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Blood Ties

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familycord

In December I drove down to Del Mar to attend a baby expo across from the racetrack. The point of a baby expo is to introduce new parents to all the baby products on the market, a good many of which are designed to prey on parents’ fears. The hall was filled with the sounds of people trying to sell pregnant women things like leashes and ultrasterile nipples and fetal heart monitors and crib sensors that shriek if one’s baby doesn’t move for 20 seconds. There were also some teenagers in frog costumes, though it was not clear why. I was there to meet a salesman named Dan Hale. He’d come to convince expectant parents to cryogenically freeze the blood from their baby’s umbilical cord on the grounds that it might be used one day to grow new bone marrow if the child contracted leukemia. Or perhaps to generate a new kidney or a new heart. To this end Hale had set up a gigantic photograph of a smiling blond baby head and a fishbowl full of chocolates and was calling out to the passerby, “Hello, friends! Are you having fun? Would you like some chocolate? Have you heard of cord blood?”

Hale works for a cryobank in Santa Monica called Family Cord Blood Services. It’s a division of California Cryobank, one of the oldest and largest sperm banks in the world. Lots of men in Los Angeles know the name because over the years thousands of UCLA students have sold sperm there. Around the time the United States invaded Iraq, the media ran stories about all the departing soldiers banking sperm there for fear they’d be exposed to chemicals that would sterilize them or cause birth defects in future children. The company was founded in 1977 by two doctors named Cappy Rothman and Charles Sims. Rothman is a urologist who specializes in male fertility, and Sims is a pathologist with a background in blood banking. According to the company’s Web site, the loss of a man’s ability to father children has a shattering effect on his self-esteem. Rothman and Sims wanted to eliminate the indignity by freezing the sperm of men about to undergo medical procedures that might leave them sterile. There were a few sperm banks in the late ’70s, but they hadn’t yet caught on. At the time, doctors wanting to treat a couple’s male infertility problems often did so by asking medical students who looked vaguely like the husband to donate their semen. By providing something less willy nilly, the doctors built a lucrative business for themselves. Sims and Rothman opened an office in walking distance of UCLA, then branches near Berkeley, Stanford, and Harvard. In 1994, the company expanded its offerings to include frozen embryos. Then in 1997, Sims and Rothman decided to go into cord blood banking. The idea was symmetrical if nothing else. First they would help create life; then they would save it if anything went haywire.

Sims and Rothman weren’t the first private cord blood bankers. By the time they entered the field, cord blood banking was becoming a highly speculative venture. The industry is based on the discovery in the mid-1980s that cord blood contains hematopoietic stem cells, which are responsible for generating new blood. This discovery caused excitement in the early ’90s after a series of pediatric transplants proved that cord blood could cure certain forms of sickle-cell anemia and leukemia. One reason for the excitement was that these diseases were previously thought to be curable only by bone marrow transplants, for which there is a perpetual shortage of donors. Since cord blood banks didn’t yet exist, the cord blood for the recipients had all come from siblings, many of whom were conceived for the express purpose of harvesting their umbilical cords. The publicity surrounding these so-called spare-parts babies is how many Americans first learned of cord blood stem cells, and it was instrumental in launching the private cord blood industry. Since 1992, more than 20 cord blood banks have opened, some bearing mawkish names like Gene-Angel, CureSource, LifeBank, Securacell, and Newborn Blood Banking. The pitch of the private cord blood bankers is that if cord blood stem cells can cure a few rare diseases today, then surely they’ll cure Alzheimer’s and paralysis tomorrow, so parents who love their children should pay thousands of dollars to bank their blood as a form of “biological insurance.”

Four million babies are born each year in the United States, and the competition for their umbilical cords can sometimes be brutal. Long before these children are delivered, their parents are inundated by literature from private cord blood banks. This literature appears in maternity shops and gynecologists’ offices and in baby magazines and on baby Web sites and tends to feature gurgling infants and misleading statements that suggest that cord blood can cure most anything. On one Web site, for instance, the baby has flashing messages over its face that sag “What if you could save her from Alzheimer’s? Or a stroke?” Nearly all offer “limited-time-only” discounts. A few display prominent Visa and MasterCard logos. Such antics have given the industry a bad name. They have also been tremendously successful. Last year nearly 80,000 babies had their cord blood banked, and the number is said to be growing by an annual rate of 20 percent. Which is why Dan Hale, who has sold many things in his life, most recently software and food products, had come to Del Mar and was shouting over the din, “Stem cells are the building blocks of life, and who knows what’s coming down the pipeline in terms of what those cells can do. Everything about it points to wow!”

“The American Society of Pediatrics opposes private cord blood banking except for children who are born into families with a history of fatal diseases.”

When people bank their baby’s cord blood with Family Cord Blood Services, they are given a temperature-controlled kit with a sterile blood bag. Once the child is delivered and the umbilical cord cut, the obstetrician drains the cord blood, seals it in the sterile bag, packs it back in the kit, then calls a medical courier, who delivers it to California Cryobank’s headquarters east of Bundy. The building is a nondescript two-story cement affair. Its only distinguishing feature is a 30-foot-high white tank in the parking lot that pipes liquid nitrogen into the building’s cryogenic storage area, where all the sperm and embryos and cord blood lie frozen in rows of giant stainless steel tanks. At present there are 60,000 units of sperm, a few thousand frozen embryos, and 10,000 units of cord blood. According to Marla Eby, the company’s PR woman, quite a bit of the cord blood belongs to celebrities, though she wouldn’t provide their names because of confidentiality agreements. From time to time, some of the parents who bank their child’s cord blood come by to visit, but they’re not allowed to open the tanks, of course.

California Cryobank’s interior is bright and full of baby pictures. The company has done its best not to appear cold or futuristic despite the preponderance of laboratories and stainless steel tanks. It is particularly proud of the cryogenic storage area, which is painted pale blue and has windows that let in lots of light and give it a wholesome dairy feel. The storage room is also designed to withstand severe earthquakes. Prospective customers sometimes worry that their child’s cord blood will be destroyed in a quake. Recently a saleswoman got a call from a man in the Midwest who wanted to know what would happen to his child’s cord blood if California fell into the ocean, and she had to explain that he’d have much bigger problems to worry about because a tsunami would be coming his way

Often these earthquake fears are planted by competitors in other states, according to California Cryobank’s president, a pale Finnish man named Kaj Rydman. “But we don’t ever reciprocate with things about tornadoes and hurricanes and floods,” Rydman told me. Family Cord Blood Services prides itself on never stooping to the level of other cord blood banks, some of which refer to their rivals as “just freezers.” “Competition can get nasty in the cord blood business,” said Eby. “Things are much more collegiate on the sperm bank side.”

