On May 13, Beijing time, in the business empire of Elon Musk, electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla and SpaceX are undoubtedly two "pillars". Their rapid development and expansion not only pushed musk into the position of the world's richest man, but also changed cities.
SpaceX led Hawthorne's aerospace industry
Aerospace entrepreneurship center: Hawthorne
Earlier this year, Tim berry began looking for a new job as an engineer at SpaceX. Eventually, he found a job less than a mile from the front door of his old employer.
Berry lives in Hawthorne, California. The city has a population of 88000, mainly working-class people, about 10 minutes' drive from Los Angeles Airport. He is one of a small group of aerospace professionals who have poured into Hawthorne in recent years. Attracted by SpaceX, the most valuable start-up company in the United States, many highly skilled engineers stayed here because Hawthorne's rent was cheap and aerospace start-ups flourished.
His new employer is launcher, a company that helps put satellites into orbit at low cost. Berry said he would not accept the job if it required a long journey. "Sorry, I'm not a big fan of the east coast or New York," Berry said. On the contrary, his commute route remains the same. "I'm very happy to work in Hawthorne."
SpaceX Hawthorne headquarters
Local officials were happy, even a little surprised, that the city had become an entrepreneurial center. "Hawthorne has many advantages." Hawthorne city councilor David Patterson. It is close to Los Angeles's vibrant aviation industry, where there are many start-ups of their own, but the cost of living is not that high. Patterson said that a few years ago, someone tried to build a venture capital accelerator in Hawthorne, but the idea has remained in the discussion stage.
It turns out that the city doesn't need a venture capital accelerator at all. In the past 10 years and seven years, Musk's SpaceX and tunneling company boring are the only startups in the city that can attract venture capital. But by 2020, Hawthorne startups other than musk will attract a considerable $105.2 million in venture capital. According to research firm pitchbook, these startups attracted $356.7 million in investment last year and are expected to double this year.
SpaceX's success drives high-tech manufacturing
Many cities are trying to create their own versions of Silicon Valley, but some are more successful than others. During the surge in telework triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic, high-profile destinations such as Austin, Texas (Musk's recent new home) and Miami attracted a large number of software developers. Musk's upcoming Twitter is still in San Francisco. However, Hawthorne is another emerging city. The convenience of zoom virtual conference has not boosted the start-ups in the city as much as the existing physical space and the surplus of talents who know how to use mills, lathes and 3D printers.
Now is a good time to build a high-tech manufacturing center. With the stock market plummeting and less tangible inventions such as cryptocurrency facing liquidation, many engineers and programmers increasingly don't want to manipulate 1 and 0 codes or sell targeted ads. they want to create physical objects. Just as the rise of software based companies such as Google and Facebook in the early 21st century created an era of about 20 years, software companies have become the dominant type of start-ups, and the success of SpaceX and other hardware companies is helping to change entrepreneurs' ambitions.
Marc Andreessen, a well-known venture capitalist, summed up the enthusiasm of industry with his cry in 2020: "it's time to build." In recent years, venture capitalists and engineers have focused on physical inventions, especially aviation inventions.
Launcher's E-2 3D printing liquid rocket engine
Of course, like any success story, Hawthorne has a disturbing side. The familiar themes of middle class and inequality are eroding the edge of the city, just as the city is ready for great growth.
Named after the novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne, the city has long been known for the band's beach boy's childhood home. It is also the residence of Jim Thorpe and Marilyn Monroe, the first Indians to win an Olympic gold medal. Greater Los Angeles has a legendary history of aviation innovation. Hawthorne first became an aviation star in 1939, when aviation pioneer Jack Northrop founded his own company there. In 2008, Musk's SpaceX moved into the former site of Northrop as a fighting startup.
SpaceX soon became a senior member of the aerospace industry complex, with facilities all over the country and playing a key role in America's space ambitions. In 2016, some engineers left the company, but stayed in nearby El Segundo, California, and founded the consulting company second order effects to help other start-ups and larger companies. Shaun Arora of Mila capital advisors LLC has been providing financial support to companies in the region for many years. He said that the establishment of second order effects helped stimulate the entrepreneurial boom in the region.
Arola said he had seen an increase in the number of startups in Hawthorne over the past few years. He said Musk's companies tend to exhaust employees, even if it also inspires them. "SpaceX teaches people that hard work and optimism can make the impossible possible," Arola said. "At the same time, many former SpaceX employees I talked to said that although the company's goals are persuasive, they feel that their professional value is underestimated."
