Portland, Philadelphia, Atlanta based on what Amazon wants / needs.
Amazon to Build Second HQ in North America
91–100 of 490 posts
Re: Amazon to Build Second HQ in North America
#92If they're after tax breaks and cheap land they can follow companies like Sprint and Garmin and build open headquarters somewhere in East Kansas.
Small qualified developer pool to draw from and hard to attract outside talent. I grew up in eastern Kansas and left in part because of dismal career prospects. They'll end up choosing an up-and-coming city (i.e., positive population growth).
I'm pretty sure the Kansas City Metro (where Sprint, Garmin, and Cerner are located) has positive population growth.
Re: Amazon to Build Second HQ in North America
#93Wow, $25.7 billion total employee compensation / 50,000 employees is $514,000 per employee. Err, that's not all in one year, right?
If there's a second HQ they can offer lower salaries compared to Seattle, then drive Seattle salaries down by threatening to move the HQ1 jobs to HQ2.
Re: Amazon to Build Second HQ in North America
#94It always amuses me how stunningly bad Amazon really is at making standalone pages on their web site. This one is totally unresponsive, has images for headings, and a slightly blurry image for the table. Here's Amazon Locker, which is even more dismal: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Click-and-Collect-with-Amazon-Locke... I guess they must have to produce all this stuff within the constraints of their CMS, but it really doe…
Amazon has many examples where they execute so poorly as to verge on the incompetent. Take the ads on the Kindle for example: why advertise books to me which I already own and purchased from Amazon? And then there is Prime video streaming, which is unwatchable through some client devices in the same house where Netflix is consistently excellent quality. I think they just have big areas where they don't give a rat's ass about doing any better than "meh".
Re: Amazon to Build Second HQ in North America
#95I'm not from the US, but as an outsider it would probably be a good idea for this second headquarter to not be on the West Coast. A little diversity wouldn't hurt :)
That, and somewhere that doesn't have volcanoes and earthquakes.
Re: Amazon to Build Second HQ in North America
#96Why not put HQ2 in Vancouver? Okay, yes, house prices are unrealistic, but hear me out: 1. Not in the US (helpful for any non-American employees who can't get a visa or don't want to live in the current political climate in the US) 2. Relatively easy for Americans to work in Canada 3. Close proximity to Seattle 4. Canadian salaries are typically lower than America, so this could be a huge boon to Canadians working in…
Salaries are lower in Canada indeed. Plus, their are substantial credits both at the federal and provincial levels to recuperate developer salary costs (30%+). Ubisoft and other studios have their R&D in Montreal just for this reason. There is a big talent pool in and around Montreal. Would be an ideal location.
> There is a big talent pool in and around Montreal. Would be an ideal location.
True, Montreal is also a great potential city for HQ2. They already have quite a tech presence there (OVH data centre, game studios, some media production)
Re: Amazon to Build Second HQ in North America
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wouldn't really make sense, an HQ would need to be in an actual city, not a sprawling suburban bedroom community. Toronto, Vancouver, Ottawa, Montreal.
Why? Tons of huge multinationals have headquarters that are not in a downtown. And Silicon Valley isn't exactly an "actual city." [ADDED: In fact, I'd be a bit surprised if they end up in a downtown core--certainly of a "hot" city where real estate is scarce and expensive. For example, while they're putting in a Boston office, it's about 2% of the 50K employees number.]
But Amazon is part of a generation of companies which see some value in pushing back against this trend.[1] Microsoft moved to Redmond; Amazon moved downtown. If they really want a second HQ to mesh with the first culture-wise, they are likely going to look to put it close to a downtown core. (Although if they are going to attract 50k workers they probably want a bit of land adjacent to the core, similarly to how in Seattle they located in what used to be a not-so-developed area where Paul Allen had purchased a lot of real estate to try to create a park, and Amazon has really made it part of downtown on their own.)
[1] https://www.amazon.com/p/feature/4kc8ovgnyf996yn ("we made a conscious choice to invest in downtown Seattle—even though it would have been cheaper to move to the suburbs")
Re: Amazon to Build Second HQ in North America
#98Seriously, they should look in New Jersey. Lots of tech talent from NYC that doesn't want the commute or insane prices of the city.
selfishly, i agree completely. But where could all this fit, and cost of doing business here is painfully expensive.
Re: Amazon to Build Second HQ in North America
#99Should be interesting to see if they decide to go with an east coast presence. Something like Atlanta would make a lot of sense with Georgia Tech there.
Re: Amazon to Build Second HQ in North America
#100Why not put HQ2 in Vancouver? Okay, yes, house prices are unrealistic, but hear me out: 1. Not in the US (helpful for any non-American employees who can't get a visa or don't want to live in the current political climate in the US) 2. Relatively easy for Americans to work in Canada 3. Close proximity to Seattle 4. Canadian salaries are typically lower than America, so this could be a huge boon to Canadians working in…
Amazon has had a development site in Vancouver for more than 6 years. It's one of the larger North American outposts today. The area probably doesn't have enough locally created talent to be the second HQ, and cost of living isn't favorable if you need to relocate large numbers of people. Doubling down on the PNW doesn't do much for cultural or geographic diversity, imo.