Kind of depressing they picked San Fran (San Diego, San Francisco: sales, co-op)

[Pedro2000]

Illumina is a pretty successful company and the HQ is in San Diego.
However they just started a new incubator/new company called Grail, but opened it up in San Fran, not San Diego. A new company in SD doing dna and blood tests would be great, but it's not happening. I wonder why they picked SF over SD, I mean they are here and the biotech space is sort of big here.


Illumina Jumps into Cancer Screening with $100 Million Spin-off Grail | MIT Technology Review

[NYSD1995]

Biotech is as big in SF, probably bigger, but really because the funding is there, that's where the entrepreneurs are.

[Pedro2000]

Originally Posted by Sassberto

Biotech is as big in SF, probably bigger, but really because the funding is there, that's where the entrepreneurs are.

Oh I agree with the funding aspect. I know plenty of startups where any sort of traction meant some VC or Angel tried to convince them to move up to the Bay Area. Sometimes they refuse to even invest if they didn't move. Service-Now wound up moving their HQs up to Silicon Valley, even though they did at least keep a office in UTC. Websense got bought and left for Texas and told their employees to relocate or find another job.

It just stinks that the few companies that do succeed here, seem to move or wind up expanding elsewhere. $100 Million in capital is huge for any startup. That creates jobs, other opportunities, etc. It's the residual effect I always talk about where a Google spawns thousands of startups and so on. Illumnia created their own spawned startup, but opened them up in the Bay Area. It just shows you the mindset of successful businesses in SD.

[BayAreaHillbilly]

The Bay Area is great for VCs, acceptable for senior management, and terrible for all other employees.

[The Flying Dutchman]

Interesting how the Bay Area and San Diego are becoming compared more and more often for various reasons (affordability, desirability, VC, industry, etc...)

You'd be surprised how many San Diegans have never even visited San Francisco. In their own state. Or even left the city.

[NYSD1995]

Originally Posted by The Flying Dutchman

You'd be surprised how many San Diegans have never even visited San Francisco. In their own state. Or even left the city.

Or have even gone beyond a few miles of where they live!

[T. Damon]

Originally Posted by The Flying Dutchman

Interesting how the Bay Area and San Diego are becoming compared more and more often for various reasons (affordability, desirability, VC, industry, etc...)

You'd be surprised how many San Diegans have never even visited San Francisco. In their own state. Or even left the city.

Haha. I can't count the number of Southern Californians and San Diegans in particular who have never set foot in places like San Francisco, Yosemite, Lake Tahoe or the Redwoods of coastal California! Often as not these are people who are otherwise well traveled, but just as often they are surprisingly insular.

I can remember an architecture class at Mesa College years ago where our design project was a site in Balboa Park and several of the students uttered "Now, Balboa Park, I've heard of that but where is it exactly?"

Of the Illumina investment I have a good friend who is very high up as a sales manager for the company- it would be interesting to garner his take on the investment up north and whether that signals anything for the long term future of the company down here. I think other posters have it pretty well figured out though- lots of Biotech in the Bay Area, copious investment dollars available and certainly plenty of educated workers in the field. If you don't have a Bay Area presence in this state it behooves you to get up there and grab one while/if you can.

A loss though for our city's beleaguered Fortune 500 presence (or is it the Fortune 1000?) of our own for a city of this size and educated populous.

[shmoov_groovzsd]

Yes this is disappointing but not surprising based on similar past performance and decisions for that kind of investment in San Diego. Without question the best ones leave the area and I have only invested in one local startup which ultimately was acquired and left SD.

I don't much at all about the bio and life science tech stuff, but I can say from experience, that SD doesn't rank too highly IMHO for breeding a fertile incubator-like startup culture. There are factions here and there and co-op spaces with some talented younger folks trying to develop cool stuff, but finding the funding can be a challenge as well as right leadership.

In addition, I have seen startups here struggle to find the right kind of talent and vice versa. Startups which don't necessarily understand the kind of talent they need and/or misdiagnose the skillset with the void.

[1AngryTaxPayer]

Originally Posted by T. Damon

Haha. I can't count the number of Southern Californians and San Diegans in particular who have never set foot in places like San Francisco, Yosemite, Lake Tahoe or the Redwoods of coastal California! Often as not these are people who are otherwise well traveled, but just as often they are surprisingly insular.

I can remember an architecture class at Mesa College years ago where our design project was a site in Balboa Park and several of the students uttered "Now, Balboa Park, I've heard of that but where is it exactly?"

Of the Illumina investment I have a good friend who is very high up as a sales manager for the company- it would be interesting to garner his take on the investment up north and whether that signals anything for the long term future of the company down here. I think other posters have it pretty well figured out though- lots of Biotech in the Bay Area, copious investment dollars available and certainly plenty of educated workers in the field. If you don't have a Bay Area presence in this state it behooves you to get up there and grab one while/if you can.

A loss though for our city's beleaguered Fortune 500 presence (or is it the Fortune 1000?) of our own for a city of this size and educated populous.

There was a field trip of HS kids at the beach from San Ysidro because they've never been to the beach.

[earlyretirement]

All great points. I agree with the previous posts. Many VC's kind of insist on their portfolio companies being within quick driving distance of them.

San Diego still is kind of a wacky town for as big a population it has. I did a start-up here and this is a super tough town to raise funds in. It's funny as lots of people call themselves "VC's" but they really aren't. There aren't too many really big investors here.

I'd laugh because I would go to a meeting with a "VC" here in San Diego trying to raise money and they would actually be pitching me on their own ideas and trying to get me to invest in their company. LOL. Like I said, very wacky.

There are Angel investors in town but entities like Tech Coast Angels and the like are a big joke for the most part.

And many start-ups that do get traction end up getting acquired and for the most part get moved out of San Diego. As my company was getting acquired, one of Rupert Murdock's companies also wanted to buy my firm. If they did, they would have also moved the company out of San Diego. No really good reasons for basing a company in San Diego.

For all intent and purposes, it doesn't make sense for many companies to be based here. They only are because the CEO loves San Diego. I look at companies like Bridgepoint Education that are based here and there is NO good reason they are based here other than the fact that the CEO wants to live here. Lots of other examples like that.