What city would you move to so you can work at HQ2?
San Francisco without a doubt.
Amazon to Build Second HQ in North America
351–360 of 490 posts
Re: Amazon to Build Second HQ in North America
#352Let San Francisco win!
Re: Amazon to Build Second HQ in North America
#353I'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.
PA Corporate tax is one of the highest in the country. Though it's not a terrible option.
Philadelphia has gross receipts tax. It is a no go.
Re: Amazon to Build Second HQ in North America
#354Earlier 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.
Here is the the list of top Computer Science programs:
https://www.usnews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-science-sch...
#40: University of Utah.
Re: Amazon to Build Second HQ in North America
#355Earlier quoted context omitted.
Unless money is being funneled into private politicians’ hands, it’s not corruption. The choice is between amazon + tax breaks and nothing. These cities clearly believe that they’re better off, net net, with Amazon and they’re probably right. This is not at all the same as accepting bribes. There are certainly bad deals out there, but mismanagement is not the same as corruption. Now if you can show that the politicia…
You say "the choice is between amazon + tax breaks and nothing" like the legal and cultural framework in which these processes take place is a force of nature. The choice is between those things because Amazon says so, and government chooses not to stand up to them by refusing to cooperate country-wide, or passing federal legislation. Amazon is not an outlier here: this is how all deals of this size in the United Sta…
> is a force of nature.
Taxes are not a force of nature...
If you were to effectively prohibit all states from giving tax incentives to get companies to make their HQ there, you will fail in 2 important ways. The first one is that there will always be a way to bargain company-state-city wide. So even though the tax burden might be the same, the company could order for , for example,special infrastructure or whatever, to get extra value. And because the city wants to do it, its most likely going to. This result is worse than a tax break.
The other failure will come if you could, somehow, prohibit any thing like the one above from happening. That means that of 2 cities with similar demographics, where one of them has some sort of disadvantage, will be forever barred from having big companies set up shop. Why? Because if there is no tax incentive, the companies will only go to the best option available. If you happen to be that city, you would hit the jackpot. The rest, however...
Re: Amazon to Build Second HQ in North America
#356The 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,…
The US could just do what the EU does and ban sweetheart tax deals. Such tax deals are anti-small-company/unfair and it's a race to the bottom that no one will win.
Consumers, employers and investors would win. What are you talking about.
Re: Amazon to Build Second HQ in North America
#357What city would you move to so you can work at HQ2?
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Re: Amazon to Build Second HQ in North America
#358What city would you move to so you can work at HQ2?
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Re: Amazon to Build Second HQ in North America
#359Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yea, this is pretty clearly an RFP directed at politicians soliciting taxpayer money. That said, if given the choice between my city ponying up for a stadium (or datacenter that will support 50 total jobs) and an actual Amazon HQ that's comparable to Seattle, I know which way I'd lean. Unfortunately, a big reason politicians go for these kinds of proposals is that they sound great as "accomplishments" in stump speech…
Totally agree! 50,000 people making 100k+ per year is a lot of taxes, it will increase land values. Please come to my city so my house can double in value. Hm...
I'm hoping not, because I'm enjoying cheap rent in a metropolitan city (Chicago). I don't want to compete for rent with even more technies than already exist with, esp. when Amazon is going to pay above market wages.
Re: Amazon to Build Second HQ in North America
#360Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
and sadly, a number of the gubernatorial candidates have indicated they are in favor of this bill.
Indeed. but metro Atlanta area itself is very progressive.