‘I'm Not as Stressed Out’: During the Pandemic, Angelenos Tried Living Elsewhere. Many Aren’t Moving Back
Oct 02 2020
Editor's note: This is the second of a two-part series. Yesterday: Why New Yorkers and San Francisco tech workers have been moving to L.A. during the pandemic.
In late February, Aja Signor relocated from San Francisco to Venice Beach to start a new job as design director at an early-stage startup, Robin Games. She rented a one-bedroom apartment for $3,100 a month that was a pleasant 15-minute stroll to the beach one direction and 15 minutes to her office on Abbot Kinney the other way.
<p>Three weeks later, everything changed. Robin Games abruptly closed its doors <a href="https://dot.la/remote-working-startup-2646987565.html" target="_blank">and the CEO said employees could work remotely as long as they wanted.</a></p><p>Signor started to hate everything about where she was living: the cramped elevator she had to ride up to her apartment, the neighbor who picked up smoking to "deal with the pandemic" and the hordes of tourists descending on Venice. "My neighborhood was packed with people not wearing masks and not doing social distancing," she said.</p><p>At the urging of her sister, Signor decided to go live with her family in Las Vegas for what she thought would be a temporary stay. She ended up liking it so much she broke her lease and plans to never live in L.A. again. In fact, in July, she did something she never would have been able to do in L.A. unless the startup she worked at had a lucrative exit and her stock options ballooned in value – she bought a roomy house.</p><p>"I had lived in California so long that I had given up owning a place of my own," Signor said. "But in Vegas the property is so cheap."</p><p>Instead of shelling out over $3,000 a month to rent a cramped apartment, Signor is now paying a mortgage costing a thousand dollars less for a four-bedroom home on a half acre of land with her own pool and hot tub.</p><p>"I can have a karaoke room, a dance room and a guest room," Signor marveled. "This could never happen in L.A."</p><p>Even as a tech worker at the top of her field, Signor always felt financially stretched in California, but in Nevada — on top of much cheaper housing costs — there is no state income tax. "That's like giving yourself a raise," she added.</p><p>Signor is part of a wave of L.A. residents in the tech and startup world who have left during the pandemic, accelerating a yearslong trend of migration to cheaper inland cities like Las Vegas, Sacramento and Phoenix. While people abandoning New York and San Francisco <a href="https://www.axios.com/new-york-city-abandoned-378fc5d8-9af4-447b-8e7e-df1b27da50e5.html" target="_blank">get most of the headlines,</a> L.A. is also experiencing an exodus of residents.</p><p>Real Estate service Redfin estimates <a href="https://www.redfin.com/blog/july-2020-housing-migration-trends/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">12,405 departed in July alone</a> and, according to an<a href="https://www.teamblind.com/blog/index.php/2020/09/21/blind-presents-the-tech-exodus/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"> unscientific survey of hundreds of tech workers conducted this month by the employment service Blind,</a> 35% have moved from L.A, a much higher percentage than New York or San Francisco.</p><p>dot.LA spoke to more than a half a dozen former Angelenos who departed during the pandemic. Like Signor, suddenly able to work from anywhere, they were attracted to other cities because of cheaper housing costs, lower taxes and, in many cases, closer proximity to family.</p><p>"We will pay 30 percent of the rent we were paying before," said Emily Best, founder and CEO of Seed&Spark. She, her husband and their two young kids used to live in downtown L.A., a short walk away from her office. But, reached via telephone, she said they were in the midst of driving across the country to live in a cabin in rural New York near relatives.</p><p>"We were in a rat race in L.A., trying to make enough money to live," Best said. "Every year it felt farther out of reach. We started having conversations about how to get off that hamster wheel and this pushed off over the edge. It's been really nice not to be so stressed out about money."</p><p>Best says her company will never go back to the sunlit and brick exposed corner workspace she opened two years ago downtown.