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Florida-Based Magic Leap Builds Its Team With Bay Area Hires
Tekla Perry writes Stealthy 'cinematic reality' company Magic Leap may be based in Florida--but it's doing a lot of hiring from the Bay Area, scooping up engineers from Pixar, Google, Apple, and Intel--along with a few Willow Garage alums. And it's got openings for many many more. Are all these folks with long-term Silicon Valley roots really going to move to South Florida? Or is Magic Leap getting ready to open up a Silicon Valley research center to house the brain trust it is gathering? Here's what we know about Magic Leap and its technology, who's joining it, and what other kinds of engineers the company aims to hire.
Magic Leap has a lot of money to do all that hiring, having just raised more than half a billion dollars, the bulk of it from Google. If you're working in the Bay Area now, would you look forward to a move to Florida, or rather stay where you are?
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You know, California and Florida both have more than their fair share of crazy people. The main difference comes down to what flavor of crazy you're talking about. In California, it's an asset. In Florida, it's fucking frightening.
So no. I would not move from the Bay Area to Florida.
People who say "sheeple" have about as much sophistication as an AOL user, and in fact are probably actually AOL users.
The first thing I though of was, apart from being a (slightly) Red state, Florida is also one of those states that makes it impossible to form labor unions, which is quite relevant to a company that wants to make "cinematic" experiences. South Florida, Miami in particular, is a sorta notorious hothouse for non-union filmmaking and is a really popular destination for "venture capital" types that want to try to do movie or movie-like things while avoiding the entertainment guilds.
Sure, the Apple and Pixar people don't care about unions. But, if this company is a cover for some kind of content operation, they'll need need writers, actors, directors, camera crews that know all about 3D and MoCap, trained grips and stagehands, editors, sound people... South Florida is well stocked with relatively qualified people in all these job categories.
People who do VFX and animation generally haven't joined the stage guilds, but their employers here in LA have been so abusive (really just flaky) lately that there's been buzzing that the animation guild, IATSE 829, was finally making a push to get them signed -- 829 has jurisdiction in SF as well. But not in Florida.
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
There's a lot of better states to move than Florida; two of them are directly north of California.
California is an excellent place to be an employee:
1) there's tons of companies there, so if one job doesn't work out, just walk across the street and get a new one.
2) non-compete clauses are unenforceable in California, so employers can't prevent you from working within your industry if you leave that company. The same isn't true in most other states.
There's a reason (or really, many reasons) why Silicon Valley is so successful, and why no one has been able to copy that success though many have tried (like "Silicon Alley" in NYC--what a joke). Many foolish places keep trying to pitch themselves as "the next Silicon Valley", but for most of them it's a pathetic joke because they don't make the changes actually needed to make such a place successful.
Florida is a terrible place to try to set this up for reasons others have stated here: it's a Red State (remember, you're trying to attract hip and well-educated 20- and 30-somethings who are generally non-religious, and a GOP stronghold is not attractive to them), it's full of old people and crazy people, the politics are insane, the weather is terrible (remember, we're talking about people living in the Bay Area, which has excellent mild weather), and of course, it's not already a tech hub unlike places like Boston, Seattle, or RTP, so if this job doesn't work out, they'll have to move back to California. The whole idea is just dumb.
After having worked in both SoCal and Florida, I'd choose Florida hands down. Maybe you should get out more.
Well, I looked for a location for the company and it said Dania Beach, which is along the Atlantic Ocean side probably about 20 miles north of Miami. While Florida may be "red" state, the Miami area is pretty "blue."
That said, a company I used to work for got bought and we all ended up moving down to Miami. I was in my mid-20s and Miami was a pretty fun place. Lots of fun bars in Coconut Grove and South Beach (which stay open until 4AM!). You have a warm ocean, so you don't need to put on wetsuit if you're spending more than 10 minutes in the water.
The heat and humidity? Yeah, it can be bad. Make sure you live someplace with a pool. That solved the problem for me. Also, it's one of those cases where pretty much every place you live has central A/C. If they don't, you don't want to live there.
About the only issue I had was that after a year or so in Miami, I felt like I'd been everywhere and done everything. And once you get out of Miami/Dade, you're in The South which definitely was grating.
Boca Raton resident here. I agree completely with the OP. Florida gets a bad rap in the media which is hard to apply to such a diverse state. Having been born here the heat and humidity seem normal.
I work as an embedded software engineer and that means many trips out to the west coast of the US. Personally I can't stand the weather out there and there are many other things I just don't care for out there but have to tolerate for work. But no amount of money would convince me to live in the west coast. So the GP should keep in mind that the entire world does not share the same values.
I have lived in Florida for 60 years and would not reccomend life in the Miami, Ft. lauderdale or Palm Beach area including Boca raton. The southeastern coast of Florida has been destroyed by growth and the deliberate attraction of excessive population. Also considerable racial strife as well as a vivid gap between the haves and the have nots has resulted in an area prone to crime and violent crime at that. There are areas in Florida that could be ideal for major businesses. Areas not too distant from Orlando that are still rural or uninhabited enable land purches at sane prices. Crime is much less of a problem in these areas and if you consult locals you can fine out about the effect of storms in the specific region. With intelligent designs and placements buildings and homes can be quite safe in almost any potential hurricane. Casually buying into just any old place in Florida is a huge mistake. For example if a person dreams about buying land in California knowledge is required or you might end up in a really nasty desert or a wooded area prone to frequent forest fires. You need to know and understand exactly what you are buying.