

Ask HN: Anyone based in Los Angeles? - vonklaus

I am curious how many people are working in (or previously from) Los Angeles, and what the tech community is like. &#x27;Silicon Beach&#x27; is a moniker thrown around a lot and I was curious what the hot companies are (I know tinder, nasty gal, snapchat, myspace) and what people are working on in LA.
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byoung2
There is a lot of startup activity in Santa Monica and Venice, hence the
Silicon Beach name, but there are a few companies out in Hollywood and Beverly
Hills too. I interviewed at Whisper when they were still in a house in Santa
Monica, and it looked like a scene from a movie with beautiful people walking
around and lounging by the pool (not a lot of coding that I saw).

I work at a startup called Merchant Centric out in Westlake Village (not a
sexy startup hub). We make a dashboard for small businesses to manage their
listings and reply to reviews on yelp, google, Facebook, etc.

I'd like to see a bigger startup community in the San Fernando Valley area.
Woodland Hills/Warner Center is a hip place with lots of shopping, dining, and
(shockingly) public transportation, and housing costs are half what they are
in West LA.

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vonklaus
I concur. I spend a lot of time in Santa Monica and there seems to be a tech
presence but (as someone new to tech) it is really hard to get the signal from
the noise. I am really new, I am pretty proficient in HTML/CSS/SASS, JS and
becoming functional in RoR. I am trying to find people in the tech community
but there are a lot of people who have "App Ideas", are wantrapreneurs, or
trying to acquire talent but have no idea what talent is (mostly
media/entertainment/marketing people).

I just became comfortable talking about code, because I have pretty bad
imposter-syndrome but the true coders are few and far between. I have met some
cool and capable people at coloft (a coworking space) but the other spacing
and events I have gone too are mostly SEO/Marketing and publicists. It is
tough finding serious people on meetup.com. Carbonfive meetup is pretty legit,
but it is hard to really meet people and just discuss technology. I too wish
the community was bigger.

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dakrisht
Of course you're gonna have a ton of wantrepreneurs in LA, it's LA after all
and people like to do things that are cool, fashionable, hip; saying you "have
an app idea" or are "starting a startup" is becoming commonplace. And it's
always becoming increasingly annoying when meeting people and trying to have a
conversation of substance. I can't count how many seemingly bright (and
average) people I've met who have another idea for a chat app. Enough.

Additionally, you'll notice a ton of media/marketing/e-commerce in LA as this
is what the culture really revolves around here. You won't see much enterprise
or biotech as you would see in the Valley or San Diego, respectively. Social
is also popular since kids these days love the idea of "build chat app, grow
user base, raise tons of money, cash out." But most of knows these lottery
tickets are extremely rare.

Personally, I don't understand how companies like Nasty Gal or Dollar Shave
Club are tech by any means. Rolling out some e-commerce atop en existing
platform / site is simply online retail / subscription vs. having anything
propriety (they don't) but this is our my problem.

At my company, we do hardware, consumer electronics, software with AI and ML
and more challenging issues. Sure, we love to have fun and do things that we
enjoy but the whole "start another e-commerce site" is getting real old here.
I too find myself in a pickle at times trying to find people in the area who
love pure tech and can discuss and play around with things that matter. Way
too much "biz dev" idiots here who think a blog is the next tumblr.

DM via Twitter if you want to chat.

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issa
I'm in LA. Moved here a year ago from SF. If I had to put a number on the
difference, I'd say LA has about 20% the tech activity that SF has. Totally
unscientific.

I base this on attendance at meetups, activity at co-working spaces, average
skill/experience level of engineers I've met, and companies I've come across
as a consultant.

Santa Monica, Venice and Pasadena seem to be the activity hubs.

I will say I have come across a whole lot of non-technical people looking for
technical cofounders. That exists in SF as well, but much more so here (also
completely unscientific).

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dakrisht
If not less.

I can't do traditional meetups here anymore, I've met maybe 2-3 technical
people who even know how to code a basic webpage and I've gone to over 2
dozens in Venice/SM and some "notable organizations" \- just tons of "biz dev"
"marketing" and "media" people, great, but I guess WE are all looking for more
hardcore tech-oriented people here.

I've met some great people at UCLA Venture Fund events (look them up) but what
we should all do in this thread is organize a small HN meetup in LA.

LA is without a doubt growing, slowly but surely, and heading into the tech
startup trajectory, even with all all the wantrepreneurs and media guys...
Engineers and anyone with face stuck to screen for 10+ hours a day is going to
have a tough time meeting like minded people in real life, hence is the nature
of the beast.

What could be more powerful than bright people getting together to discuss
cool stuff.

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vonklaus
That is actually why I made this thread. I found an old link to a HN meetup on
meetup.com. It was dead, and I had no info. I was actually looking for a good
meetup. Once again, I am not a legendary developer, but I know my way around
the command line. I am picking up rails, was hping to find a reasonable
meetup. The one a mate went to said it was like 4 people in panera watching
youtube videos...

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lastofus
I'm currently working remote for an LA based company.

Apparently Python/Django devs are hard to find in LA... instead I hear it's a
lot of Java and .NET devs. I found that surprising, considering its proximity
to SV/SF compared to say in the Midwest.

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publicprivacy
I am in Inglewood,CA. Working on RubyMotion iOS Apps. Looking to get into
building prototypes and maybe a part-time iOS Business. I am also heavily
ready to jump into hyperlocal marketing apps monetized with automated
e-commerce accounts.

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esu
Hello

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vonklaus
hey?