</p><p>"That was the most painful for me: giving up the office," said Best. "That was our first real office."</p><p>Putting sentimentality aside, she is permanently taking her company fully remote. "We've already proven that everything can be done virtually," she said. "We are never going back to L.A. I don't see why we would come back."</p><p>For people like Best and Signor, COVID-19 was a life altering event that suddenly made them want to leave L.A. For others, like Jenn and Justin Welsh, the pandemic was the catalyst for a move they were already considering. Both left high-profile Santa Monica startups in recent years to start their own consulting practices. Realizing they could work from anywhere, they wondered why they were still paying L.A. housing prices.</p><p>"We wanted to make a dramatic change to our financial situation," said Jenn Welsh. "The kind of house we wanted in L.A. would be $3 million."</p><p>There were also other considerations. The Welsh's, who lived in Leimert Park, grew tired of spending hours in traffic just to have dinner with friends. (Though roadways have been more empty during the pandemic, a study last year by <a href="https://static.tti.tamu.edu/tti.tamu.edu/documents/mobility-report-2019.pdf" target="_blank">the Texas A&M Transportation Institute</a> found L.A. has the worst traffic in the country, with commuters <a href="https://ktla.com/news/local-news/l-a-commuters-spend-an-average-of-119-hours-a-year-stuck-in-traffic-most-in-u-s-study-finds/" target="_blank">wasting an average of 119 hours in traffic a year.)</a></p><p>"One of my best friends lives in Pasadena," Jenn Welsh said. "She had to spend the night when she would visit. The traffic was debilitating."</p><p>Over the summer, the Welsh's sold their home in Leimert Park and bought a place in Nashville, where the median house goes for $299,838, compared to $764,528 in L.A., according to Zillow.</p><p>"We doubled the size of our house and reduced our mortgage by half," said Justin Welsh.</p><p>They say they've been impressed by Nashville's "warm hospitality" and have already made friends who are only a quick 15-minute drive away. They miss parts of L.A. – the weather, sushi and Mexican food – but have no regrets.</p><p>"L.A. is L.A.," said Justin Welsh. "It's paradise. It has access to everything you could want. I miss our friends. But I certainly don't miss the cost."</p><p>The Welsh's say they can always visit L.A. when the pandemic is over and others, like Signor, the design director who moved from Venice to Las Vegas, plan to return more frequently to maintain connections to their company and professional networks.</p><p>"I'd be dumb not to worry about that," Signor says, of living away from the tech scene. That is why she worked out an arrangement with her boss to spend one week a month back in Los Angeles, staying in an Airbnb once her office reopens.</p><p>"I'm not giving up on L.A.," she said. "But I think I'm doing some of my best work of my career right now because I don't have to spend time commuting and I'm not spending as much money so I'm not as stressed out."</p>
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'It's a No-Brainer': NYC and SF Tech Workers Move to LA for Sun, Space and Cheaper Rent During the Pandemic
Oct 01 2020
Editor's note: This is the first of a two-part series. Read the second part here: The exodus from L.A. Tech workers who traded cramped one-bedroom apartments by the ocean for 4-bedroom houses in Las Vegas.
Roger DaSilva, who grew up in New Jersey and lived in New York for two decades, long dreamed about trading the honking horns and gridlock of Manhattan for the sand and ocean breezes of Manhattan Beach.
"When I would visit L.A., it just felt like a different country with the people, the easy going nature, and the genuine friendliness of the people," said DaSilva. "It's that laid back vibe, and I love the beach and the sun."
But there was one thing stopping the move. DaSilva is an outsourced chief financial officer so he can work from anywhere, but his wife works at an advertising agency, which required her to be in the New York office full-time. Then COVID-19 hit and the DaSilva's could work from anywhere. In June, they listed their Murray Hill three-bedroom home and rented a house in Venice Beach while they searched for something more permanent.
"If it weren't for COVID, we would still be in New York," DaSilva said.
