I concur. I spend a lot of time in Santa Monica and there seems to be a tech presence but (as someone new to tech) it is really hard to get the signal from the noise. I am really new, I am pretty proficient in HTML/CSS/SASS, JS and becoming functional in RoR. I am trying to find people in the tech community but there are a lot of people who have "App Ideas", are wantrapreneurs, or trying to acquire talent but have no idea what talent is (mostly media/entertainment/marketing people).

I just became comfortable talking about code, because I have pretty bad imposter-syndrome but the true coders are few and far between. I have met some cool and capable people at coloft (a coworking space) but the other spacing and events I have gone too are mostly SEO/Marketing and publicists. It is tough finding serious people on meetup.com. Carbonfive meetup is pretty legit, but it is hard to really meet people and just discuss technology. I too wish the community was bigger.

Of course you're gonna have a ton of wantrepreneurs in LA, it's LA after all and people like to do things that are cool, fashionable, hip; saying you "have an app idea" or are "starting a startup" is becoming commonplace. And it's always becoming increasingly annoying when meeting people and trying to have a conversation of substance. I can't count how many seemingly bright (and average) people I've met who have another idea for a chat app. Enough.

Additionally, you'll notice a ton of media/marketing/e-commerce in LA as this is what the culture really revolves around here. You won't see much enterprise or biotech as you would see in the Valley or San Diego, respectively. Social is also popular since kids these days love the idea of "build chat app, grow user base, raise tons of money, cash out." But most of knows these lottery tickets are extremely rare.

Personally, I don't understand how companies like Nasty Gal or Dollar Shave Club are tech by any means. Rolling out some e-commerce atop en existing platform / site is simply online retail / subscription vs. having anything propriety (they don't) but this is our my problem.

At my company, we do hardware, consumer electronics, software with AI and ML and more challenging issues. Sure, we love to have fun and do things that we enjoy but the whole "start another e-commerce site" is getting real old here. I too find myself in a pickle at times trying to find people in the area who love pure tech and can discuss and play around with things that matter. Way too much "biz dev" idiots here who think a blog is the next tumblr.

DM via Twitter if you want to chat.