California-and the L.A. area especially-keeps losing corporate headquarters--WHY?

[Quixote]

Originally Posted by barney82

It's good that Elon Musk lives in LA! But it's notable to me that most of the spillover from the Bay Area seems to be going to Seattle, with very little to SoCal. Even though SoCal is much larger, closer, relatively affordable, and has a better collection of research universities than Seattle. I guess SoCal doesn't feel too welcoming to nerds, to put it bluntly?

And again, it's amazing that the Bay Area, despite being so much smaller than metro LA, has become the driver of the state. Politically as well as economically.

What are you basing this observation on?

[barney82]

Originally Posted by Quixote

What are you basing this observation on?

Things I've read here and there, for example about a lot of Bay Area company engineering offices opening up in Seattle. How Seattle is consciously talked about, by tech analysts I follow, as an alternative if Bay Area prices and overcrowding get too extreme. Also just from knowing people who work for very large high-profile Bay Area-based tech companies, who seem to visit and be much more familiar with Seattle than SoCal.

Not to mention Amazon and Microsoft. Bit bigger and more high profile than Snapchat and Fandango.

[Quixote]

Originally Posted by Crawford

LA and SF aren't that close, and they don't have similar economic bases. It isn't like there would be natural movement of economic activities between these metros. I mean, they're like 400 miles apart. That's basically the distance between NYC and the hardcore South.

And there are plenty of "nerdy" activity centers in LA. Places like JPL, Caltech, all the OC biotech and the like.

The distance between the two is roughly the same as DC and Boston. Not that far either; and they're in the same state, one day to be connected by HSR. There's plenty of movement, socially at least, between both cities. Economically, Bay Area startups that can't find VC funding in their own backyard have naturally drifted their efforts south.

And I take it that the "nerd" comment was somewhat tongue-in-cheek.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by Quixote

The distance between the two is roughly the same as DC and Boston.

To me, this is really, really far. I would never think that Boston and DC are particularly close, and would have lots of natural cross-pollination.

Even NYC, smack in the middle of these cities, isn't particularly close to either.

[barney82]

Originally Posted by Crawford

LA and SF aren't that close, and they don't have similar economic bases. It isn't like there would be natural movement of economic activities between these metros. I mean, they're like 400 miles apart. That's basically the distance between NYC and the hardcore South.

And there are plenty of "nerdy" activity centers in LA. Places like JPL, Caltech, all the OC biotech and the like.

LA and Silicon Valley are what, like 6 hours apart if you drive fast? That's reasonably close, especially by Western USA standards.

There are little pockets of nerd stuff in LA, basically Caltech/JPL and now Venice. But I wonder if the LA lifestyle just somehow doesn't mesh very well with tech people?

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Crawford

To me, this is really, really far. I would never think that Boston and DC are particularly close, and would have lots of natural cross-pollination.

Even NYC, smack in the middle of these cities, isn't particularly close to either.

i think this might be a case of east vs. west perceptions of distance and scale.

in the east, 400 miles is "pretty fucking far away".

out west, 400 miles is "just up the road a bit".

[mhays]

Originally Posted by barney82

Things I've read here and there, for example about a lot of Bay Area company engineering offices opening up in Seattle. How Seattle is consciously talked about, by tech analysts I follow, as an alternative if Bay Area prices and overcrowding get too extreme. Also just from knowing people who work for very large high-profile Bay Area-based tech companies, who seem to visit and be much more familiar with Seattle than SoCal.

Not to mention Amazon and Microsoft. Bit bigger and more high profile than Snapchat and Fandango.

The influx to Seattle is remarkable. The other day Snap (Snapchat) leased 50,000 sf near my office, which is room for about 250 people. But that's nothing. Facebook is taking a second building on the Downtown fringe this year and #3 and #4 are under construction, which will be room for 6,000 combined. Google is in site prep for three buildings nearby and also has a suburban campus they'll keep, with total space also around 6,000 people. These aren't big news stories because Amazon is overshadowing everything, but the trend is still remarkable.

One reason it works is that these are all on the edges of Downtown and in some cases within Downtown proper. This area has an unusual combination of being urban enough to attract people, tons of space to grow (some of it was desolate pretty recently), and a huge base of tech talent. The first factor is improving at a huge pace, the second is nearing the end, and the third is also improving at a huge pace.