<p>The DaSilvas are one of more than a dozen professionals interviewed by dot.LA who suddenly found themselves untethered to offices during the pandemic and decided to abandon their cramped apartments in emptied out New York and San Francisco to finally realize their dream of living by the beach. They cited a mix of personal and professional reasons for moving – a growing tech scene, relatively more affordable housing, and the ability to live a better lifestyle. </p><p>To be sure, <a href="https://www.redfin.com/blog/july-2020-housing-migration-trends/" target="_blank">more people are leaving Los Angeles than arriving during the pandemic,</a> accelerating a yearslong trend of migration to cheaper cities such as Las Vegas, Phoenix and Sacramento. But for those coming from New York or San Francisco who are wealthy enough to afford million dollar-plus mortgages, L.A. still offers a relative bargain. <a href="https://www.zillow.com/los-angeles-ca/home-values/" target="_blank">According to Zillow,</a> the median home value in San Francisco is $1,447,191 and the median rental price in San Francisco is $4,500 compared to $752,508 for homes in Los Angeles and $3,500 for rentals.</p><p>Nick Dowdle, growth product manager at the real estate startup ZeroDown, was shelling out $2,400 a month to rent a cramped room in a three bedroom townhouse in San Francisco's trendy Castro District until recently moving to Marina Del Rey. He is now spending $2,100 a month to rent his own one-bedroom in a luxury complex that includes a pool, hot tub and outdoor gym. </p><p>"It's a no-brainer," said Dowdle. "My productivity has gone up and I've been happier. If I have to work from home, I'd rather be somewhere warm and sunny."</p><p>Feverish demand, driven by the likes of Dowdle and DaSilva, has driven L.A. asking prices up by 17% from a year ago, twice the average increase nationwide. </p><p>"Prices are growing like never before," said Taylor Marr, lead economist at Redfin. "There is a massive price appreciation in what sellers can ask for."</p><p>Ferocious bidding wars have returned and realtors say they are getting so much interest from New Yorkers that they can hardly keep up, especially on the city's more prosperous Westside. </p><p>"It's as if as soon as COVID-19 hit everyone wanted to flee New York," said Nina Kubicek, a global luxury realtor at Coldwell Banker. "We couldn't believe how inundated we got this year with a flood of New Yorkers and East Coast clients that either want to lease or purchase here."</p><p>In typical years, Kubicek says she would receive calls from New Yorkers every few months, but now it is several a week and she is forced to turn down clients. "I have never been this busy in 16 years of doing this," she said, a far cry from the doomsday slowdown she and others in the real estate industry expected after the pandemic struck in March. "In May, I started getting slammed."</p><p>Even though New York now has a significantly lower number of COVID cases than Los Angeles, former New Yorkers say the virus had a much bigger impact on the quality of their day-to-day lives.</p><p>"It seems like the most cliché thing to say, but I feel like a more healthy person," said Ajay Mehta, a tech founder who moved from New York to Echo Park during the pandemic. "I've been running a ton outside and cooking more since I have a bigger kitchen."</p><p>"I had a tiny one-bedroom on the Lower East Side and being stuck in there would have been so depressing," continued Mehta. He lived in New York for a decade and dreaded the prospect of enduring another winter, especially during the pandemic. "I have a nice, airy apartment here. And it's much easier to be socially distant."</p><p>Los Angeles has long been criticized, especially by New Yorkers, for being too spread out and car dependent. But during COVID-19, instead of a liability, L.A.'s vastness has become an advantage while New York's density is a liability. </p><p>"With the lockdown there was so much closed in New York," said Joshua Coiro, an analytical lead at Google, who moved with his wife from Brooklyn to Santa Monica in August. "You don't have a car. You're relying on public transportation. It felt really dire."</p><p>Coiro plans to eventually return to New York, but he says he and his wife saw COVID-19 as the chance to try something new. "In this current environment it seemed like too good an opportunity to pass up," he said. "We're not even a month in but we're loving it. The people and the vibe is different from what you experience in the Northeast."</p><p>Continuing a trend from last year, L.A. was the most common destination for New Yorkers leaving the city from May to August, <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-09-16/the-truth-about-american-migration-during-covid?srnd=premium&sref=4Kf8RwDw" target="_blank">according to data from United Van Lines.</a> Redfin estimates 4.6% of New Yorkers leaving the city went to L.A. during the second quarter of this year, up from 3.9% in the first quarter, according to Redfin data. That is hardly a dramatic shift, but Marr says it still means an influx of tens of thousands of residents.</p><p>"That can translate to a big impact," he said. "L.A. has consistently been the top spot for people leaving the Bay Area, battling with Seattle. What we have seen over time is a little bit of an acceleration of these trends."</p><h2>Moving for Career Reasons