Eby and Rydman took me to the laboratory where technicians were processing cord blood just in from Georgia and Mexico City and Burbank. After the cord blood arrives, Rydman explained, the stem cells are extracted and placed in stainless steel cartridges the size of cigarette packs and put in one of the tanks, where they are stored at minus 321 degrees Fahrenheit. No one knows exactly how long cord blood keeps, although the oldest cord blood in the world is 20 years old and has been found to be viable.

The lab is across the hall from the sperm donor cubicles, all of which are appointed in cherry wood and contain a large sink, a video monitor, and a stack of Penthouse magazines on which someone has written “Property of California Cryobank” in thick black marker. The company also provides soft-core DVDs, but they have to be checked out at the front desk, Eby explained, because donors want to take them home. It’s especially important for the sperm bank customers to bank their child’s cord blood, she added, since the biological father will never be around to donate his tissues. The company puts Family Cord Blood coupons in all its sperm bank enrollment kits.

Family Cord Blood Services charges $1,595 for the first year and an annual storage fee ranging from $85 to $105. The price drops considerably if fees are paid in advance. The longest payment plan is for 20 years. It is presumed that the child will have grown up by then and can make his or her own payments. When people don’t pay their storage bills, the company sends them letters threatening to thaw out their cord blood, though it’s never actually done so, Rydman said, because it might be unethical. Of the 10,000 units banked so far, only 1 has ever been defrosted for medical purposes, but it was too late to save the child.

Rothman and Sims have their offices on the second floor. I met with Sims, who is in his seventies and has bright white hair and pink skin and giant posters of stem cells in his office. Sims told me that when he and Rothman announced they were going into cord blood banking, some of their colleagues were appalled. The two made the announcement at the 1997 American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists meeting in Las Vegas, and some of the attendees called them “fakes and rip-offs” and said they were taking advantage of vulnerable parents. Sims had expected this reaction. He and his partner had debated the virtues of private cord blood banking for years, and he had been one of its biggest detractors. He felt the claims about cord blood’s potential were too wild and the premise of private banking too troubling. “I thought it might be something frivolous,” he said. “Kind of like the scientific equivalent of plastic surgery—something for the worried well-to-do.” But the more he examined the cumulative evidence of the cord blood studies, the more he felt they should take a gamble. Some of the decision was based on science. Some of it was based on the fact that he and Rothman already had a bunch of cryogenic tanks and other people didn’t. “We knew the barriers to entry would be high for our competitors and that if we waited until the rest of the world was ready, it would be too late,” he said. “Everything that’s happened since then has supported that initial decision.”

The company referred me to a client named Barry Bruder, a mind-body therapist on the Westside who believes that everyone should bank their child’s blood. “It’s part of conscious parenting these days,” Bruder said. “I mean, God forbid one of my girls got a disease that stem cells could be harvested for. I couldn’t not give them that option. Even the Republicans are getting into stem cells these days. When Nancy Reagan stands up and says you got to support stem cells, you have to listen to her. I mean, if you don’t listen to Nancy Reagan, who can you listen to?”

Family Cord Blood Services is the fifth-largest player in the cord blood banking industry. There are also 50 or so public banks storing roughly 150,000 units. The reason there are so few publicly banked units, Sims says, is that cord blood has to be harvested at birth, processed, and stored, which is prohibitively costly (It is also inconvenient. Anyone wishing to donate cord blood in Southern California, for instance, would have to give birth at Children’s Hospital in Orange.) That could soon change. In December Congress passed a bill authorizing $186 million to fund the public cord blood banking system, which will surely increase the number of public banks. But Sims doesn’t worry about the competition. As the cord blood industry sees it, 30 percent of the population send their children to private schools, and it is reasonable to expect that just as many will opt for private storage. If true, the private cord blood banking industry will soon be generating billions of dollars a year.


 

At the expo Dan Hale, whom Family Cord Blood had recently hired as its director of outside sales, had set up shop just around the corner from the Brinks Home Security booth and the New York Life booth, which was handing out baby rattles with the company’s name on them. While we waited for potential customers, Hale, who is exceedingly chipper, explained that a cord blood pitch can be tasteless if handled incorrectly, and there are certain things you want to avoid. First, he never asks a woman if she’s pregnant, no matter how distended her belly. “A man can get in trouble for that,” he said. “Usually I just ask if they know anyone who’s pregnant, and they’ll say, ‘Well, I happen to be,’ and I’ll say, ‘Well, how about that!'” After that, he’ll ask if she’s heard of cord blood or stem cells. Since most women don’t know much about either, Hale invariably begins by telling them that cord blood stem cells are not like embryonic stem cells in that no dead fetuses are involved. “The term ‘stem cell’ is on the boat, so everyone attributes them together,” he says, “and it’s something my industry has to get over because ours are lovely and wholesome.”

Since we were close to Camp Pendleton, many of the women at the expo were military wives. Most looked to be in their twenties and said their military obstetricians had never mentioned cord blood. “Are you kidding? They don’t tell us anything,” said a pregnant blond woman who was accompanied by two little girls. Others said they had seen something about cord blood in the baby magazines or maybe on TV but were foggy on how it worked. Whereupon Hale would launch into his basic pitch, which went something like this:

“We used to just toss out the umbilical cord. It was considered refuse. But then we realized there’s this magical recipe sitting inside it called stem cells! I’m sure you’ve heard of stem cells. Now, what would I use those stem cells for, you ask? Right now there are 85 diseases we can treat with them. We had a boy in Florida with sickle-cell anemia who we helped get through the process. A lot of doctors are using them instead of bone marrow transplants. I don’t know how much you know about bone marrow transplants, but it’s a very painful process to donate. They actually have to saw through your hip. Well, cord blood banking makes all that unnecessary. You don’t have to worry about donating for a loved one. Because right there in the bank you already have cells that are a perfect match for your child and a good match for a sibling and maybe even for other people in the family tree!”

