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Silicon Valley Meets Silicone Beach: Building Tech Firms In LA
Photo by Giorgio Montersino via Flickr
Mark Suster, an entrepreneur and Santa Monica-based VC asks this question today on Tech Crunch: Can you really build a great tech firm outside Silicon Valley, and in particular, in LA? The short answer is yes, but not like Silicon Valley, and with varying rules and conditions.
Essentially Suster makes five major points that compare the variables of pocket deepness when it comes to funding, how differing expectations of monetization affect motivation in innovation, factors that influence hiring and loyalty in the work culture, advantages in leveraging location-based industry assets, and the value of maximizing available talent.
Los Angeles is the second largest city in the country boasting "idyllic weather, a mélange of cultures...big industry...world-class universities like Caltech, UCLA, USC," says Suster, however, "LA is not Silicon Valley and we don’t need to aspire to be so," continuing, "we have much to be proud of in our own right."
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