Dewey and his founding partners saw the benefits in anchoring eBuilt in Irvine, not just for its lifestyle, but for strategic reasons, too. There's no more logical place to get involved in wireless than between the major consumers, San Diego and L.A., and there's no more logical place to be for rich media, which the entertainment industry will be screaming for very soon. Orange County just makes a lot of sense. By the end of 2000 the firm expects to have 400 employees and significantly increase its market share. Not only are all of its employees stockholders, eBuilt created a division called eLabs , which will incubate an employee's idea and, if it works, spin it off into a new company.
Most people leave to pursue their own ideas.
Industry participants say the county's tech industry was born from early technological advances in the citrus industry, and the proximity of the former El Toro Marine Base and Camp Pendleton. One of the first companies to make its mark was Beckman Instruments, which has been producing chemical analysis instruments for the medical field since 1940. Arnold Beckman founded the company in 1935 when he invented the acidometer, a device used to measure acidity levels in juices at citrus processing plants. It later became a key tool in medical analytical chemistry. But like other high tech regions in Southern California, the boom really started in the 1960s along with the region's aerospace and defense growth.