It was noisy in the convention hall, and most of the time Hale would have to shout to be heard over the Gerber baby food demonstrations and the raffles. “Now, there is a cost to it, of course,” he’d go on. “But for 20 years that’s a kind of peace of mind and confidence. Especially for African Americans,” he’d say if any were present. “They’re the hardest people to match because of all the mixing that’s gone on. As a result, last year we had to the tune of 10,000 people we couldn’t help. And they perished. They passed. So I’m about that fun selfish thing—just taking care of your family. Hence our name, Family Cord Blood Services.”

At this point most people would want to know the odds of ever needing to use the cord blood, and he would tell them that it was roughly 1 in 10,000 “That’s why some doctors are saying not to do it,” he’d say “They say your chances of needing it are a rarity. Okay, it’s true. But I liken it to having an air bag in your automobile. It’s there for your protection. Air bags used to be optional, and it took a certain type of person to see the benefits, and now they’re mandatory”

“There is reason to be excited about all of these experiments, he said, even if they’ve only been done in animals so far, because cord blood is about what might happen tomorrow.”

Recently Family Cord Blood Services and some of the other banks were sued by a man in Fullerton who accused them of making false claims. That suit was dismissed. But there are doctors who say the same thing. The American Society of Pediatrics opposes private cord blood banking except for children who are born into families with a history of fatal diseases. When I called to ask why, the organization referred me to two doctors. The first, a pediatric oncologist at UCLA named Stephen Feig, said of the private cord blood industry, “Your chances of needing it are practically zero. It’s a crummy investment.” The second was Joanne Kurtzberg, director of the Pediatric Stem Cell Transplant Program at Duke University and one of the most respected figures in the field of cord blood transplantation. “Private banks overstate their claims and frighten parents in an inappropriate way,” said Kurtzberg, who recited a long list of the industry’s misleading and inaccurate statements. Chief among them is that if a baby gets leukemia it can be saved with its own cord blood. “That’s totally bogus,” she said. “If your baby gets leukemia, you would never want to use its blood because that blood would likely be contaminated with leukemic cells.” She also took issue with the industry’s suggestions that cord blood can cure everybody in the family. There is only enough cord blood for one child, she said, because people need a certain quantity of stem cells per body weight, and there aren’t enough in the blood of one cord for an adult. Kurtzberg, however, is a proponent of public banking. One of the proven wonders of cord blood, she said, is that it’s half as likely to be rejected by non-related recipients as bone marrow, which means a publicly banked cord blood unit has a far greater chance of saving a life than one locked away in a private bank, where it almost certainly never be used.

Sims allowed that Hale went overboard with his assertion that children with leukemia can be cured with their own cord blood. But, he said, critics are missing the point. First, he said, the odds of needing a cord blood transplant are not infinitesimal. According to Sims, they’re closer to 1 in 2,700, but the odds improve significantly when you consider future medical breakthroughs and how many people in the family will have access to the blood over a lifetime. Scientists have grown heart muscle and brain tissue with cord blood stem cells. There is reason to be excited about all of these experiments, he said, even if they’ve only been done in animals so far, because cord blood is about what might happen tomorrow. “That’s where we part company,” Sims said of his critics. “They say because you don’t have need today you won’t have need in the future. But you don’t buy fire insurance after your house is on fire. You buy it because you might have one. That’s the premise of the cord blood banking industry, and if people want to pay for it that’s their right. People spend money on a lot of things. They buy big-screen TVs.”

After lunch the Del Mar baby show wound down, and one of Hale’s associates said that the pregnant women had all gone home to take naps. “That’s what pregnant women do,” she said. By the end of the weekend Hale had collected a hundred or so names for the sales department to contact.

Nearly everyone who had stopped by said they wanted to bank their baby’s cord blood but that they couldn’t afford it. A pregnant military wife who’d already given birth to a child with a cancerous kidney said she wished she could but that it was too much money to spend on something that might not happen. The pregnant woman with the two little girls said she wished she could do it, too, in case her next child had a defect. As she walked away, Hale’s colleague called after her that the company was offering military discounts and that it was running a special promotion of $345 off the first year.

“I’ll talk to my husband,” she called back.

“We hope to hear from you!” Hale’s colleague responded.

“All my friends are pregnant,” she shouted. “We’re a nation of pregnant women!”

When she was gone, Hale said he’d be spending the next week taking obstetricians out to lunch and telling them about “the latest and greatest” in cord blood banking. “Obstetricians are marvelous people,” he said. “We all had one in our life. I did and so did you.” Then he wondered about the wisdom of the air bag metaphor. “The girls are troubled with it,” he said of his colleagues. “They’re like, ‘Dan, I don’t know if that’s a good analogy.’ But I think it’s kind of interesting, if you think about how it was an option and now it’s mandated in every car. It’s a brilliant industry,” he went on. “It’s a loving industry.” Then he scanned the horizon for more customers. But by then all the pregnant women were walking through the parking lot with balloons and looking for their cars.


This feature originally appeared in the April 2006 issue of Los Angeles magazine


Street Cred: L.A. Now Has Techie-Pampering Buses, Too

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ridepal

If we were all searching for a sign that L.A. tech is really taking off, we may have it: Industry buses have sprouted in the Southland, whisking employees to work in Wi-Fi -equipped, cozy-seated comfort.

The tech company rolling them out–YP, the digital arm of the Yellow Pages–is an unexpected one, both because their product is not a huge hit with millenials, as well as the fact that there office is in Glendale, quite a ways from Silicon Beach. But that’s the point; most tech workers in L.A. live close to where the action is, in Santa Monica, Venice, and Playa del Rey. Many of YP’s workers were griping about driving the hour to work every day and the company did something about it, the L.A. Times reports. YP reached out to San Francisco start-up RidePal, a shuttle service used to ferry Bay Area employees to Silicon Valley jobs.