</h2><p>Aside from the weather and the beach, some who have moved during the pandemic were drawn to L.A. for more than a lifestyle upgrade – they thought L.A. with its burgeoning tech scene would be a better place for their careers. COVID-19 made the decision easier. </p><p>"It used to be taboo to move from San Francisco to Los Angeles if you were in tech," said Dowdle.</p><p>Mehta lived for two years in San Francisco and says it would not have made sense to start his consumer-focused tech company, which sells customized astrological candles there.</p><p>"San Francisco is not a very culturally in-touch city." Mehta said. "Everyone is working on a SaaS [software as a service] company. They're not working on companies that are tapping into culture."</p><p>Elizabeth Skube, head of communications at Openpath Security Inc, relocated from San Francisco to Venice last month. She says she "fully hated San Francisco" but did not consider moving to L.A. until the pandemic because she worried it would hinder her career in tech. "I never thought of L.A. in that way," said Skube. "I thought I had to be in San Francisco."</p><p>But that mindset is changing. James Beshara, former director of product at Airbnb who's now an angel investor, had been eyeing moving from San Francisco to L.A. for some time after seeing more of his founder friends go south. "COVID just accelerated a move that I had been thinking about for a few years now," he said. </p><p>Beshara predicts there will continue to be a snowball effect from more founders and investors setting up shop in L.A. </p><p>"The lifestyle choice of living in a coastal city with amazing weather and it being such a creative hub is going to lead to even more creatives wanting to live here," he said, while adding that moving to L.A. still does carry a degree of stigma in the tech community. "As soon as I announced moving here, it was like I was plugged into so many private conversations of founders wanting to move down here that have been keeping it a secret."</p><p>It's always been a short flight to San Francisco, but Beshara says now that investors have gotten used to doing so much business that does not require face-to-face meetings, he worries even less about staying in contact with his Bay Area network, which is still the tech nexus after all. </p><p>"I interact with them daily via text, email, Facetime, Zoom and Twitter just as much as I did in San Francisco," Beshara said. "But now I get to do that from a sunny location with a beach across the street."</p>
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As the new decade begins, Southern California's tech scene continues to sizzle. More than 7,000 investors have poured money into 4,768 startups, ranging from a unicorn that aspires to have scooters whizzing through every city on earth to one that has ambitions to colonize Mars to the thousands of smaller companies just trying to get to their Series A, according to data analyzed by dot.LA.
"No one is doubting L.A.'s place in the tech ecosystem anymore," said Arteen Arabshahi, vice-president at WndrCo. "People realize L.A. is meaningful."
Last year ended with what is arguably the most consequential local acquisition to date when Paypal bought Honey for $4 billion. According to Pitchbook, L.A. VC exit deal flow hit $8.4 billion last year, the second highest amount ever after 2017, when Snap went public.
"I don't think Los Angeles will ever be Silicon Valley," said Brian Lee, co-founder and managing director of BAM Ventures. "We don't have grandparents named Fairchild Semiconductor and we don't have aunts and uncles named Google and Yahoo. But we are growing and we do have some great businesses being started here."
<p>Despite all the momentum, there are plenty of headwinds in the broader startup world to keep L.A. entrepreneurs and investors up at night. After WeWork's disastrous flameout and the disappointing IPOs of Uber and Lyft and shelving of IPOs for Postmates and Endeavor Group Holdings Inc., founders are under increased scrutiny to demonstrate they can deliver profits and not just meteoric growth. Meanwhile, Pitchbook data shows deal value fell slightly last year from 2018's record high, to $136.5 billion. Lastly, as this bull market approaches its eleventh year, companies are stockpiling cash to weather a recession, <a href="https://www.fool.com/retirement/2020/01/19/58-of-investors-expect-a-recession-in-2020-heres-h.aspx" target="_blank">which 58 percent of investors say could happen this year.