Tech-Buses Driving South into Los Angeles

In a new coming-of-age sign for the technology industry in Los Angeles, the San Francisco based start-up RidePal unveiled its first private shuttle bus partnership in LA this week.

October 24, 2014, 8am PDT | Maayan Dembo | @DJ_Mayjahn

As reported by Paresh Dave of the Los Angeles Times, YP, the formerly branded Yellow Pages, is the first company to partner with RidePal, in order to shuttle about 25 workers each day from their homes on the county's west side to the Glendale company office.

The roughly 500 employees situated in YP's Glendale office concentrate the company's technology headquarters, focusing on apps, websites, mechanisms, and a search engine. Indeed, "About half the staff reported commutes of more than 45 minutes one way. The daunting highway time scared off recruits and sapped retention rates."

Like many of the technology companies in San Francisco offering shuttle services largely as a recruitment tool, YP's chief technology officer Darren Clark describes this partnership with RidePal as a way to "cast a wider net for talent, especially people from the Santa Monica patch of start-ups."

While YP is the first partnership with RidePal, according to spokesman Bob Martin, "RidePal is ironing out deals with several technology, entertainment and biotechnology firms in Los Angeles."

Full Story:

L.A.'s tech scene gets first Google-like luxury bus

Published on Sunday, October 19, 2014 in Los Angeles Times