LA’s tech scene is on fire. Recent funding activity points to continued growth, even in the face of falling unicorns.
But any fears of dark times in the tech / funding spaces were allayed by the stellar lineup of VCs and companies that spoke at LA TECH SUMMIT, the fourth annual event hosted by Santa Monica-based Cornerstone on Demand.
With a sellout crowd of over 1000 attendees (over 100 of which were CEOs), the Summit drew the area’s smartest and brightest to share insights and inspire others seeking to dig deeper into LA’s tech space.
Tony & JB Pritzker, whose investments include SpaceX, Honest, and Dollar Shave Club), discussed their reasons for moving to and doubling down on Los Angeles in recent years and the need for community building to enhance the area’s growing ecosystem, as well as how they instill the family work and philanthropy ethic into their own children.
.@JBPritzker & @PritzkerAnthony of @PritzkerVC speaking w/ @jboorstin @CNBC at #LATechSummit
Among the issues addressed included how to keep top engineering students local after graduation (LA has four top schools and graduates more engineers than anywhere else — Tony: “Stanch the outflow by a few percent and the ecosystem grows”), how can LA’s tech community enhance diversity, and facing challenges of any sort (Tony: “If you tell is it can’t be done, we’re likely to do it.”)
Famed investment banker Frank Quattrone hosted an hour-long series of fireside chats with VCs Mamoon Hamid, Aydin Senkut, and Sarah Tavel, who each told their stories and offered advice on how to grow LA, including:
Bring the best people from around the world to LA and introduce them to the locals Use your local advantages (film, TV) to boost trends like mobile and cloud computing Use the area’s big companies as a talent magnet, and
Double down on your natural capabilities, citing the massive opportunities in Virtual Reality.
