Burn the Boats - Where are the Entrepreneurs in Southern California?

Will Price of Hummer Winblad Venture Partners has a great blog post on people who "suffer from both the blessing and the curse of a surfeit of choices and options".  He writes:

"The blessing is that talented people are always in demand and there are many avenues of opportunity available to them. The curse is that they often sit stalled at the cross-roads of choice - start-up, large company, start my own gig....I continue to regret that so many brilliant people that I know, full of energy and ability, sacrifice their passions on the alter of safety or indecision."

I too see this.  In fact, I think this situation is even more prevalent in Southern California.  For instance, in the last two weeks I have met with three well-funded Los Angeles based start-ups focused on the online advertising space (one each focused on Social Media, B2B, and Local).  In each case the company has a significant need for product and engineering resources but has been unable to attract quality candidates.  Do these candidates exist? Absolutely.  Hundreds of experienced folks with these skills reside all across Southern California within the halls of Yahoo!, FIM / MySpace, Internet Brands and ValueClick (among others).  Yet I hear stories almost every week about candidates from these companies being reticent to join start-ups (as evidenced by the candidates demands for significant title inflation, out of the ordinary severance agreements, etc).  At the same time, it is very clear that many of these candidates are unhappy with their current situation.

Why don't more folks make the jump?  In relation to the Bay Area we probably don't have the: a) same support infrastructure (meet-ups, networking events, etc.); b) history of success; and c) abundance of start-up companies (so if one fails there is another to jump on).  Perhaps, more importantly, we are media driven town - and most Internet professionals want the perks associated with a brand / celebrity / Hollywood lifestyle.  Per my previous post, our garage's are generally used to house cool cars and not innovative start-ups.

Update: Check out Benjamin Kuo's response over at SocalTech.  For the most part, I agree with him about Items a-c (above) being more of an issue of "perception" versus reality. 

Comments

[emad]

At YellowBot, we just held a Lunch 2.0 meetup (the 2nd in the LA area) and found a good following. Those attending geekdinners, lunches, twiistup, and other meetups are beginning to see each other on a regular basis and building that support network.

There don't seem to be as many VCs as there are up north (though there are quite a few at these meetups). Perhaps this is the same reason Wiki Media decided to move???

I remember when there were plenty more startups in the area...especially due to Idealab in Pasadena but Bill Gross wants to deal with Atoms instead of Bits now.

[Willan Johnson]

Emad - thanks for the note. The new LA Tech website (http://la.webchic.net) and your Google calendar look great. I look forward to meeting up at some point.