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.
> if you…are ok with driving there’s endless amounts of things to do and passionate people to meet.
I’m someone who is currently struggling to find these people; what has worked for you? It often feels that everyone cool is trapped in their car, and we are destined to never cross paths.
1. Neighborhood matters a lot. This determines the kinds of events you’ll go to and people you see regularly. I explored a lot before I settled some place that felt like home. I live some place with good walkability and being able to walk to a coffee shop or park has been very important.
2. Hobbies. Outdoor fitness, DIY/underground music, and board games for me. It took some digging to find groups I liked (some of which I found out about online and some by asking people I met), but now I participate in at least one event/meetup pertaining to these hobbies every week (more if I can). Ex helping out at a DIY show, run clubs, hiking groups, board game meetups.
3. Having a dog. I’m outside regularly bumping into people. Having a dog often sparks a conversation and helped me to know my neighbors. You don’t really need a dog though any way you can open a conversation is good. Compliment someone’s shirt, ask a question, etc
So TL;DR walkable neighborhood that suits you, find something related to your hobbies and do it as much as you can, start conversations.
Good luck, it took me years before I got into a rhythm.
Not really better than the Bay Area I’d say, especially in areas with a higher concentration of tech jobs. I think LA (and SD for that matter) are poor choices strictly financially speaking. But there’s more to life than spending every dollar as efficiently as possible.
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.
Doesn't every city feel mismanaged though? If you asked people from SF, Seattle or NYC - they might all say the same. They'd think they were the most mismanaged in America.
I'm genuinely just curious what makes you think LA is uniquely mismanaged in a way that other tier-1 cities in America are not. I don't have too much experience with LA but am familiar enough.
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.
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.
You're still going to spend an unholy amount of money to have a decent standard of living.
It's just math.
Chicago, no need for a car, rent is 1600$ within walking distance of a metro station.
A monthly metro pass is about 100$.
1700$.
In LA, 2700$ for an apartment. 500$ car payment, 300$ insurance, 200$ for gas. About 100$ a month on stuff like parking and basic maintenance.
3800$.
If you have an extra 2100$ a month to tell everyone you live in LA, that's great. But the next problem is most people in LA are struggling. It's complex, but this factors into the quality of people you meet.
Personally it's the difference between driving around a 30 year old Instagram model who has no real interest in you, but expects you to pay for stuff vs dating an amazing 30 year old with a solid career.
Outside of dating, in LA you have "friends" who will beg you for money and then resent when you help them out. This weird interiority complex develops.
I've lived in about 3 major metros for any real period of time. LA is by far the worst. Concerts are fun, the food is good, but it's just a really hard place to live.
Now 20 years ago, you still had 500,600$ apartments for working class people. It USED to be an affordable city. But that's gone now.
I miss that Los Angeles. I miss my 600$ Ktown apartment, 4$ tortas, 3$ bottles of Soju.
It was an amazing place once. Doesn't really matter if it's completely unaffordable now.
Not a compelling argument. Your opinion says more about you than the city.
Yes, it is expensive. But pay is higher too. If you are middle of the road earner, you will have to live in the valley or another suburb, yes. But even those are among the most prized places to live in the USA.
Your quantitative approach intrinsically flattens the qualitative dimension out of the lived experience. Where else can you find Mexican, Korean, Japanese, Armenian, and Thai culture alive and well within their own neighborhoods in a 5 mile radius? Or even all on the same block? NYC is the closest, but LA arguably has the better food and culture (people are more liberal and accepting in LA). LA is also ground zero for the resistance against the rise of Trump's fascist reich. For many people those things are invaluable, especially if they are non-white (which perhaps you're not, so that may be lost on you.)
It's fine if LA does not offer anything of worth to you, but that isn't going to be the case for everybody. Source: the 20 million or so people that live in LA County must like something, because they stay there (and that number is always growing) despite being the most expensive place in the US.
And for the record, I moved to LA 20 years ago. I remember the $600 apartments - I had one by UCLA.
I am sensitive to the rising cost of housing (though the new state law about zoning should ameliorate that in the coming years). But the reason you move to LA isn't for affordable housing.
