The Fastest-Growing Areas of Innovation in Los Angeles
While Los Angeles has long been known as the epicenter of the entertainment industry, the hospitable climate and highly talented labor force has meant that LA is rapidly becoming a hotbed of innovation in a number of industries. Today we’re looking at the major players and industries that are helping to attract top talent to Los Angeles.
At the Forefront of Transportation
While Elon Musk’s major company, Tesla, is headquartered in the Bay Area, Los Angeles is an important hub for the innovator thanks to its dense infrastructure and connection to the aerospace industry. Musk’s The Boring Company is headquartered in Los Angeles and is the foundation of an envisioned Hyperloop-based transportation on longer inter-city routes.
L.A. County and Orange County have long been home the nation’s largest concentration of aerospace industry companies like Northrop Grumman, Boeing, Lockheed, Raytheon SpaceX and Virgin Galactic, which innovators have found advantageous as more and more private companies seek to explore the use of robotics and the possibilities of space travel. Home of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, and the NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center in nearby Palmdale, serving as NASA’s key center for atmospheric flight research and operations, Los Angeles is home to some of the world’s top engineering talent.
Innovation in Entertainment
As the major studios and record companies have adapted to the “streaming economy,” they’ve increasingly become accustomed to rubbing shoulders with tech behemoths like Netflix, Spotify and major new gaming companies. Apple is also increasingly invested in entertainment, leasing a 128,000 square foot building in Culver City, the headquarters of the company’s original content operations.
Seeking to position itself as a the leader in streaming as Paramount, Amazon, Disney, HBO and others rush to the streaming wars, Netflix has built a luxe campus with a rooftop balcony that boasts panoramic views of Hollywood, the Hollywood hills with the Hollywood sign, Griffith Observatory, Downtown Los Angeles and the Pacific on a clear day.
Innovation in Leisure and Hospitality
Both entertainment and hospitality were hard hit by the Coronavirus pandemic in Los Angeles, and the rapid adoption of working-from-home by the major entertainment company also had spillover effect in terms of hotel and convention business in the city. The good news is that hospitality seems to be rebounding fast in Los Angeles.
New openings for 2021 include hotly anticipated properties like Fairmont Century Plaza, Godfrey Hotel Hollywood, Caption by Hyatt Hollywood, Thompson Hollywood, and CitizenM Downtown Los Angeles.
Los Angeles remains a major destination for foodies and for good reason: for cravings for everything from Korean tacos to $500 sushi omakase, the city has the best of everything. During the pandemic there was a surge in so-called “ghost kitchens,” or places where chefs could rent out space to operate delivery businesses without the need for a storefront. Based on the success of this concept, we expect this sector to grow.
Los Angeles is also home to a number of beer and wine innovators like Winc, a curated wine delivery startup, and Untappd, the go-to app for beer drinkers who want to find specialized local venues for craft brews and compare notes with other suds lovers.