[barney82]

Originally Posted by mhays

The influx to Seattle is remarkable. The other day Snap (Snapchat) leased 50,000 sf near my office, which is room for about 250 people. But that's nothing. Facebook is taking a second building on the Downtown fringe this year and #3 and #4 are under construction, which will be room for 6,000 combined. Google is in site prep for three buildings nearby and also has a suburban campus they'll keep, with total space also around 6,000 people. These aren't big news stories because Amazon is overshadowing everything, but the trend is still remarkable.

One reason it works is that these are all on the edges of Downtown and in some cases within Downtown proper. This area has an unusual combination of being urban enough to attract people, tons of space to grow (some of it was desolate pretty recently), and a huge base of tech talent. The first factor is improving at a huge pace, the second is nearing the end, and the third is also improving at a huge pace.

I think (tech) people in the Bay Area view Seattle as culturally similar, and LA as culturally somewhat alien. It also helps that 2 of the 5 largest IT companies in the Western World are located in Seattle, with the other 3 being in the Bay Area. Where Seattle under performs is it's start-up and VC ecosystem. If that ever picks up, you could literally see the whole center of gravity move up there, as I get the sense that a lot of tech people have had it up to here with the various dysfunctions in the Bay Area.

[Quixote]

Originally Posted by barney82

There are little pockets of nerd stuff in LA, basically Caltech/JPL and now Venice. But I wonder if the LA lifestyle just somehow doesn't mesh very well with tech people?

Let's not perpetuate this cultural stereotype of automatically equating "tech" with "geek," before ascribing a certain "lifestyle" preference to said geekdom. Take, for instance, Irvine. It's 100% suburban, cookie-cutter, big-box, and smack dab in the middle of historically conservative OC (funny enough, they voted for Hillary). Despite all those off-putting characteristics, its populace is highly skilled and its economy pretty tech-focused.

Santa Monica, which is synonymous with all the desirable aspects of the "LA lifestyle," is the face of LA's tech scene. And Elon Musk lives in Bel Air, which is clearly dominated by Hollywood types.

[barney82]

Originally Posted by Quixote

Let's not perpetuate this cultural stereotype of automatically equating "tech" with "geek," before ascribing a certain "lifestyle" preference to said geekdom.

Take, for instance, Irvine. It's 100% suburban, cookie-cutter, big-box, and smack dab in the middle of historically conservative OC (funny enough, they voted for Hillary). Despite all those off-putting characteristics, its populace is highly skilled and its economy pretty tech-focused.

Irvine has a different, frankly lesser, kind of tech than what you find in the Bay Area and Seattle. Like finance in Charlotte NC vs Manhattan NY. Venice would be the closer analogue.

[Lipani]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

i think this might be a case of east vs. west perceptions of distance and scale.

in the east, 400 miles is "pretty fucking far away".

out west, 400 miles is "just up the road a bit".

This is very true. 6 hours of driving isn't considered that bad here. We also don't have anything close to the rail infrastructure of the East Coast and Upper Midwest, so driving seems more natural to us. If I wanted to visit family in Sacramento by taking Amtrak, I would have to take a train to LA, transfer to a bus from LA to Bakersfield, transfer to another train from Bakersfield to Stockton, and then transfer to another bus from Stockton to Sacramento. I did that once and it took 12 hours. Screw that, I'd rather drive 8 hours.

[mhays]

Some techs focus the "sweet spot" of their hiring on family people. Some focus more on 20-somethings without kids. The latter are trending toward big urban cores.

Amazon's RE leader recently said 20% of their HQ employees walked to work, and basically they needed 20 residential towers within walking distance just for them. Techs that focus on 20-somethings are specifically moving to places where you can easily live without a car.

[barney82]

Originally Posted by mhays

Some techs focus the "sweet spot" of their hiring on family people. Some focus more on 20-somethings without kids. The latter are trending toward big urban cores.

Amazon's RE leader recently said 20% of their HQ employees walked to work, and basically they needed 20 residential towers within walking distance just for them. Techs that focus on 20-somethings are specifically moving to places where you can easily live without a car.

I don't buy that. If what you write were so, NYC, Boston, Philly and DC should be taking over tech.

Tech in America has been super focused on Silicon Valley, with a 2nd hub in Seattle that developed because of Microsoft. When city living became popular again, it was very easy for people and then companies to move from Silicon Valley to SF, since they are part of the same metro area. Now that the entire Bay Area is getting extremely overpriced, people are looking a bit further afield. And Bay Area tech people feel more comfortable around their close cousins in Seattle than they would in Manhattan or LA or even Boston. I think it's really just as simple as that.

