More than Hollywood and media
I was greeted this morning by an email from a Silicon Valley group, promoting a event in Los Angeles, and was disappointed to read that they were looking to bring “Silicon Valley to the land of silicone.” It was most likely in jest, but I’ve recently been running into entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and others from Silicon Valley who think the only thing happening in Southern California is Hollywood content startups.
We’re not just new media startups (which, in reality, are but a fraction of the companies started in this area). We’re Internet advertising; semiconductors; biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, and medical devices; Web 2.0 and SaaS; hardware and electronics; storage and communications; wireless; computer gaming; cleantech and energy; consumer Internet; ecommerce; and a hundred other kinds of companies. That’s part of the strength and the future of Southern California’s technology industry, the diversity of companies here.
Content is a natural strength, of course, because of Hollywood. But it’s far from a dominant part of the technology industry here. Part of the reason you’re seeing some attention in Silicon Valley to Southern California nowadays is they are enamored with digital media and Hollywood; what they’re missing is there’s a lot more depth to the industry and the folks here.