YP workers have the option of giving up their paid parking spot for a free ride on the RidePal bus, which departs Glendale at 9 a.m. and heads back to the Westside at 5 p.m. Worker Troy Devers, who lives in West L.A., saves $200 (presumably a month) in gas, parking, and wear-and-tear. Employees like Devers praise the bus option, especially since half of their 500 workers reported personal commutes of 45 minutes or more. The sprawl of L.A. has scared off recruits and impacted retention rates at YP, but unlike in the Bay Area, Los Angeles has not risen up against their buses. While some in San Francisco saw RidePal and their ilk as traveling billboards for gentrification and traffic, here it’s seen as the opposite: less cars on the road to compete with.

But buses aren’t the only way local tech companies are addressing the problem of commuting in Los Angeles. Video start-up Zefr leases two Venice apartments for their employees, making them available if they have to work late on a project. And many companies in Los Angeles, even those not affiliated with tech, are allowing people to work part- or full-time from home.

“The more we create options to make transportation not a factor is good for the technology eco-system here,” Darren Clark, YP’s chief technology officer told the paper.

Selling Off Unused Parking Meter Time: There’s an App for That

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meter

In June, the City Attorney of San Francisco issued a cease and desist for the MonkeyParking App, which allows users to auction off time left on their metered parking spots. The program uses a GPS to match those with parking and those looking for it, and according to the app’s website, spots usually go for five to seven dollars (20% of which goes to Monkey Parking). At times, like during the 30th lap around LACMA looking for a free space, five bucks sounds completely reasonable just to end the misery of searching.

So what’s the problem? San Francisco found that people were using Monkey Parking to sell parking spots that were located on private driveways, or worse, located in illegal areas, which resulted in buyers getting slammed with hundreds of dollars in citations. Oddly enough, the company also faced the same problems in Rome, where creator Paolo Dobrowolny first launched the app. There were even reports of users selling parking spots that were actually parts of the sidewalk. Dennis Herrera, the San Francisco City Attorney, called this private market, “predatory.” Now that the city has banned Monkey Parking, the only fines will be for those using the app.

As of August, Monkey Parking launched in Santa Monica and Beverly Hills, offering new users a five-dollar credit. Ready for criticism after getting the boot in the Bay Area, Monkey Parking addressed concerns on its blog, introducing a “Monkey Reputation System.” Similar to Uber’s star-rating system, this reputation aspect will monitor users, limiting each person to two daily transactions. The blog also reports that the speed and location of users will be monitored to prevent people from hoarding parking spots by standing in them. There is no information in the blog post about how unsafe it is to drive while fiddling with a cell phone.

City Council has already discussed MonkeyParking, and recently passed Councilman Mike Bonin’s motion to outlaw the app in Los Angeles. This is bad news for any other start-ups who have ideas to capitalize on public parking, but, let’s be real, parking in L.A. already has so many issues, there’s no need to make the situation any more complicated.

PSA: Macing Your Fellow Theatergoer Is Not the Proper Response to Being Asked to Turn Off Your Cell Phone During a Movie

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The TCL Chinese Theatre

THE STORY: On Monday night at an AFI Fest screening of Mr. Turner, a man was reportedly maced in the face after he asked another theatergoer to turn off her cell phone. According to Mashable, here’s how it went down: As the biopic about painter J.M.W. Turner got underway at the TCL Chinese Theatre, a viewer repeatedly asked a woman sitting in front of him to turn off her phone. When she ignored him, he tapped her on the shoulder. She stood up, started swearing, pulled a canister of mace out of her purse, and sprayed him in the face. The movie kept playing. Twenty minutes later security showed up and escorted the macer out of the theater. Can’t an audience watch a Mike Leigh drama in peace?!

THE BOTTOM LINE: Let’s begin with the ineffective response by the theater’s security team. Staffers should have told the texter to turn off her cell phone and when she didn’t, she should have been escorted out immediately. Then there’s Etiquette 101, which dictates that if you’re not interested in seeing a movie with other humans, you shouldn’t go to a theater. Don’t plunk yourself down in a stadium-style seat only to ignore everyone and everything around you as you swipe left and answer those oh so urgent emails. Stay home and binge watch your favorite Netflix series instead. Finally, while we support the Alamo Drafthouse’s policy of ejecting and ridiculing cell phone scofflaws, it doesn’t go far enough. The death penalty, on the other hand, goes a little too far. Let’s settle on a happy medium and go the pleasantly practical route: Giving cell phone addicts the smoker treatment. Just imagine walking past a noisy, iPhone-lit theater reserved for viewers who refuse to give up the right to talk and text as you head to a blissfully uninterrupted showing in a different theater down the hall, knowing full well those phone-wielding viewers are getting what they truly deserve: An hour-and-a-half with each other. Now that’s a good movie-going experience.

 

Uber Bad News: What’s an Angeleno to Do?

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uberalternatives

Los Angeles’ most popular rideshare app, Uber, has been the center of some, pardon the pun, uber bad press recently. Reports of female passengers being harassed by drivers surfaced, and the company did little to make amends or change its policies to ensure better safety. The rideshare company was met with even more scrutiny when one of its blog posts boasted matching customers with hot female drivers, like some sort of escort/chauffeuring service. To make matters worse, Uber executive Emil Michael was caught discussing a plan to spend millions of the company’s dollars to hunt down journalists who have reported negative details about the app and publicly smear their reputations using personal information. Yikes.

Sure, we’ve enjoyed Uber, but not enough to prevent us from immediately deleting the app off our phones and figuring out a different way to get around. Besides the obvious, like busing, biking, or catching a train, there are a surprising number of Uber-less options available in L.A.

1. Other Rideshare Apps
Just because Uber screwed up doesn’t mean you can’t give apps like Lyft and Sidecar a chance. Lyft has those fab pink mustaches and one million dollar insurance for its drivers, customers, and any property in their cars. Sidecar, while a bit newer, lets drivers set their own prices and also has a nifty feature that shows users which driver has the quickest ETA to ensure a fast arrival.

2. Plain ‘Ol Taxis
Taxis are just like rideshares, except they are driven by real-life, trained professional drivers—imagine that! You can pretend like you are studying for a role in a movie where you play a New Yorker hailing a cab, although it might be faster to check out services like All Yellow Taxi or Yellow Cab. If you hate talking on the phone and prefer to use your thumbs, the app Curb—formerly known as Taxi Magic—can connect you with a professional driver as well.

