Pursuits
Growing L.A. Tech Scene Bets on Entertainment Beyond Cat Videos
- Tech companies Alphabet, Yahoo and Facebook open offices
- Tide of technology wealth washes over bohemian beach community
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Los Angeles’s technology industry is riding a wave of Internet video innovation that threatens to swamp the city’s last outpost of bohemian beach culture.
In coastal L.A., an area dubbed Silicon Beach, companies such as Google parent Alphabet Inc. opened offices to adapt Hollywood’s dominance in entertainment media and video games to online audiences. Facebook Inc. and Yahoo! Inc. have also set up shop. The first L.A.-born social-media company to exceed $1 billion in value, Snapchat Inc., plans to expand into two office buildings and eight hangars at the Santa Monica Airport.