Ask HN: How is the tech scene in LA?

Wondering how the tech jobs/startup ecosystem is in Los Angeles. From searching around, seems like only aerospace/defense startups and big tech. Hardly any startups. The Who's Hiring thread from this month only had 2 entries from LA.

Tech people I meet in LA are much less careerist in general compared to the Bay Area (where I used to live). They work for either big tech, smaller not household name companies, or remote. Pay is on average less than the bay. Tech people in LA live in LA for the lifestyle and use the job to fund their lifestyle.

Personally (and contrary to the other comment about LA) it’s been the best place I have lived. It’s a polarizing city, understandably. But I think if you can make enough money and are ok with driving there’s endless amounts of things to do and passionate people to meet.

4 days agoby mylaaccount

We are hosting PyCon US - the annual Python conference - in Long Beach next year (in May).

It's the first time the conference has been on the west coast in quite a while, and I'm hoping we can attract a bunch of Los Angeles area Pythonistas who didn't make the trek out to Pittsburgh or Salt Lake City or Cleveland.

If you are part of the LA Python-adjacent tech scene I encourage you to consider coming along! It's a genuinely great community-led conference, attracting over 2,000 attendees.

It would be really cool if we could attract enough entertainment industry people to get sessions on Python in film production, VFX, animation and other creative industries.

2 days agoby simonw

Been in LA for 2 years now and went to college in LA 10 years ago so have some data points to compare.

Startups in LA are interesting. Back in the day, there was a lot of Ad Tech / advent of big data. This is when Snapchat and Hulu were coming up. I’d go on Angellist and see who was hiring and who’d be down to meet.

Now, especially post covid, I feel sparks of excitement. I missed the crypto hype in LA so that was probably wild and weird. a16z opened an office in Santa Monica and do their speedrun accelerator. Focused on games and media it seems.

upfront hosted some cool cowork and mingle events too.

Two meetups I regularly go to is AI Tinkerers and MLOps. Generally it’s the same small crowd. I went to a Ruby meetup which was cool too.

Less of a young startup crowd. Maybe people got older and rich and retired early.

3 days agoby lamroger

Echoing the difficulty in making friends - it is a horridly transient city with no real intentions for newcomers to establish roots - and the techies are less ambitious compared to the Bay Area or NYC. RSUs are silver-cuff links, as earning 3-5x the Guatemalan Hotel Office Manager puts one on a different cultural experience. (It’s America’s Brazil)

But weather is incontestable, food culture exciting, if you have a creative itch to scratch you can bump into a major creative professional accidentally at a bar (like a TV animator or music recording producer/engineer who works for one of the major labels) and before you know it you have a pilot episode or album you’re ready to pitch. shrugs

LAX will get you anywhere in the world non-stop and is easier to make compared to JFK.

4 days agoby achillesheels

It doesn't have as big of a pure software startup scene. I have worked for a couple, but the bulk of my career has been either in the local defense industry, or working remote for a startup in another state.

A lot of people are responding with complaints or praise for life in general in LA. That wasn't part of your question so I'll just keep it brief; on the whole, I dislike living here and feel it is one of America's most mismanaged cities but cannot just pack up and leave for various social reasons.

3 days agoby dgunay

I haven't seen anyone mention video games/entertainment companies. LA is quite good if you're into those industries. I never really looked, but my gut says it has the highest concentration of video game companies.

As far as the vibe goes, it's nothing like the bay when it comes to tech. LA is way more laid back and people are much less focused on tech. In the bay I constantly overheard people talking about tech or overheard people talking about VC/startups. Rarely ever in LA. The bay is really intense in that way.

I lived in Seattle too. As far as tech scene/startups obsession goes, it was Bay > Seattle >> LA.

With that said, there's a decent community. It's easy to find meetups, etc.

2 days agoby Sikul

I'll chime in and say just south of Los Angeles is Orange County that in a lot of ways a better place to live if you're in teech and also not going to be in the Bay or Seattle.

There are fewer tech jobs than LA, but most of the FAANGs have offices here. There are a lot more options for housing than LA, and a lot less traffic.

For instance, my ~5 bedroom house is worth around 2 million in a nice neighborhood and i'm a 10 minute drive from a huge Amazon office, a 10 minute drive from Blizzard HQ, and a 25 minute drive from a decent size Google office.

A similarly priced and sized house in Los Angeles would be a 80 minute commute to either Amazon, Google or Meta in Santa Monica.

3 days agoby VirusNewbie

It's ok.

But LA has high rent and public transportation isn't really usable.

People are mean.

I wouldn't suggest LA to anyone.

The city definitely has tech jobs, but you might have a job in the valley now, get laid off and have to drive to Culver City. Super commutes of 1 hour each way are common.

4 days agoby 999900000999

So, most of the big companies have offices in LA (FAANG, unicorns/decacorns) but- they're often in a really hard to get to place that is insanely overpriced.

Google is in Playa Vist and Venice, Amazon has a big office in Santa Monica, SNAP is on the west side of LA, etc. A SFH in any of those cities is 4M or more, and the more popular places for families to live is easily an hour and twenty minutes away (burbank, pasadena, the valley).

Orange County has fewer big tech companies but they do have a larger Google and Amazon office (~1k each I belive?), but the cost of living is quite a bit lower.

Less options though if the job situation changes.

4 days agoby VirusNewbie

Easily 10x smaller than the Bay (unless you count defense contracting as tech).

It's still California so all the usual things like NIMBY zoning and prop 13 ruin the built environment. That being said, a lot of LA was built before the 80s so it's not as sprawling as the Bay. There are almost no tech buses so you need to plan life around commuting.

2 days agoby rcpt

Not sure about regular tech jobs but it has the most game studios of any area

4 days agoby superconduct123

It’s known for deep tech/hard tech companies, especially in space, aviation, and energy. Many are in El Segundo or were founded by SpaceX/Tesla alumni.

https://www.addtheegg.com/p/2024-la-hard-tech-50

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/story/el-segundo-california-...

https://bowoftheseus.substack.com/p/south-bay-la-is-ground-z...

2 days agoby timhigins

Where do NASA/JPL alums work?

2 days agoby brcmthrowaway