3. ZipCar
ZipCar is a network that allows you to rent a car by the hour. Once you become a member, you can reserve and pick up cars from the company’s designated locations. ZipCar takes care of insurance and gas, and there is a fun variety of models (of cars, not ladies) to choose from. This might be a pricier alternative to Uber, but at least you won’t have to drive with any strangers.

4. Your Legs
If you usually depend on Uber to avoid driving after a few margaritas (which we approve of, wholeheartedly), why not try a place close to home? Use LAmag.com’s super convenient Restaurant Finder to discover a joint within walking distance. Take solace in the fact that the average human can walk about three miles an hour—that’s faster than traffic is currently moving on the 405.

As always, we wish you safe journeys. If you have any suggestions on other alternatives to Uber, tweet them to us: @lamag_driver.

In the Wake of Eric Garner’s Death, Police Commissioner Steve Soboroff is Working Faster Than Ever to Get Cameras on LAPD Officers

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bodycameras

When a New York jury decided this week not to indict white police officer Daniel Pantaleo in the death of Eric Garner, a black man who was unarmed when Pantaleo restrained him with a deadly chokehold, it incited protests across the nation—and added voices to an ongoing discussion about the effectiveness of police cameras. That’s because Garner’s death was caught on film by a bystander; the jury voted against an indictment despite having visual evidence of the events that took place, leaving many to believe that equipping officers with cameras would do little to stem inappropriate conduct or promote justice.

At a Paley Center for Media event celebrating an exhibition of his personal collection of famous typewriters, Los Angeles Police Commission president Steve Soboroff, who has been a staunch advocate of equipping LAPD officers with cameras, weighed in. “My opinion on video cameras for police hasn’t changed,” he said. “I believe that if [Pantaleo] would’ve had an on-body camera that his behavior would have changed. The fact that someone was standing there and took pictures is not the same, so no, it doesn’t change my opinion.”

“One of the great things that happens when you use on-body cameras is that it keeps things from escalating,” he added. “[The exchange between Pantaleo and Garner] is one of the most tragic things I’ve ever seen escalate unnecessarily.”

Soboroff says Angelenos could see officers wearing cameras by early 2015. “We’re doing the policy and the officer training,” he said. “By March we’ll have the cameras out there. It has brought stakeholders like ACLU, the Protective League, and different neighborhood coalition groups together. The process for creating the policy [around how the cameras are used] is going to be the same: open and public.”

Soboroff wants the LAPD to lead other departments by example. “My hope is that when the President starts sending out [funding for initiatives], instead of just sending the money he will send a little brochure that says, ‘See L.A.? The way L.A. picked cameras with the money? Here’s the money. Follow what they did. See the policy they are using? Follow that.’ I’m proud! I think our process to date has been flawless.”

The James Franco Movie That Might Destroy a Studio

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The Interview

WHAT: What did James Franco do this time? We kid, we kid. On November 24, while Americans were brining turkeys, hackers breached the Sony Pictures network exposing the names, birth dates, and social security numbers of nearly 4,000 employees and leaking several movies (including the musical Annie and WWII drama Fury) to file-sharing sites. The attack was quickly linked to North Korean hackers, who were supposedly unhappy about the action-comedy The Interview. (That said, North Korea has denied their involvement in the incident, the destruction of which has been deemed “unprecedented in nature.”) The film, which is set for release on December 25, stars Franco and Seth Rogen as tabloid journalists who are recruited by the CIA to assassinate North Korean potentate Kim Jong-Un. Last week The Hollywood Reporter asserted that sources inside Sony think it’s more likely the hack was an inside job, possibly the work of disgruntled former or current employees. Yesterday, a group calling itself the GOP (nope, not the Republican party but the “Guardians of Peace”) posted a warning on GitHub threatening Sony with further consequences:

We have already given our clear demand to the management team of SONY, however, they have refused to accept. It seems that you think everything will be well, if you find out the attacker, while no reacting to our demand. We are sending you our warning again. Do carry out our demand if you want to escape us. And, Stop immediately showing the movie of terrorism which can break the regional peace and cause the War! You, SONY & FBI, cannot find us. We are perfect as much. The destiny of SONY is totally up to the wise reaction & measure of SONY.

THE VERDICT: It’s a fascinating whodunit, but we’re skeptical about the North Korea angle. While dictators are a notoriously humorless bunch, the country is such an ideal scapegoat for American anxiety that it’s a little too perfect. Yes, there’s plenty to be worried about when it comes to the hermit kingdom ruled by a mercurial, third-generation dictator prone to killing family members and purging rivals. But data breaches like the Sony hack often originate closer to home. If you were an angry North Korean leader who has kept a country of nearly 25 million people in your iron grip, wouldn’t you be smart enough to figure out that you’re giving a ton of free publicity to a movie plenty of Americans would’ve ignored? Besides, James Franco dabbles in a little bit of everything: acting, directing, poetry, visual art. His stint as a political provocateur will likely be brief. Regardless of who’s responsible for the Sony hack, the studio shouldn’t cave in and pull the film. If we can’t watch a James Franco/Seth Rogen stoner action-comedy on Christmas Day, haven’t the terrorists already won?

BONUS: In addition to medical records and salaries, the info released by hackers included celebrities’ secret aliases. Good luck to you, Johnny Madrid (aka Tom Hanks) and Cash Money (aka Jessica Alba).

Fed-up Westsiders, Valley-ites Trying to Bring Down Waze

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We now know that traffic is threatening our physical well-being, but we’re getting close to confirming it’s turning Angelenos into lying, crazed, rage-monsters. Exhibit A: the new trend of Waze manipulation.

Homeowners residing in once-quiet streets near the 405 have been inundated with traffic lately, pretty much ever since Waze took off. The smartphone app is a real-time, user-sourced traffic report, advising drivers on the quickest routes by taking traffic into account. The app alerts users of accidents and police/fire/ambulance activity—incidents initially reported by drivers previously on the scene—and asks for confirmation of said congestion-makers (Google bought Waze last year and incorporates its technology into their own map applications). Waze users, warned of stand-stills on the 405 and Sepulveda are taking shortcuts through residential ‘hoods to make their way over the Pass. This has made locals furious and some, allegedly, are taking drastic action, KPCC reports.