</a></p><p>To find out where L.A.'s tech scene is headed next, dot.LA interviewed some of the city's top VC's to ask where they are putting their money and what questions they think will shape the beginning of the new decade.</p><h2>1. What's the right balance of profitability versus growth?</h2><p>After WeWork, VC's noticed a major shift in how founders were pitching their companies, a trend they expect to continue for the foreseeable future. Growth and costly customer acquisition strategies are out while profitability is in.</p><p>"It's the soup du jour," said Amanda Groves, a partner at PLUS Capital. "It's trickled all the way down to the seed stage companies, which I think is healthy for people to be aware of."</p><p>Some very young companies are pitching how they will have a sustainable business model even before they've figured out a model for monetization.</p><p>"Now it's in decks and presentations and e-mails," said Groves. "That would never have existed before."</p><p>VC's say it is still important to focus heavily on growth, which is the point of venture capital afterall. They don't need to see profits right away, but they want to see a realistic way for companies to sustain themselves without burning through cash.</p><p>"We are focused on a path to profitability, said Dustin Rosen, managing partner at Wonder Ventures. "When I take companies from pre-seed to seed or series A, I'm coaching them on their presentations to focus on that."</p><p>VC's stressed that they have always been mindful of investing in sustainable businesses. It is not as if they only discovered the magic of profitability after WeWork.</p><p>Lee, one of the area's most experienced tech entrepreneurs who co-founded LegalZoom in 2001, has seen times when VC's prioritize growth and other times like now when profitability is paramount.</p><p>"They shift like the wind and it just drives me crazy," he said. "For me, we just want to build great businesses and it depends on the business model itself and the scale that something has to get to decide whether you want to run for profitability or growth. It should not be macroeconomics that determines that."</p><p>VC's should still have a tolerance for burning through cash relative to product fit and the maturity of a management team, according to Kara Nortman, a partner at Upfront Ventures. Still, she says companies are tightening up post WeWork.</p><p>"People are caring a lot more about capital efficiency," she said. "There's less tolerance for spending in extreme ways."</p><p>It is a shift that Nortman hopes is well-suited to L.A. companies. Nortman says many have long been forced to be more prudent than their Bay Area peers due to the shortage of local VC's like her writing bigger checks.</p><p>"In L.A. you've always had to be a bit more capital efficient," said Nortman. "The valuation is much more reasonable every step of the way."</p>
<p><br></p><h2>2. Will valuations come back to the earth?</h2><p>Despite signs of a modest cooling, Pitchbook data shows valuation size set another record last year at every fundraising stage. Checks are ballooning. And what would have been a pre-seed amount a few years ago is now seen in the seed round and what would have been a pre-seed is now series A, and so forth.</p><p>"Last year we saw an incredible amount of hubris," said Groves. "We're seeing it come back to earth a bit."</p><p>Some VCs, scared off by high valuations, are holding back their dry powder waiting for the market to cool. For instance, PLUS Capital's team compiled a list last year of companies it wanted to invest in if only the price was cheaper.</p><p>"The expectation is that if the market were to turn it might create an interesting buying opportunity for some of those companies where those valuations were out of whack," said Groves. "It sounds a little malicious, but is really just about keeping an eye on companies we really love that we couldn't make the numbers work."</p><p>While the average size of late-stage deals fell from $11.5 to $10.4 million last year, the size of early stage deals rose from $6 to $6.5 million, according to Pitchbook. (The average size of angel and seed funding deals stayed flat, at $1.1 million.)</p><p>"It's tough for price sensitive, early stage funds," said Matt Lydecker, lead investor at Luma Launch. "For us, there's definitely a threshold of valuation we need to be below. We will see a great company with a great founder and we're just priced out."</p><p>Investors will likely have to wait some time for valuations to decrease much due to the massive amount of capital flowing into venture capital. <a href="https://www.wired.co.uk/article/softbank-vision-fund-2" target="_blank">Even if Softbank does not succeed </a>in raising $108 billion for its Vision Fund 2, there is still plenty of capital pouring in from nontraditional investors like asset managers and hedge funds. <a href="https://files.pitchbook.com/website/files/pdf/PitchBook_2020_Venture_Capital_Outlook.pdf" target="_blank">Pitchbook predicts</a> "pre-money valuations will continue to climb in 2020, with the median reaching a decade, if not all-time, high."</p><p>"There's a ton of capital chasing alpha, " said Will Coffield, a partner at Riot Ventures. "There's not really going to be a shift."</p><p><br></p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-proxy-image">