For launcher founder Max haot, the rocket engineer talent pool seeded by SpaceX is an important attraction. After visiting Austin, New Orleans and Pasadena, California, he decided to set up his company in Hawthorne. Haute's team in Hawthorne is about 55 people, including at least 14 former SpaceX employees.
Cheap rent
Another advantage of Hawthorne is that the rent is very cheap. Haute said that the 24000 square foot facility rented by launcher was "much cheaper" than the rent in a slightly better nearby town like El Segundo. In addition, although these neighboring cities may have large warehouses, landlords there are busy renovating warehouses to accommodate higher rent facilities, which are more suitable for software companies. Haute inspected warehouses that used to provide 1000 or 2000 amps of electricity, but were transformed to handle only a few hundred amps. This is no problem for most companies, but not for orbital startups, whose engineers are studying power intensive projects, such as how to power rockets and how to run multiple 3D printers at the same time.
Joel Ifill, founder of precision airdrop company dash systems, also took advantage of Hawthorne's low rent, which he paid far less than $2 per square foot. Phil's company is just north of SpaceX, outside an aircraft hangar at Hawthorne Municipal Airport.
Phil
"The construction area of hangar here is usually one of the cheapest in big cities." He said. In Dash's cavernous hangar, there is space to accommodate Cessna 208b grand triumph turboprop aircraft, as well as tables, a small machinery workshop and an area covered with carpets, coffee tables and sofas. It is very suitable for watching the smooth take-off and landing of small aircraft, including Musk's aircraft occasionally.
Phil currently does not employ former employees of SpaceX, but he has found many other large companies to choose from in this field. These companies include Lockheed Martin, Boeing and Northrop Grumman, all of which have offices in El Segundo. "We have people from Tesla, virgin galaxy and wet design." He said he was referring to a water engineering company located in Sun Valley 30 miles north.
Some of Hawthorne's startups have nothing to do with rockets or satellites. Ring, Amazon's next-generation doorbell company, is located in this city. The same is true of stellar pizza, an automated pie company run by a former SpaceX engineer.
However, most companies are targeting the space sector. Another example is venturi astrolab, a former bus bench factory headquartered south of SpaceX. Venturi founder Jaret Matthews hopes that the lunar rover manufactured by the company will be selected by NASA's future Artemis lunar mission.
"We're building large robots," Matthews said. "We need a lot of space to test them." This includes the interior and the coverage area scattered with basalt behind the building to better simulate lunar conditions. In addition to himself, Matthews's team includes several former SpaceX employees.
Urban development raises the cost of living
Downtown Hawthorne doesn't look like a prosperous business center. Its main streets include car dealers, dilapidated storefronts and a 24-hour Laundromat. On a recent afternoon, Luis Castaneda, a part-time handyman, was sitting there. He said he noticed more high-end workers in the city and blamed them for the rise in prices. He said the room he rented was $700 a month, compared with $400 a month when he first came to the city 10 years ago.
Downtown Hawthorne
Alejandra Alarcon, 29, grew up in Hawthorne. She lives in a house with her mother, brother and grandmother. Almost every neighborhood has a similar population structure. Now, she said, newcomers' families are usually a couple with a dog and no children. She admitted that she had complex feelings for SpaceX, its derivatives and the subsequent urban prosperity.
"SpaceX brings jobs to Hawthorne," she said. "But I don't think SpaceX will bring jobs to Hawthorne residents." Araken works at a university in the Westchester area of Los Angeles and commutes seven miles north every day. She likes to open a new home-made beer bar or two in Hawthorne community, but she also finds it disturbing.
"When I walked into these places, I no longer felt like I was in my hometown, because everyone was very different from the people I grew up with," she said. "The people I grew up with were working class."
Last year, araken was shocked when she saw a gorgeous new apartment building open. It is located on Crenshaw Avenue, a seven Lane Road, two miles east of the town's largely abandoned shopping center.
According to zillow, a real estate website, the two bedroom rent in the building called Millennium South Bay is as high as $3725, far higher than the city's median price of $2285. The website of the new building promises that tenants can easily reach the beach and other local restaurants, but the most attractive facility in Millennium South Bay is, of course, the SpaceX headquarters one block away.