2015 CA Summit - Honing California’s Edge in Technology and Entertainment

California Tech & Entertainment Demographics

• Los Angeles technology jobs comprise 9% of all local employment, while technology sectors account for 17% of total payroll wages.
• Major engineering and technology employers in the region include SpaceX, Boeing, Aerojet, and Rocketdyne.
• The Latino demographic consumes approximately two more hours of mobile digital content monthly than non-Hispanics and over-indexes in digital purchasing and sharing.

Platform Performance & Market Data

• PewDiePie, a YouTube creator, holds 40 million subscribers and has accumulated 10 billion video views, illustrating the scale of individual creator reach.
• Flippagram reached 170 million installs within its first two years and launched as the top downloaded app in 90 countries by December 2013.
• Flippagram secured $70 million in funding within a month and a half of its launch in early 2014.
• Maker Studios manages nearly 4 billion video views monthly across its network of 60,000 creator partners in over 100 countries.
• Zephyr operates as a B2B video ID technology service, helping rights holders monetize and track short-form user-generated content on platforms like YouTube, SoundCloud, and Facebook.

Strategic Acquisitions & Business Models

• Maker Studios was acquired by The Walt Disney Company to fast-forward Disney's mobile presence among millennial audiences and leverage owned-and-operated media distribution.
• Flippagram monetizes through brand partnerships and a SaaS model rather than direct advertising, allowing marketing interns to create licensed video content easily.
• MeToo operates as a digital media company for the global mobile Latino generation, producing content in both English (U.S. markets) and Spanish/Portuguese (Latin American and European markets).
• Zephyr pivoted from a content generation model to a B2B rights protection and monetization service, generating revenue via advertising share or flat licensing fees.
• MeToo's Series A was led by Peter Chernin (LA-based), while Flippagram's funding was primarily institutional Venture Capital from Silicon Valley (IVP).

Talent Acquisition & Regional Culture

• Southern California faces a cultural disadvantage compared to Silicon Valley, where engineers are the primary "stars," whereas in LA, entertainment figures traditionally hold that status.
• Flippagram and MeToo report difficulty filling Chief Technology Officer roles locally, often requiring recruitment from San Francisco.
• Successful talent retention strategies include offering competitive funding rounds, proven business scale, and highlighting the lower cost of living in Los Angeles compared to San Francisco.
• Maker Studios reduced creator onboarding time from 4–6 weeks to 4–6 hours through a patented "fast partnership flow" technology process.
• The tech ecosystem in Los Angeles is viewed as less established in engineering talent but growing, with Google, Facebook, and Yahoo expanding large physical campuses in the region.

Future Trends & Content Direction

• Virtual Reality (VR) is identified as a major growth area where Southern California is uniquely positioned due to the convergence of content creators (Hollywood) and technology companies (e.g., Oculus/Jaunt).
• Mobile video consumption is rapidly cannibalizing traditional TV and sleep time, with mobile apps driving the majority of "mindshare."
• Key content trends include "toy unboxing" and kid-focused content on tablets, which account for roughly 60% of mobile consumption for that demographic.
• Platforms are evolving to allow users to "create with their mobile device" rather than just consume, driven by the affordability and capability of modern smartphones.
• Industry leaders expect video monetization standards to evolve, potentially shifting advertising dollars from YouTube to emerging platforms like Snapchat and Flippagram once technical standardization occurs.

Diversity & Corporate Responsibility

• Digital media companies report creator bases that are significantly more diverse than mainstream traditional media, including Hispanic, Asian-American, and African-American representation.
• MeToo emphasizes "cultural winks" in content, providing authentic representation that appeals to specific demographics without alienating general audiences.
• Flippagram maintains a workforce that is approximately 60% male, with a diverse executive suite, leveraging local entertainment industry relationships to hire talent.
• Panels discussed the challenge of balancing data-driven content distribution with the responsibility to promote diverse storytelling and decision-making structures.

Regulatory & Geopolitical Context

• Companies identified H-1B visa bureaucracy as a significant barrier to hiring international talent, citing high costs and complex processes.
• Following the San Bernardino incident, leadership noted that while fear existed, it did not cause major disruption to daily operations or workforce retention in their diverse offices.
• Speakers expressed hope that political changes would not negatively impact the ability of startups to manage diverse workforces or attract global talent.