The slides and sleep pods of LA's Silicon Beach startup scene captured by Lauren Greenfield

Date
28 August 2015

The California tech scene looks like a cross between the set of Nathan Barley and something of an American Psycho dystopia: it’s slides and sleep pods one minute, frantic phone calls and 24-hour working days the next. Offering up a Technicolour insight into this world is Lauren Greenfield, thanks to her photography series for The California Sunday Magazine. The images take a look at the Venice area that houses the offices of Google, Snapchat and Jessica Alba’s Honest Company among others, and is dubbed “Silicon Beach.” The area rapidly boomed into a tech hub, we learn in the piece, transforming from an arty, “goofy” site to one teeming with juice bars and “tech incubators.”

Lauren’s images show the bizarre reality of working in a tech startup: there are comedically large chess boards and pantomimic spray hose performances, sure, but you can almost taste the number-crunching ruthlessness of the startup chiefs huddled round their computers pretending to ignore the dude skateboarding round the middle of the office.

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Lauren Greenfield: Silicon Beach

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Lauren Greenfield: Silicon Beach

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Lauren Greenfield: Silicon Beach

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Lauren Greenfield: Silicon Beach

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Lauren Greenfield: Silicon Beach

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About the Author

Emily Gosling

Emily joined It’s Nice That as Online Editor in the summer of 2014 after four years at Design Week. She is particularly interested in graphic design, branding and music. After working It's Nice That as both Online Editor and Deputy Editor, Emily left the company in 2016.

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