Assuming you are good at what you do, you should not be making the same financial calculations today as you made 20 years ago.
I was making a solid 6 figure salary and found myself more or less barely making it in LA.
Everything you said about diversity and culture could be said about Chicago too.
I guess if I was at 250k LA wouldn't be that bad, but on a social level I found people much more pleasant in Chicago.
If you have a bad home life you can move out earlier in Chicago.
Back in LA half the time I went out with someone they'd complain about their Mom for 2 hours. I met a lot of people in very very bad situations with no real hope of escaping.
>For many people those things are invaluable, especially if they are non-white (which perhaps you're not, so that may be lost on you.)
I'm definitely not white. Chicago is liberal. It has one of the only Chinatowns in America that's actually growing. Boystown is one of the oldest LGBT communities in America.
I don't think I'm going to change your opinion here, but when it comes to numbers, LA is just a difficult city.
If you have the money, and LA is giving you something you can get elsewhere, great.
But that's not going to change the economics of the situation. I know I'd rather save money and strive in Chicago vs struggle in LA.
Back in Chicago when I switched jobs I basically just rode the metro for an extra 5 minutes.
If I really wanted to I could of gotten off at the same train station, went to the cafe I liked, and walked 10 minutes to my new office.
In LA you can easily have one job in Santa Monica or Venice and end up needing to switch to a job in the valley. Your commute can go from 20 minutes to 60 or 70 each way.
As is car ownership is a horrible burden( particularly in high traffic areas, living in a suburb/ slightly rural area and coasting to work could be nice). Driving is really dangerous and stressful too. I'd rather read comics on a nice train ride into the office.
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.
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.
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.
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.
> if you…are ok with driving there’s endless amounts of things to do and passionate people to meet.
I’m someone who is currently struggling to find these people; what has worked for you? It often feels that everyone cool is trapped in their car, and we are destined to never cross paths.
For me:
1. Neighborhood matters a lot. This determines the kinds of events you’ll go to and people you see regularly. I explored a lot before I settled some place that felt like home. I live some place with good walkability and being able to walk to a coffee shop or park has been very important.
2. Hobbies. Outdoor fitness, DIY/underground music, and board games for me. It took some digging to find groups I liked (some of which I found out about online and some by asking people I met), but now I participate in at least one event/meetup pertaining to these hobbies every week (more if I can). Ex helping out at a DIY show, run clubs, hiking groups, board game meetups.
3. Having a dog. I’m outside regularly bumping into people. Having a dog often sparks a conversation and helped me to know my neighbors. You don’t really need a dog though any way you can open a conversation is good. Compliment someone’s shirt, ask a question, etc
So TL;DR walkable neighborhood that suits you, find something related to your hobbies and do it as much as you can, start conversations.
Good luck, it took me years before I got into a rhythm.
> Pay is on average less than the bay.
But how is the cost of living? or is that already factored in?
Not really better than the Bay Area I’d say, especially in areas with a higher concentration of tech jobs. I think LA (and SD for that matter) are poor choices strictly financially speaking. But there’s more to life than spending every dollar as efficiently as possible.
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.
Doesn't every city feel mismanaged though? If you asked people from SF, Seattle or NYC - they might all say the same. They'd think they were the most mismanaged in America.
I'm genuinely just curious what makes you think LA is uniquely mismanaged in a way that other tier-1 cities in America are not. I don't have too much experience with LA but am familiar enough.
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.
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.
LA is a truly incredible place, as the center of the world's creative and cultural output (food, fashion, music, film, art).
But it is not suitable for every personality type. If you struggle to make friends, you will struggle more in LA.
If you work in tech, you are likely of a certain social persuasion (though not necessarily).
In which case this advice holds. But you shouldn't frame it as an absolute. It is personality dependent.
You're still going to spend an unholy amount of money to have a decent standard of living.
It's just math.
Chicago, no need for a car, rent is 1600$ within walking distance of a metro station. A monthly metro pass is about 100$.
1700$.
