Amazon making corporate welfare so sexy. Make those cities beg for it Jeff. Make 'em fight each other for it Jeff. Jeff, they want you and that hot HQ2 so bad.
sigh
Amazon to Build Second HQ in North America
231–240 of 490 posts
Re: Amazon to Build Second HQ in North America
#232Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a generalization, the people who want to work for Amazon tend to be more on the progressive wing, and an HQ in a heavily conservative region would make it harder to hire talent. I would guess places like Denver/Boulder (where Google has a site coming), Boston, Portland, or Las Vegas are much more likely than Austin, Charlotte, or Salt Lake City
Anybody who says People's Republic of Austin (ref: Bernie movie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JREkqCvLzSo ) is not on progressive wing is kidding. Also, Whole Foods is head-quartered in Austin, so there could be "synergy" there.
Progressive islands in conservative states are almost worse
They just get diced up and have no voice in state or federal government, and you end up with things like the NC and Texas bathroom bills.
Why would a company like Amazon move to a state who's already so wrong on human rights issues? That's just asking for boycotts and mass resignations.
I'd wager it's vastly more likely Whole Foods will move away than Amazon moves in. I wouldn't be surprised if one of the main motivations for HQ2 was to move Whole Foods, and anyone else they acquire, into Amazon proper.
Re: Amazon to Build Second HQ in North America
#233The RFP is rather more interesting than the marketing page: https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/G/01/Anything... The 2nd criterion is basically the total amount of sweet, sweet taxpayer dollars available to subsidize them: Please provide a summary of total incentives offered for the Project by the state/province and local community. In this summary, please provide a brief description of the incentive item,…
This kind of tax cuts should be illegal. The problem is that taxation itself is some kind of extortion from the state. So morally speaking it is a bankrupt system from all sides.
Re: Amazon to Build Second HQ in North America
#234My guess is that Amazon will want to effectively "own" whatever city it selects. Not only will they get incentives from government, but they'll want to have primary influence over the business and educational communities. So that when Amazon wants something, the city will go along. This will give them a laboratory for all sorts of experiments, which is both fascinating and scary.
While a city like my hometown Atlanta makes sense on paper - transportation, great schools, awesome cost of living - there are too many other big players here. I think they want a next-generation "company town."
Re: Amazon to Build Second HQ in North America
#235Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Taxes are too high in Quebec. Also, not sure people in Montreal want to be dominated by Amazon and have it turn into some new Amazon-centric tech hub. It is doing relatively well without a megacorp there.
I believe it's the opposite, taxes for companies are lower in Quebec than in the US (did not factor in R&D credit, etc). Individual taxes are higher in Quebec.
Re: Amazon to Build Second HQ in North America
#236My guess is that Amazon will want to effectively "own" whatever city it selects. Not only will they get incentives from government, but they'll want to have primary influence over the business and educational communities. So that when Amazon wants something, the city will go along. This will give them a laboratory for all sorts of experiments, which is both fascinating and scary. While a city like my hometown Atlanta…
They can come to St. Louis. Everybody else left. They can have the AT&T tower downtown, it's empty.
Re: Amazon to Build Second HQ in North America
#237Come to Atlanta! Great schools, great weather, downtown is under utilized, decent mass transit. One of the fastest grow tech locations in the country. We offer, no hurricanes, no earthquakes, no tidal waves, no forest fires, no flooding, and once every 10 year snow storms. We are on the opposite coast which protects you from N Korean actions. Plus you can fly anywhere from our airport!
Agree. Atlanta is a great choice.
Re: Amazon to Build Second HQ in North America
#238Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's only exactly what they'd do anyway if the chosen location was getting their new HQ anyway. While I don't necessarily agree with it on a personal level, this is a pretty basic "supply vs demand" situation.
Companies do sometimes indulge in incentives brinkmanship by threatening to move if they don't get the right offer. But, assuming this isn't Amazon just playing that game with Seattle, they do have pretty open options. Like it or not, companies do go after tax incentives and local job creation is pretty important to politicians. And it's not clear it shouldn't be given that's pretty central to the economic health of…
NW Arkansas airport also has a surprising amount of service for an airport in that location - American, Delta, and United regional affiliates. serve most of their hubs from there. Presumably a lot of this traffic is either Walmart corporate or suppliers that have located an office in Northwest Arkansas to be close to Walmart. I'm not saying that Amazon would pick a place like that - Walmart has always been in Arkansas. But air service will come if necessary.
That makes me wonder about Pittsburgh and Raleigh-Durham, which both have underused airports (PIT as a former US Airways hub, RDU a former American hub).
Re: Amazon to Build Second HQ in North America
#239Come to Atlanta! Great schools, great weather, downtown is under utilized, decent mass transit. One of the fastest grow tech locations in the country. We offer, no hurricanes, no earthquakes, no tidal waves, no forest fires, no flooding, and once every 10 year snow storms. We are on the opposite coast which protects you from N Korean actions. Plus you can fly anywhere from our airport!
> "no hurricanes"
Don't jinx it.
Re: Amazon to Build Second HQ in North America
#240Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why not? Because the single greatest threat to Amazon's business continuity is a major quake in Seattle. Vancouver sits on some of the same tectonic plates. It's likely that this move is, in part, an attempt to address the business continuity risk.
Ottawa is an excellent candidate for this as it sits squarely on the Canadian Shield. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Shield Not only that but the public transit is undergoing rapid modernization (ie: light rail) and the software industry is spiking.
Ottawa doesn't have more than 1 million people though. [0]
Ottawa city limits are already huge, so I can't imagine what else qualifies as the "metro area" Kingston perhaps? Or they're counting Gatineau as a separate city but within the metro area?