While no one would go on record for the story, numerous locals said they know of people who report fake crashes to throw drivers off their scent and lead them away from their neighborhoods. “I don’t know if you could find anyone who would admit to doing it, but several people have said they will,” Brentwood resident Joann Killeen told KPCC.

Waze spokeswoman Julie Mossler scoffed at the assertion that Waze can be “outsmarted.” Not only will the accurate reports outnumber the made-up ones, “people are inherently good,” she said. Hmm, convince us of that during the next rush-hour.


There’s Now a Shazam for Cars

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We’ve all seen a gorgeous vehicle idling in traffic, but can’t get a good enough view to identify the make and model. State Farm Insurance, rather ingeniously, is on its way to creating a solution to that First World problem.

The company has created Car Capture, a smartphone app, that can helps users ID cars through photos. By taking pictures of the cars and uploading them, the app uses algorithms to match them with vehicles in their databases. You’ll then get safety info and consumer reviews courtesy of Edmund’s and, naturally, a link to State Farm for insurance info.

There are a few bugs, though. A minor issue is that pics should be taken of the back of cars, not the front (there’s more distinguishing features in the rear). A larger problem is that Car Capture’s database only includes cars made since 2000, so older beauties are out of reach (which are usually the ones we’re fixated on). The biggest caveat: accuracy. Wired tested the app and found it only worked about half the time, though the mistakes were usually different models of the same car (e.g., a Fiat 500 v. Fiat 500 Abarth).

Similar to apps like Shazam, which identifies songs through sound, Car Capture should get more user-friendly with time. We’re anxious for a something that can give us all the details on a classic car vrooming past us at 40 m.p.h.

The Short Stack: The Los Angeles Week in Review, 12/15/2014 – 12/19/2014

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NEWS

The Time We All Got Along
The scars of Rodney King and Watts receded some on Sunday, when a peaceful protest against policy brutality made its way through Old Pasadena. With cooperation from the Pasadena Police Department, the NAACP, and church groups, the protest highlighted how the region has grown since 1992 and instilled hope that the refrain of “Black Lives Matter” won’t just be hyperbole.

A New Focus
It took years for the Los Angeles Police Department to earn back its reputation among minority communities after the Rampart scandal of the 1990s. The department, along with Mayor Garcetti, showed their determination to not return to those days by announcing the intent to purchase thousands of body cameras, which dramatically reduce violent incidents between officers and suspects.

Game Over
Who would think it would be the Nevada Gaming Commission that would bring down nightlife magnate Sam Nazarian, whose company, SBE, is behind everything from the Umami burger chain to the SLS hotels? The commission was initially inclined to deny Nazarian a gaming permit at his new hotel, SLS Las Vegas, before deciding to grant him a limited license on Thursday. Before the decision was made, revelations about Nazarian’s cocaine use and his financial dealings with felons came to light, prompting him to step down as the hotel’s chief executive and sever most of his involvement with the new Sin City property.

App-horrent
Traffic has become so apocalyptic along the 405 that a new phenomenon has broken out: Waze-faking. The smartphone app Waze, which guides drivers around town using real-time traffic info, has led more commuters to use residential streets running between Brentwood and Sherman Oaks to get around. Some home owners are fighting back by reporting phony congestion as a way to divert the Wazers. Maybe we should all work from home.

CULTURE

This Is the End
It started with the release of e-mails and social security numbers, then the Sony cyberattack became much more ominous when the hackers—likely affiliated with the North Korean government—threatened violence if the studio released The Interview, whose storyline revolves around an assassination plot against Kim Jong-un. First the big theater chains dumped the film, but even indie arthouses won’t be able to show it due to Sony’s cancellation of the entire release. Like the greenlighting of The Interview, the decision to kill it received terrible reviews from writers, pundits, and industry folk.

Where to Eat Now
This was an exceptionally strong year for cuisine in Los Angeles, with incredible options opening in all corners of the city. But according to the Best New Restaurants of 2014, the latest list from Patric Kuh, our James Beard Award-winning critic, the foodie capitals in L.A. remain Silver Lake, downtown, and Venice.

The Blue Line to the Red Line to Bowser’s Castle
When Chicago artist Robert Bacon released his Super Mario-influenced map of our Metro system, Angelenos got nearly as excited as they did when the Expo Line opened to Culver City. Born in Fountain Valley, Bacon became inspired to create the colorful guide when he discovered that more than 300,000 people ride L.A.’s trains every day.

Ta-ta, Tartare
Ah, the L.A. of 1984: punk shows, the Olympics, and Beverly Hills’ Chaya Brasserie. After 30 years, the restaurant has announced it is shuttering its legendary Alden Drive location on New Year’s Eve. Chaya’s Franco-Japanese cuisine was ahead of its time and outlived the innumerable food trends of the past three decades. The Beverly Hills location may eventually find a new home, but in the meantime, Chaya’s downtown, LAX,  and Venice locations will continue to operate.

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How to Get Home on NYE Without Getting Gouged by Uber

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If you’re one of the hearty souls braving near-freezing temps tonight to party around town (like at the big festival in Grand Park), driving is probably the last thing you want to do. Being behind the wheel means no imbibing, and it also means fighting traffic, finding parking, and dealing with roads inundated with not-quite-sober drivers. So, what are the other options? Here are a few:

Taxi: 
It will be next to impossible to find a cab tonight, but if you download Curb (formerly Taxi Magic) to your smartphone, you’ll have a better chance. The app is connected to 90 cab companies and 60 cities, including L.A. and Long Beach.

Uber or Lyft:
A great alternative when the whole world isn’t searching for a ride, these ridesharing apps are prepping for their biggest nights of the year; Uber expects to make $100 million in revenue on New Year’s Eve. The apps will pocket all that dough thanks to surge-pricing, which increases costs for riders as demand increases. Get around surge-pricing by requesting your car just as the ball drops, or wait it out until 3 or 4 a.m., if you can stay awake. There’s also an app called SurgeProtector, which directs users to areas outside the surge zones, sometimes just a few blocks away.