In LA, 2700$ for an apartment. 500$ car payment, 300$ insurance, 200$ for gas. About 100$ a month on stuff like parking and basic maintenance.
3800$.
If you have an extra 2100$ a month to tell everyone you live in LA, that's great. But the next problem is most people in LA are struggling. It's complex, but this factors into the quality of people you meet.
Personally it's the difference between driving around a 30 year old Instagram model who has no real interest in you, but expects you to pay for stuff vs dating an amazing 30 year old with a solid career.
Outside of dating, in LA you have "friends" who will beg you for money and then resent when you help them out. This weird interiority complex develops.
I've lived in about 3 major metros for any real period of time. LA is by far the worst. Concerts are fun, the food is good, but it's just a really hard place to live.
Now 20 years ago, you still had 500,600$ apartments for working class people. It USED to be an affordable city. But that's gone now.
I miss that Los Angeles. I miss my 600$ Ktown apartment, 4$ tortas, 3$ bottles of Soju.
It was an amazing place once. Doesn't really matter if it's completely unaffordable now.
Not a compelling argument. Your opinion says more about you than the city.
Yes, it is expensive. But pay is higher too. If you are middle of the road earner, you will have to live in the valley or another suburb, yes. But even those are among the most prized places to live in the USA.
Your quantitative approach intrinsically flattens the qualitative dimension out of the lived experience. Where else can you find Mexican, Korean, Japanese, Armenian, and Thai culture alive and well within their own neighborhoods in a 5 mile radius? Or even all on the same block? NYC is the closest, but LA arguably has the better food and culture (people are more liberal and accepting in LA). LA is also ground zero for the resistance against the rise of Trump's fascist reich. For many people those things are invaluable, especially if they are non-white (which perhaps you're not, so that may be lost on you.)
It's fine if LA does not offer anything of worth to you, but that isn't going to be the case for everybody. Source: the 20 million or so people that live in LA County must like something, because they stay there (and that number is always growing) despite being the most expensive place in the US.
And for the record, I moved to LA 20 years ago. I remember the $600 apartments - I had one by UCLA.
I am sensitive to the rising cost of housing (though the new state law about zoning should ameliorate that in the coming years). But the reason you move to LA isn't for affordable housing.
Assuming you are good at what you do, you should not be making the same financial calculations today as you made 20 years ago.
I'm forced to guess your high income ?
I was making a solid 6 figure salary and found myself more or less barely making it in LA.
Everything you said about diversity and culture could be said about Chicago too.
I guess if I was at 250k LA wouldn't be that bad, but on a social level I found people much more pleasant in Chicago.
If you have a bad home life you can move out earlier in Chicago.
Back in LA half the time I went out with someone they'd complain about their Mom for 2 hours. I met a lot of people in very very bad situations with no real hope of escaping.
>For many people those things are invaluable, especially if they are non-white (which perhaps you're not, so that may be lost on you.)
I'm definitely not white. Chicago is liberal. It has one of the only Chinatowns in America that's actually growing. Boystown is one of the oldest LGBT communities in America.
I don't think I'm going to change your opinion here, but when it comes to numbers, LA is just a difficult city.
If you have the money, and LA is giving you something you can get elsewhere, great.
But that's not going to change the economics of the situation. I know I'd rather save money and strive in Chicago vs struggle in LA.
yes, the biggest problem I see with the LA tech scene is desirable places to live are often ~90 minutes from most of the tech jobs.
The city has no real "center" if you will.
Back in Chicago when I switched jobs I basically just rode the metro for an extra 5 minutes.
If I really wanted to I could of gotten off at the same train station, went to the cafe I liked, and walked 10 minutes to my new office.
In LA you can easily have one job in Santa Monica or Venice and end up needing to switch to a job in the valley. Your commute can go from 20 minutes to 60 or 70 each way.
As is car ownership is a horrible burden( particularly in high traffic areas, living in a suburb/ slightly rural area and coasting to work could be nice). Driving is really dangerous and stressful too. I'd rather read comics on a nice train ride into the office.
Not sure about regular tech jobs but it has the most game studios of any area
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.
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.
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.