Future

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If the creation of wealth in Los Angeles 100 years ago could be symbolized by a railroad engine passing by an oil derrick, the symbol of fortunes being made in the years ahead could be a Web page listing various business-acquisition opportunities.

L.A.’s next J. Paul Getty or Henry E. Huntington will most likely emerge from the ranks of the area’s already fabulously wealthy technology entrepreneurs. The Internet, the services provided through it and the continuing rise in available capital for investing are combining to make some people very rich.

Consider Toby Lenk, head of Santa Monica’s eToys, who stands to make about $150 million or more when his online toy retail company’s initial public offering goes out this month. Or David Bohnett, founder of GeoCities, the Santa Monica-based company that provides free Web pages in exchange for the right to run advertisements. The company has yet to turn a profit, but its IPO raised $86 million, and Yahoo! Inc. has agreed to acquire it for $3.6 billion.

“There is a lot of money now in technology and communications, and the content is continuing to be shaped and to converge,” said Jack Kyser, chief economist for the Economic Development Corp. of Los Angeles County. “Within five years there will be a set group of players, and (investment in) technology will evolve into new industries.”

Those include areas like biotechnology, which is the subject of commercial development efforts in conjunction with universities like Caltech, USC and UCLA. As these nascent commercialization efforts mature, plenty of those involved could make a killing.

Unlike yesterday’s moguls, who nurtured and operated their companies, tomorrow’s business people are more likely to be those who create businesses, but then cash out and repeat the cycle.

Indeed, one of the big differences between old and new wealth is the amount of time it takes to acquire. Fortunes during the early days were accumulated more slowly than those of today, and most likely tomorrow.

“In generating wealth, there’s a sense of risk being taken that is different from before,” Kyser said “The old fortunes (in L.A.) in real estate, oil and the railroads were made when the world was slower. The nature of business is now real-time.”

The other change involves diversity. The old tycoons were a fairly homogenous group white males. Today, the city is increasingly Asian and Latino, and at some point the ranks of L.A.’s wealthy are likely to reflect that ethnic diversity.

Another ramification of the huge wave of immigrants coming into Los Angeles is that tomorrow’s L.A. real estate moguls may be those who focus on urban redevelopment infill projects, rather than the new suburban-sprawl projects of the past century.

“The future of real estate will have to engage in this kind of activity,” said Ira Yellin, senior vice president of Catellus Development Corp. “East L.A. was once thought of as having low population density. Well, the east part of the city is changing enormously as the population density increases.” That will create tremendous opportunities for developers.

Service is another sector in which future fortunes will likely be made. As more Angelenos telecommute from home, there will be greater need to cater to their needs. In a culture that already hates to fight the increasing traffic, figuring out a way to conveniently provide various services to home-dwellers at the touch of a button, most likely over the Internet, will be the key to success.

And of course, the entertainment industry will continue to create multimillionaires, and perhaps even billionaires. There is always a new script and new film created by some “nobody,” suddenly thrusting them into fame and fortune. The Wachowski brothers who co-wrote and directed the hit film “The Matrix,” with $150 million in box-office revenues and counting are only the latest example.

The film, incidentally, owes much of its success to its use of new technologies for eye-popping special effects. And applying future technology advances to movies and other content will undoubtedly make future Angelenos a bundle. Much as George Lucas has become rich from patenting the technology used in the “Star Wars” movies, there are small companies trying to figure out how to profitably produce movies and television shows exclusively for transmittal over the Internet.

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