A friend's wife is a master seamstress. She did all the costumes Ender's Game with 3 other people (I bellieve). Being in the union means you get at least 1 gig a year. Another poster here talked about Hollywood being the dominant driver, and that is completely true. Many of the small engineering firms here (not Boeing, etc) are focused on cameras and other movie tech. Heck, most of the investment community here is in movies. Part of that driver means that the culture comes along with it. That means failure is not tolerated here.
My buddy just graduated UCLA dentistry. Its a 4 year program. He likes to study in coffee shops. He said when he first got to LA, the shop were half full of people trying to pitch a script or movie idea. Now? He said half the people here are CEOs of some sort.
Last year they had a mixer for Silicon Beach people at a bar in Santa Monica. I went, as I can at least code my way out of a paper bag, though not much more. Ok, chit chat, free beer, appetizers, etc. Then you realize that you and 2 other guys are the only engineers there. The other 50 people are all CEOs of some baby start-up or another, half with NDAs in the pockets. I talked to about 15 and not one of them knew to code, wanted me to work, and were looking to give out ~10% of the company for the work. No thanks.
Went to a thing for UCLA grads centered on start-ups. It was a panel discussion with UCLA alumni and then a meet and greet. Good cookies though. I asked the question: What is your work-life balance like. All laughed. One of the guys said his boss was a good example: 5-7am workout, 7-8am kids to school, 8-5pm work, 5-9pm play with kids, dinner, HW, 9-1am email, repeat. I pointed out that meant he slept 4 hours at that rate and, though he may be able to sustain this, it's statistically impossible other people can.
Buddy got an interview for a coding job around the corner from Snapchat. Nice loft, great looking secretaries, good free lunch, etc. Problem was, he couldn't figure out what they actually did as a business. He figured they were just looking for acqui-hire, something he was not interested in due to the stink of failure Hollywood fears.
Traffic sucks. I grow plants on the balcony. About every week I need to spritz them down from the exhaust ash that accumulates on the leaves. Not really about tech, I know, but still, I can see just how much of a car culture LA is on my carrots.
* We pay 12 for a nice little 2 bedroom. It's a steal. The westside is really going up in costs now. I talked to the apartment manager and she says when we move they'll rent for 17. The 2 new buildings going in cat-corner to us are 3k for their 1 bedrooms. LA may be cheap now, but the westside is going to SF levels soon. My lawyer friend in Los Feliz is going long on Compton. Rents are cheap there and it's 3 miles from the beach, just like the westside used to be and Venice is now. Hes got 3 units already.