. Every old guy in LA is like "did you know I founded Myspace?" Based on my time in LA, I would have to estimate the number of founders of Myspace around 3-500. Also stamps dot com. In summary, I would say LA is pretty much like New York City circa 2005. The complete secret weapon of LA though is UCLA. The quality of graduates coming out of UCLA computer science is staggering, and from the hiring side, they're not competed for or recruited as heavily as say Stanford kids.
- kaspm 10y ago
  Worked in Tech in Los Angeles since 2000. Although lesser known as "tech" companies, there are several companies that have large investments in serious technology in LA: Disney NBCU (specifically Fandango, parts of former M-Go) Ticketmaster/Live Nation eHarmony Edmunds.com The Honest Company Other Tech companies left off the list: Hulu Yahoo (much smaller than before) AOL Hyperloop One and Faraday Future are coming up
  - Hydraulix989 10y ago
    Interesting, they're all media companies.
    - dba7dba 10y ago
      Yes. In LA almost all serious tech jobs are media company related.
      - disordr 10y ago
        Factual.com Location Data company with some serious tech chops.
      - tzs 10y ago
        What about aerospace and defense?
    - kaspm 10y ago
      Perhaps "media" is too broad a term. I think there's a concentration of certain types of industries - entertainment video, gaming, ecommerce, adtech, automotive, some fintech, some social media. What there isn't a lot of is "engineering", "cloud", "enterprise" technology. The GitHubs, Herokus, AWSs of the world are not yet here in LA. For those of us who are engineering focused, we generally do tech for companies that don't "sell" technology to other engineers, that's focused in SF and Seattle. Not any less valid just a different audience.
  - santaclaus 10y ago