The California technology industry has a bright future – a bright and sandy one, that is.
For several decades, California’s Silicon Valley has been the global face of technological advancement. Everything from the genesis of startup culture to the creation of game-changing social media applications took place within the Northern California valley, and the technological metropolis now hosts innovative giants from the likes of Google and Facebook.
But that culture is now becoming a thing of the past. Overcrowding, toxic competitiveness and disconnect with society at large have begun to challenge the very optimistic ingenuity on which Silicon Valley built itself.
Enter Silicon Beach.
Emerging from the sandy silica beaches of Venice and Santa Monica, Los Angeles’ Silicon Beach offers a palm-tree-riddled respite from the Silicon Valley hustle. And over the past few years, the Beach has become a nebula for startups, giving way for entrepreneurial unicorns like Snap – the parent company of Snapchat – and Tinder.
But Silicon Beach now stands to become a replica of Silicon Valley, emulating not only its glory, but also its problems. And Los Angeles, a city that already faces infrastructure and development challenges, has neither the resources nor the space to sustain such a shift.
Therefore, Silicon Beach needs to market itself as more than just the beachside version of Silicon Valley. The city government – specifically its chief innovation technology officer – can better integrate Silicon Beach into the rest of the city by engaging startups to more prominently solve LA’s infrastructure and societal problems.
The birth of Silicon Beach is quite similar to that of Silicon Valley. The invention of transistors in the 1960s breathed life into Northern California by marrying technology with venture capitalism. Silicon Beach had comparable origins going as far back as 2006, when bright-eyed inventors found an environment less crowded than Silicon Valley in Santa Monica’s beaches. And in the midst of Hollywood’s investment scene, Silicon Beach presented itself as a technological outlet for entertainment, as signaled by the birth of Snapchat, Oculus and other media-based startups that have had notable success.
But the challenges of Silicon Valley are now starting to spill over into Los Angeles. After more than 40 years of growth, the Valley is reaching carrying capacity. Startups are reaching a point of suffocation, faced with the constant worry of retaining employees, who are sometimes easily drawn away by technology giants. Even the infrastructure has taken a toll: Rent prices have skyrocketed and the practice of sharing homes to cut down costs has become regular.
Companies are now starting to set their eyes on Silicon Beach. But as much as it seems like a “desert paradise” on the surface, Los Angeles cannot sustain the explosive growth of Silicon Valley. Affordable housing and lack of space are already problems endemic in the city, and places like Playa Vista and Westchester have seen home prices shoot up thanks to tech companies flocking down to LA.
Thus, Silicon Beach needs to distinguish itself as more than just the alternative to Silicon Valley. With the entertainment resources of Hollywood and the benefits of the second-largest city in the U.S., Silicon Beach has the potential to carve a niche for itself as a diversifying force on the technicality-obsessed tech Silicon scene.
This is where City Hall can step in. In 2014, Mayor Eric Garcetti appointed the city’s first chief innovation technology officer, whose role is to utilize new technologies to help the city government better solve problems. Among other things, the office has been able to create a mobile application to report and address illegal dumping and potholes on the streets.
Consider the possibilities if the chief innovation technology officer were to employ startups that already exist to help address the city’s problems. By combining the potential of these companies with the entertainment backing of Hollywood, the city would not only receive a greater audience, but also be able to achieve a great deal more. Be it enlisting companies specializing in virtual reality to help address the concerns of city development or utilizing entertainment-based streaming services marketed by startups to better inform citizens of the inner workings of certain municipal departments, City Hall wouldn’t just better serve Angelenos. It would also cultivate a distinct character for Silicon Beach that incorporates entertainment, technology and the city at large.
And through this development, Silicon Beach would be better poised for its much-needed cultural shift from something more than just a convenient real estate option for space-hungry Silicon Valley companies.
Certainly, Los Angeles is not immune to the problems of Silicon Valley, and the competitiveness and toll on infrastructure will manifest in some capacity. However, by differentiating itself as a complement to Silicon Valley, Silicon Beach can better cultivate creativity while minimizing the long-lasting negative effects on Los Angeles.
And while specializing in the entertainment- or city-oriented brand of startups – as opposed to being a generalized breeding ground for any kind of startup – can seem to limit the region’s economic potential, we shouldn’t forget how Hollywood’s entertainment specialization or New York’s Broadway scene only brought more talent to the cities, albeit in a more focused manner. And there would arguably still be a wide range of applications that even the city’s college students can develop under such specialization.
The sandy beaches of Santa Monica and Venice have more to offer the world than just well-packaged nutrient shakes or video doorbells, and Silicon Beach can be more than just the awkward younger sibling of Silicon Valley. But it has to market itself in a way that combines the various facets innate to the City of Angels.
Los Angeles is on the crux of a spectrumwide shift to identify what kind of city it wants to be. And if done right, Silicon Beach can help it do just that.