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vbWVkaWEucmJsLm1zL2ltYWdlP3U9JTJGd2lraXBlZGlhJTJGY29tbW9ucyUyRjAlMkYwOSUyRkV2YW5fU3BpZWdlbF9hdF9UZWNoQ3J1bmNoLmpwZyZobz1odHRwcyUzQSUyRiUyRnVwbG9hZC53aWtpbWVkaWEub3JnJnM9NTcwJmg9YzZmM2M0YWVhYzI1ZjkwNmFlMjIzYzAzZTUzOTRmM2M5NmViNTZhODYzYmUxMTJmZjI1MDEwZDdiYjA1OWI3ZSZzaXplPTk4MHgmYz0zMTE0MjQ2MzAwIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0NTI2Nzc5NX0.uNv3jNl-rrCNNJ2oWYqU3q63Ujrjub2LkdoGTHS6vuQ/img.jpg" id="4b5a5" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="b0e04b6a5737a7d8afd25a9afed1921c">
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="Add Photo Caption...">Snap Inc.'s Evan Spiegel at TechCrunch's Disrupt Conference.</small><small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="Add Photo Credit...">
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</p><h2><strong>3. How many offices will Sand Hill Road open near the sand?<br></strong></h2><p>While L.A. now has a sizable number of VC funds – mostly at the early stage – companies here have traditionally raised heavily from Sand Hill Road. For instance, Menlo Park's Lightspeed Venture Partners led Snap's seed round, turning $485,000 into around $2 billion when the company went public in 2017. Benchmark led Snap's series A, resulting in another multibillion dollar windfall for a Bay Area firm. By contrast, Honey's investors – including Wonder Ventures, BAM Ventures, and Mucker Capital – were primarily L.A. based.</p><p>"That demonstrates that if you want to get into the best companies in L.A. you can't just wait for them to knock on your door on Sand Hill Road," said Coffield. "We're seeing more investors from San Francisco have dedicated strategies for how to cover L.A."</p><p>At Wonder Ventures, Rosen is noticing the same thing.</p><p>"I've never seen more excitement from Bay Area firms looking to do deals in L.A. because they know there are great companies and they know the prices and competition are less than they are dealing with," he said.</p><p>Just as many Silicon Valley firms have opened up New York offices but there are also homegrown New York firms, Groves says local VC's can co-exist with ones from up North.</p><p>"Silicon Valley has so many more venture funds, particularly ones with certain vehicles that we don't focus on," said Groves. "I think L.A. will mimic what the evolution has been on the east coast."</p><p>More Sand Hill Road offices could drive valuations even higher and reduce the discount that VC's still say L.A. early stage startups are priced at compared to the Bay Area. Even so, L.A. VC's say more capital flowing into L.A. can only be beneficial.</p><p>"It's absolutely helpful," said Nortman. "It's good for us and good for our founders."</p><h2>4. What sectors will shine?</h2><p>L.A.'s tech scene has largely been known for consumer standouts like Riot Games, Snap, and Dollar Shave Club but scores of lesser known, less flashy startups are poised to break through, according to VC's we interviewed.</p><p>"I am expecting more deep technology companies to be launched and more enterprise companies," said Groves. "A lot of that is a function of having the Googles and Amazons and some of these bigger organizations opening up offices, which is drawing more talent to the L.A. ecosystem."</p><p>Nortman too is focused on enterprise, and also agtech, aerospace, and companies that help with climate sustainability. She's excited to see founders who led successful companies in the Bay Area return to L.A to start their next company.</p><p>"They grew up here and are ready to come back," she said.</p><p>Rosen is focused on startups working to improve mental health and wellness.</p><p>"The effect of digital addiction and digital isolation of less traditional human contact has created a unique set of mental health issues that need solutions outside traditional therapy," he said.</p><p>Jamie Montgomery, founder and managing director of March Capital Partners, is looking for more artificial intelligence startups in the area. Up until now, he has found more promising ones in the Bay Area and New York City.</p><p>"We haven't done as much in Southern California as we would have liked, but I think that will evolve," Montgomery said.</p><p>Coffield thinks local defense, aerospace, and robotics companies are ripe with opportunity.</p><p>"There's a whole robotics community developing between downtown L.A. and Pasadena," he said.</p><p>He is particularly excited about employees who have left SpaceX to start new companies, like Relativity Space or Elementary Robotics.</p><p>"We spend a lot of time trying to track the talent out of SpaceX," Coffield said. "That talent is going to be game changing."</p>
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