A love letter to Los Angeles
There's more to us than palm trees and celebrities
If you’re new here:
Hi, I’m Meg and this is my little corner of the internet where I share tales and observations across the tech and parenting “industries.”
I advise and consult with startups as a fractional product marketing leader, primarily for B2B SaaS companies. Want to discuss a startup idea, get go-to-market help, or launch your own fractional consultancy? Book an Intro with me.
I’m working on my next post related to going to market as a fractional (positioning and productizing yourself), but I needed to write this post first.
LA, I love you and you’re not bringing me down
I’ve spent 30 years in Los Angeles, in two very different phases. I grew up in Mar Vista / Venice, and then spent almost 15 years on the East Coast across Boston (college) and New York City (seminal young adult working years learning some valuable lessons).
I moved to NYC about eighteen months after 9/11. Everyone who lived in the tristate (NY, NJ, CT) had a personal connection to that day - you either knew someone who had died, someone who had almost died, someone who had rushed there to help, folks who dealt with the plumes of smoke and ash for weeks, people who lost their jobs as the economy tanked… the grief, anxiety, and anger was palpable and understandable. I would wager to say for many, it’s never left.
I returned to my hometown as a world-weary 30-year-old (lol) who saw Los Angeles through a New Yorker’s eyes: lack of public transit, no one walks anywhere, people are passive-aggressive, there aren’t any massive public parks for people to congregate in. It took several years to reorient myself because as much as I had changed, so had LA. I slowly fell back in love with the beaches, the artsy vibes, the hustling creators, the tireless bike advocates, and made sure my 6 year old loves taking the bus, too. I’m even a self-appointed defender of the LA tech scene, for better or worse.
And now Los Angeles is burning, along with the rest of our country due to a corrupt dictator and a tech oligarchy that was eager to bend a knee to his nonsense, including weaponizing aid to California. I feel overwhelmed with grief and helplessness for my friends who have lost homes, memories, businesses, jobs, schools, community spaces, and so much more from the recent fires. I feel blisteringly angry that the far-right immediately politicized a natural disaster and thankful that Joe Biden was still President when emergency relief efforts were needed.
It’s not productive to compare disasters, especially an international terrorist attack versus firestorms that wiped out entire LA communities. However - if it helps you to understand the scope of suffering and devastation that is occurring in LA right now, please zoom out and recognize that what is happening to LA currently is not an isolated incident, but a reflection of a global, undeniable problem that is fueled by most of the world putting profits above people and planet. The climate crisis doesn’t distinguish between rich and poor, Democrat or Republican, and our solutions shouldn’t either.
What is giving me hope and light right now is the Herculean effort that Angelenos (and others across the world!) are coordinating to assist those impacted by the fires. Whether you live in Los Angeles or not, there are ways to help. The most comprehensive and organized effort I’ve seen and been supporting is the Kindness Hub - a resource aid tracker where you can ask for or offer support (even remotely!), learn about ways to volunteer, and join a WhatsApp community that has risen to these challenges more swiftly and empathetically than the “Executive” of our country.
If you’re still not sure how to help, message me. There are specific projects I can connect you to based on your interests and abilities, including some GoFundMe’s of people I know who have lost their homes. Most importantly - vote out politicians who are taking corporate donations and aligning themselves with tech bros instead of the majority of the country that supports labor unions, legal abortion, asking companies to pay taxes, loan debt relief, same-sex marriage, free preschool, and climate crisis solutions:
Ways you can value and support Strategic Pivotery (Meg)
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