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Amazon to Build Second HQ in North America

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Re: Amazon to Build Second HQ in North America

#301

Post by williamsmj »

BatFastard wrote: post #226

Come 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!

Atlanta is also subject to the whims of a state legislature that passed a "religious freedom bill" that required the governor's veto as recently as last year.

Re: Amazon to Build Second HQ in North America

#302

Post by bb611 »

nkassis wrote: post #271
dcole2929 wrote: post #78

I think an East Coast city definitely makes the most sense. Realistically though, they probably can't get enough land in the ideal spot of NYC/Jersey meaning the next best options are DC, Philly and Atlanta. Baltimore could be a dark horse candidate. There's already a lot of construction going on there courtesy of Under Armour building out a new HQ. Charlotte could be an option as well.

I'd include Boston in there too. They already have a large presence in the area.

Building a 50,000 person campus in the Boston area would be challenging and expensive. Areas that have the space are very, very pricey, and they're all outside the city. Public transportation is on the poorer side, and once you're out in suburbia many streets are too narrow to comfortably fit a bus, so the logistics just get harder.

Re: Amazon to Build Second HQ in North America

#303

Post by all_blue_chucks »

rdslw wrote: post #287
jpatokal wrote: post #24

The 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,…

what a year do I live in that governments must bow to corpos and politely submit RFP document asking for tax money .... reduction. There was once a story on hackersnews why this (demanding tax cuts) its unethical on much larger scale than race etc. It went like this (forgive my memory, english, and feel free to correct it): There were two states, neighboring, with similar budgets and number of people. They werent ric…

This has been going on forever. It is a natural consequence of free people acting in their own best interests. Giving an employer $1Bn in tax breaks knowing you will get more than $10Bn in increased tax revenue is good for the government and good for the employer.

Is it fair? No. But liberalism doesn't aim to make the world fair; it aims to make it free.

Re: Amazon to Build Second HQ in North America

#304

Post by pc86 »

fooey wrote: post #232
sremani wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Progressive islands in conservative states are almost worse. They just get diced up and have no voice in state or federal government

Not always. If it's a small area, sure it may get split apart, except packing is a thing as well and just as big of a deal. But Austin proper has nearly a million people. The metro area is more than two million. You'd need to split it into 6-8 districts even to have a shot at creating solid Republican representation for Austin. There are 4 districts covering the city, and you'd need at least 2 for equal representation.

I'm not saying gerrymandering isn't an issue, I'm just saying that any implication the people of a city like Austin have no voice at the state or federal level is flatly wrong.

Re: Amazon to Build Second HQ in North America

#305

Post by mcgrath_sh »

francisofascii wrote: post #141
alexval wrote: post #84

I'm surprised that no one has mentioned Pittsburgh yet. uber did some early self driving pilots there. CMU is there. Google has a large office there. Amazon has also started hiring software engineers for an office in Pittsburgh too. Cost of living is very cheap. Many upsides to Pittsburgh. I don't know what the city could afford in terms of subsidies though.

Pittsburgh was my first thought. Northeast near DC/NYC, colleges, low cost (for now), a city with good bones

I have mixed feelings about this for Pittsburgh. The main con is 50,000 tech jobs in this city means a lot of new people. Being conservative, we can call it 30,000 new families. I think that will cause chaos in the housing market and increase the cost of living. I'm not sure about it.

There is real estate downtown that (I believe) is still undeveloped and unplanned where the Igloo was. The biggest issue I see is travel. There are no direct flights almost anywhere from PIT.

Re: Amazon to Build Second HQ in North America

#306

Post by devmunchies »

product50 wrote: post #293
devmunchies wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I know you want to pitch SS Frankly, I don't care either way. I work in downtown Seattle in Amazon's back yard. I just know SS has a healthy tech scene and not a lot of people know about it. > saying UoU and BYU are great universities is just wrong What? Am I missing something?

Here are the top eng colleges in US: https://www.usnews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-engineering... Do you see UoU and BYU there in the top 50? I don't either. For contrast, 2 of Silicon Valley's univs are in top 5.

Ok, they are both top 100 for engineering and top 50 for business programs.

I think you are confusing "great" with "top" or "prestigious". They are great universities.

And college rankings aren't everything. Those universities put out a high volume entrepreneurs, more than most of the top 50 engineering schools. For example, I don't see most of the top engineering schools on this list: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DHB_9l_UAAE8Fzn.jpg

Re: Amazon to Build Second HQ in North America

#307

Post by tanilama »

alexval wrote: post #84

I'm surprised that no one has mentioned Pittsburgh yet. uber did some early self driving pilots there. CMU is there. Google has a large office there. Amazon has also started hiring software engineers for an office in Pittsburgh too. Cost of living is very cheap. Many upsides to Pittsburgh. I don't know what the city could afford in terms of subsidies though.

Agree, when tech company choose sites, they tends to locate near schools. Somewhere in Midwest is no go, since Amazon would find it difficult to recruit people. I would say Pittsburgh is a reasonable bet.

Re: Amazon to Build Second HQ in North America

#308

Post by sidlls »

adventured wrote: post #171
grecy wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And anyone wonders why the USA does not have money for healthcare, higher education, high speed rail, etc. etc. I am in West Africa and everyone continually asks about the corruption. At least here it's up front and honest. The guy with the AK-47 just wants $5. In the USA, it's the guys in suits getting billions.

Since when does the US not have money for healthcare and higher education? We spend more on both per capita than any other nation on earth. We don't have money for high speed rail? Sure we do, we spend $7 trillion per year on government - 37% of our economy goes to government. Pick your priorities.

And a significant portion of that 37% goes straight into the pockets of connected contracting companies, especially DoD related ones. Usually staffed by people who constantly rant against how inefficient and evil government is.

Re: Amazon to Build Second HQ in North America

#309

Post by mkempe »

ryanmarsh wrote: post #142
relaunched wrote: post #133

Minnesota. Budget surplus, tons of F500 companies / large companies to recruit from and a strong university system, with lots of other states to draw from, being the largest city in the area, save Chicago.

This is one of the most likely locations I've read of so far. Minneapolis, Austin, Boulder in that order.

Denver possibly, but absolutely not Boulder. Boulder is a complete failure when it comes to transportation -- no light rail connection to Denver's system, although they collected sales tax for years claiming that was going to finance it; also, adding 50,000 new workers in a city of 100,000 would simply crush the existing infrastructure. Plus the local city council has been on a quixotic quest to confiscate electric utilities (distribution without production). The local developers have been giddy for the last few years that Google is bringing one thousand workers there, that's how strained housing already is.

Re: Amazon to Build Second HQ in North America

#310

Post by squozzer »

I will "officially" hope AMZN chooses ATL (as leverage for a bigger raise) but ATL has problems.

1) traffic -- not sure it's possible to get to ATL airport in 45 min during rush hour, without using MARTA rail.

2) transit -- how much "developable" land has a mass transit stop on-site? AMZN would either have to buy a developed site or have a MARTA rail spur built.

3) ATL airport -- a certain airline has way too much power there.

But anyway, I found the perfect spot for AMZN if they can swing it - it meets their core requirements (it's even built over a MARTA rail stop) -- http://www.midtownatl.com/view/atandt-building

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