Slashdot Mirror
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?
How much did this plug cost Timothy?
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
The move to Florida will be a bit difficult for man Silicon Valley folks. Florida is a Red State. Most of you aren't old enough to remember the Equal Rights Amendment to the US Consitution, which Florida never ratified. Floridia also failed to ratify the 19th amendment to the US Constitution until 1969. Which amendment is that you ask? That's the one which gave women the right to vote. It was the Law of the Land back in the 1920's because 2/3rds of the states had ratified it, but Florida only accepted it more than 40 years after the fact.
Add in punishing heat, humidity and the fact that you're smack dab in Hurricane Alley with things only getting worse with climate change and you'll realize WHY Florida is a cheaper place to live. But if you don't care about any of that and like cheap seafood and good ol' boy values, then maybe Florida is the state for you!
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.
From a Euro perspective it would be difficult to prefer Florida over California, all else held equal. But you bring up a good point which is in CA's favor: - in California, having crazy people means they will stick flowers in your car - Florida, having crazy people means they will get amped on bath salts meth and try to eat your face
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.
The breed of crazy that will shoot you dead for walking home at night from a convenience store.
Oh, it's certainly happening. As you point out, in 2011, 234 companies left California.
What's entertaining is about 132,000 new businesses were started--tied with Texas. And California leads the nation in job creation, which is why these other states are trying to steal businesses from California.
As a former Bay Area resident who now lives in Florida, my advice is to stay in California if you can afford to and if you're okay with your current job. Florida isn't totally horrible, but CA is a million times better, ESPECIALLY the Bay Area. Two things off top of my head: the weather is better out there, and there's a whole lot more going on. Every month, it seems, I see an ad for some cool event or something happening right there were used to live. I'd move back in a second if I could afford to. Never should have left, but oh well, that's how life goes sometimes.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
Comment removed based on user account deletion