Oh, location matters too. Seattle is a short hop from SF by plane, while Boston and NYC are very far away.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by barney82

Bay Area tech people feel more comfortable around their close cousins in Seattle

this again displays the nuttiness of what people out west consider "close".

SF and seattle are nearly 700 miles apart.

that's roughly the same distance as NYC to fucking chicago!

no one in the eastern half of the nation considers NYC and chicago "close".

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by barney82

I don't buy that. If what you write were so, NYC, Boston, Philly and DC should be taking over tech.

NYC and Boston have a lot of tech, and are comparable to Seattle in terms of tech importance. LA, too, is fairly important. No place obviously compares to Silicon Valley, but there's a number of smaller centers.

And I don't think Seattle has tech because of Silicon Valley. Seattle developed its own tech cluster independent from what was happening around Stanford. Seattle doesn't rely on the Bay Area to feed its tech growth; it's home-grown.

If anything, the East Coast is more of a Silicon Valley extension than Seattle, because so many of the biggest East Coast tech employers are based in the Bay Area. Practically every major Bay Area tech firm has its second biggest global office in Manhattan. The East Coast has, to this point, not yet developed a dominant homegrown tech firm (besides older, establishment firms like IBM and GE).

Culturally, I agree SF and Seattle are more similar than SF and LA, but that's a different issue. Both areas are a bit reserved and perhaps standoffish, things like makeup and bling are almost verboten and outdoorsy culture is almost religion.

[ChargerCarl]

Originally Posted by barney82

Here's an article with decent background info. It's dated, being based on a 2014 report, so the situation in both the Bay Area and LA county would be better now than then.

http://www.centerforjobs.org/economi...y-vs-bay-area/

But it's striking that LA County actually had fewer private sector jobs in 2013 than in 1990! Note that LA was one of only two metros in the US where that happened. Before anyone tries to blame that solely on the 2008 recession.

The job mix in LA was also not very favorable, especially compared to the Bay Area.

God the 90's were fucking bleak for LA. Thanks for the link.

[barney82]

Originally Posted by Crawford

NYC and Boston have a lot of tech, and are comparable to Seattle in terms of tech importance. LA, too, is fairly important. No place obviously compares to Silicon Valley, but there's a number of smaller centers.

And I don't think Seattle has tech because of Silicon Valley. Seattle developed its own tech cluster independent from what was happening around Stanford. Seattle doesn't rely on the Bay Area to feed its tech growth; it's home-grown.

Yeah by some measures NY or Boston could make a claim to be 2nd in the USA. They're both ahead of Seattle in VC funding. And of course Seattle got started as a tech hub because of Microsoft. But I think the reason Seattle is growing now, is first because of the deep pool of engineers you have there as a result of Microsoft and Amazon, but also because Bay Area companies are looking to expand, Bay Area engineers are looking to move elsewhere, and both seem to favor Seattle over NY, Boston, or LA.

NY and Boston are relatively narrowly focused in tech, from my understanding. And Boston absolutely bleeds engineers to the West Coast. LA is just not a big player. The only two places with large companies and a wide focus are the Bay Area and Seattle.

[mhays]

Originally Posted by barney82

I don't buy that. If what you write were so, NYC, Boston, Philly and DC should be taking over tech.

Building on my previous post, we have advantages they don't:

1. We already had a large workforce of tech people with the right skillsets. Even Boston, while big in tech, isn't as big in the types of tech where the influx is happening. Those cities don't have Amazon/Microsoft equivalents.

2. Our core is cheaper to live in than NY's. Part of our advantage is the ability to recruit people who won't pay SF prices.

3. We have room to grow at enormous volumes all within connected walkable urban districts. The others can grow too but not at the same ease or cost for the same scale, despite the new districts happening in Philly and Boston especially. Even those large planned districts couldn't handle an Amazon.

I do agree that the cultural alignment and West Coast location are helpful. But really it's a combination of all of these factors.

[barney82]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Practically every major Bay Area tech firm has its second biggest global office in Manhattan. The East Coast has, to this point, not yet developed a dominant homegrown tech firm (besides older, establishment firms like IBM and GE).

Really? I'm not sure, especially going forward, if Google, Facebook etc will have larger offices in NY than in Seattle. I have good friends working for Google in Manhattan, have visited the office multiple times, and have met some people through them working for Facebook locally... the vibe I get is that Manhattan is some kind of colonial branch office.

It makes a difference that you have two giant tech companies HQ'd in Seattle. It creates a depth to the industry there which doesn't exist anywhere else except the Bay Area.

[barney82]

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