Metro:
If you really want a steal, take a bus or train to your destination. Normally, a ride would cost you $1.75, but all Metro rides are free (!) from 9 p.m. to 2 a.m. on New Year’s Eve. The trains run all night long (another !), but check the NextBus site or app so you’re not waiting for a bus out in the cold.

 

We’re #1! Los Angeles Tops New Survey on “Digital Cities”

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As Angelenos toasted the start of 2015, city officials found one last reason to celebrate 2014: Los Angeles ranked first among cities with populations of 250,000 or more in e.Republic’s Center for Digital Government’s annual survey of digital cities. That’s the highest we’ve ranked since 2003, when L.A. tied Colorado Springs, Colorado for second place. This year, Kansas City, Missouri came in second; Seattle, Washington came in third. (You can see the top ten here.)

According to a Web site for e.Republic’s local government program, this year’s survey (the organization’s 14th) focused on the areas of citizen engagement, policy, operations, and technology and data. Here’s what the accomplishment means:

Our city’s cyber network is impressively secure.
In a release, e.Republic sites L.A.’s Cyber Intrusion Command Center, which is operated by the Los Angeles Police Department and launched in November 2013, as one of the reasons we topped the 2014 rankings. The 24-hour center helps protect Los Angeles from cyber attacks and also develops best practices for digital governing.

Garcetti’s investment in tech is paying off.
Mayor Garcetti hasn’t been shy about wanting to tech-up L.A. In May he unveiled a new and improved city Web site designed to make city data more accessible and to engage civic involvement among residents more likely to post a Yelp review than to show up to office hours at City Hall (read: pretty much everyone). The response wasn’t overwhelming, but the site’s providence did establish a useable platform for government reporting and interaction. Officials also released an updated site tracking the performance of various government departments and then in August, Garcetti hired Abhi Nemani, a veteran of Code for America, to be the city’s first chief data officer. Oh, and an October 2014 report showed L.A. now has more high tech sector jobs than Santa Clara.

If you haven’t already, you should download the MyLA311 App.
Like the Cyber Intrusion Command Center, the app was also name-checked by e.Republic’s release, and while it may not be as addictive as Kim Kardashian: Hollywood, it is easy to navigate and makes filling out a service request (nearly) frustration free. Speaking of free, the app costs zilch.

 

 

Los Angeles County Scores Not One But Two Data Plan Upgrades

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L.A. is really connecting. Last week the Metro got moving on an $800,000 project to provide cell phone service to subway riders plus WiFi service at stations. While full installation won’t be complete for another two years, four stations along the Red Line should be connected as early as May.

In the meanwhile, the Los Angeles County Board of Supes voted to create a Web site that will contain in one place all of the city data currently made available to the public through the city’s various departments—and more information not yet accessible. The Open Data Initiative was passed unanimously yesterday. After the vote, Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas said the plan will “make the county more transparent and accountable” to Angelenos. Data isn’t free: According to the Los Angeles Times, the site will cost the county nearly $300,000 per year after a first-year cost of about $318,000 (which includes start-up fees).

Police Demand Waze Shut Off Cop Tracking Feature

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Let’s be honest: One of the most useful features of Waze, the real-time, social networking traffic app, is the warning that officers are just ’round the bend. But that aspect of Waze is also inherently dangerous, according to police, who want Google, the app’s owner, to disable it.

Two sheriffs raised the issue of Waze during a recent meeting of the National Sheriffs Association. Mike Brown of Virginia and Sergio Kopelev of southern California warned that cop killers could detect officers through Waze and ambush them like sitting ducks. Though they’re have been no recorded incidents of anti-police violence aided through Waze, some high-ranking police professionals see it as a valid threat.

“I can think of 100 ways that it could present an officer-safety issue,” Jim Pasco, the executive director of the Fraternal Order of Police, told Huffington Post. “There’s no control over who uses it. So, if you’re a criminal and you want to rob a bank, hypothetically, you use your Waze.”

Civil liberties groups, specifically the Center for Democracy and Technology, think that argument is bunk. Google, meanwhile, wouldn’t provide comment to Huffington Post, though Waze insists that they regularly communicate with police departments.

The brouhaha over Waze’s cop feature may be heightened by the recent spate of violence against officers. Whether this minor Waze controversy turns major likely depends on the tenuous relationship between the public and the police.

UPDATE: LAPD Charlie Beck is now on the case, agreeing with the sheriffs and saying the cop feature is dangerous and should be shut down.

WeHo’s $18M Robo Garage Almost Powered Up

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Discussed and planned for years, West Hollywood’s automated parking garage is almost ready to stack its first car.

City officials held a topping-off ceremony on Tuesday for the project, which sits behind City Hall at Santa Monica Boulevard and Sweetzer Avenue. Nicknamed the “Robo Garage,” the automated system allows drivers to pull into four bays, hop out of their vehicles, and let a mechanical system place them in neat, vertical piles. The Robo Garage more efficiently stores cars than a typical parking structure—the previous surface lot held 66 cars and the Robo can stack 200.

Of course, such a novel invention—one of the first utilized on the West Coast—costs a pretty penny. At nearly $18 million, the Robo Garage’s individual spots cost $90,000 each. City officials say the garage is needed because WeHo is already jam-packed and there’s no room, or desire, to knock down businesses or apartments and build a towering garage.

The Robo Garage should be nicer than the typical parking structure, with an art installation, drought-tolerant landscaping, solar panels, and even a large glass window that allows pedestrians to take view of the mechanized movement. All this parking excitement can be yours in 10 months, according to WeHoville.


New Uber Will Get You Across the Westside for 5 Bucks

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Following Lyft’s lead, Uber launched a service that includes carpooling—similar to a shared ride van that ferries people to and from LAX.

uberPOOL, as it’s called, allows riders to save money by picking up other people heading in the same direction. Two riders will be paired and each occupant has the possibility of bringing a friend, with four riders allowed to squeeze into a car.

The initial cost savings are impressive, with Uber saying a ride from Venice to Beverly Hills or Beverly Hills to LAX or West Hollywood to Silver Lake would cost a maximum of $5, with a cross-town commute from Santa Monica to DTLA running under $15. These promotional prices—meaning they’ll likely jump soon—use La Cienega Boulevard as the delineation line. For the time being, those costs would put uberPOOL in line with the reasonable cab fares that New Yorkers pay (L.A. cabs are notoriously expensive).

Uber is promoting the environmental aspect of the new service. They claim uberPOOL can take 500,000 cars off the road and will “reduce traffic, improve air quality, and transform the way we move around our city.”

iCar: Detroit Hopes Tech Advances Encourage Upgrade Fever

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Car companies are now hoping to foment an upgrade obsession with the customers, using the same model that Apple so expertly harvested with cell phone users.

The idea is to get drivers frustrated with anything seen as outdated and encourage them to chuck a three-year-old vehicle for something featuring the latest and greatest gadgets. Companies from BMW to Hyundai are betting on this strategy and they have a few things that should aid their endeavors, according to a new report in Bloomberg.

With gas prices remaining relatively low (though slowly rising), more consumers can justify larger vehicles or extra add-ons at the dealership. Plus, lease commitments are growing shorter, with 36 months the new average (and even shorter leases are available than three years). That time frame is comparable to the gaps between new iPhone releases.

When a lease is up, car shoppers will be wowed by incredible advances in technology. Blue tooth, rear cameras, WiFi, anti-skid features, speech recognition, lane departure warning, and blind spot detection are some of the options gadget-hounds are now chasing. In the future, it will likely be driver-less features that have the car partially take over control, like in parking situations and traffic jams, that will be in vogue.

For years, there was little to differentiate new car models from their older counterparts, other than aesthetics. When Detroit was majorly broke, before the bailout of the last decade, they had very little money to invest in tech upgrades. Things have changed for the better for the industry, and a 2015 model can make a 2013 look like a dinosaur. Keep an eye out for marketing that tries to can capture the restless, insecure energy of the millennials, and their very real fear: of missing out.

Google Lets You Take Pac-Man Through the Streets of L.A.

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Navigating the streets of Los Angeles often feels like a game—with traps (closed streets), tricks (wrong info on Waze), and sometimes rewards (a moving 405!) available. Let’s be honest though, it’s rarely fun. That was until Google got involved.

The tech powerhouse created a new Pac-Man version of their Google Map service, where you can take the little guy around the streets of Los Angeles (or anywhere). Just click on the box on the left—you can’t miss it—and pound those pellets while running away from those ghosts.

The player experience was a little wonky; Pac-Man only moved about 50 percent of the times we directed him. Nonetheless, it was a hoot watching him careen through the streets of Santa Monica (we got trapped in Windward Circle for a bit). TheWrap believes Chrome may be the best browser to play in, though that’s debatable.

This might be an April Fool’s promotion (even though that’s tomorrow), so play while you can.

The Newest Driving Distraction: Digital Bus Ads

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L.A. may have banned digital advertising on billboards, but the Antelope Valley just introduced them on buses. The Antelope Valley Transit Authority launched a five-year pilot program last week to see how such messaging will impact drivers, if at all.

Digital advertising cuts down on expensive materials and labor that go into affixing regular advertising onto the sides of buses. Transit authorities like AVTA, who increasingly rely on advertisers to plug budget holes, are hoping the digital ads entice more companies to drop a few coins in their cashbox. Police are supportive, as well, saying the ads will be a more effective to way to reach the public during Amber Alerts and other emergencies.

The California Highway Patrol will monitor the program and take action if it’s causing problems. The ads will remain static on freeways and will only change images while the buses travel on surface streets.

“We fully expect these digital signs will prove to be just as safe as the digital billboards we see posted along our highways,” Congressman Steve Knight, who authored legislation for the pilot program, said in a statement. “Time will tell, but we feel confident this program will withstand scrutiny.”

L.A.’s Milken Institute Global Conference Had Just One L.A.-Themed Panel

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Google offices some employees in the "Binoculars Building" in Venice

This year’s Milken Institute Global Conference spanned four days and included talks on topics ranging from the economic future of the Middle East to how to engage the curious mind (Brian Grazer’s, to be exact).

But only one discussion of the 170 sessions put on at the Beverly Hilton this week included Los Angeles in its title. Building an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem: Why L.A. is Working—moderated loosely by hedge fund advisor Steven Drobny and featuring business strategist Walter Delph, venture capitalist Kara Nortman, True Car CEO Scott Painter, tech entrepreneur Julie Schoenfeld, and banker Steven Sugarman—checked all the talking point boxes you’d expect from a group of people who make their money developing a tech industry in a city better known for making movies than inspiring innovations in engineering.

Between talk of “market disruptions” (the Big One is apparently headed this way) and a short primer on business loans, four important points were made about L.A.’s small businesses and start-ups. Here’s the deal:

Despite matching monikers, L.A.’s tech scene doesn’t behave like the Bay Area’s
That’s because it isn’t. Tech companies in Southern California don’t have as much street cred with investors as their neighbors to the north, which makes it harder for L.A. start-ups to make progress quickly but also gives local entrepreneurs a reason to approach business more creatively. Sugarman, who runs Banc of California, likened L.A.’s nascent Silicon Beach scene to the Wild West—in a good way.

Local innovation goes beyond the beach
Engineers don’t want to work in cold, dark spaces somewhere in the Inland Empire—or so says Painter, whose company has offices overlooking the Pacific. But Nortman was quick to point out that there are wonderful start-ups opening all over the city. She’s been working recently in the Arts District. “I feel like I’m in Brooklyn or the West Village—with good weather,” she quipped.

L.A.’s tech sector is going to succeed because of—not replace—the entertainment industry
As tech companies continue to focus on user experience, L.A.’s creative know-how will only increase in value. “Where do we draw our talent from? The studios,” said Painter, who pointed out how Angelenos have transformed retail environments. “If you look at L.A. companies,” he added, creating good experiences is “where their strength is.”

As they build it, money will come
The panelists conferred that L.A. is the most interesting market in the world right now—bar none. “It’s exciting to see genuine engineering talent at the recruiting level that just wasn’t here five years ago,” said Painter. Sugarman agreed, and then looked further down the road. His take? Real tech cred is going to draw real tech money. Really.

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