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Dear Amazon, We Picked Your New Headquarters for You

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Re: Dear Amazon, We Picked Your New Headquarters for You

#231

Post by skookumchuck »

JBlue42 wrote: post #227
skookumchuck wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seattle elected and re-elected Kshama Sawant to the city council. She is an avowed socialist, and is openly hostile to Boeing and Amazon. At one point she wanted to nationalize Boeing. I'd think twice about investing in anything under her sway.

She's an elected official, which means some Seattle people seem to think her ideas are worthwhile.

That's right, she's reflective of the community. And if that community is hostile to Amazon/Boeing, why should they continue to invest in that community?

The Seattle mayoral election candidates are all well over on the left. There isn't even anyone to vote for if you aren't on the left.

Re: Dear Amazon, We Picked Your New Headquarters for You

#232

Post by Balgair »

JPKab wrote: post #177
virtuallynathan wrote: post #17

I'm surprised to see Philadelphia eliminated so quickly, it ticks almost all of the boxes, and has a very large number of engineering schools (UPenn, Penn State, Drexel, Temple, Princeton, Rutgers, etc). It's transit is better than many of the other cities, and it has 2 major development plots in the city with existing full tax abatements. Not to mention its proximity to NYC and Washington, DC via Amtrak (~1h20m to N…

I live in Colorado and work at a software company. I have a crew of people here who relocated from Philly. I've been hearing a ton about this because this crew has been steadily recruiting from there to Denver. The comments they say when they are doing this: Philly has worse crime by far. The weather (measured in number of sunny days) is obviously worse. Outdoor activities are limited. Yeah, you can get to pretty pla…

Ex-Lockheed Commercial Space?

When I moved from Philly to Boulder, it took me only 3 days to notice that everyone in CO was 'fit' as opposed to Philly, where most people are (generally) shockingly fat and a smelly city/airport. Denver can be pretty stinky, but nothing like anything south of South St. or just outside of University City. Generally, CO had more options to date people than blacking-out in some 'Irish' bar in South Jersey. That said, I liked the demeanor of people of East Pennsy and South/Central Jersey more than Boulder; they were more 'real' and didn't hide feelings or dis/likes at all. You got what you saw, while Boulder/Denver tends to be more 'shy' in demeanor and true feelings. YMMV

Re: Dear Amazon, We Picked Your New Headquarters for You

#233

Post by Balgair »

tttt5 wrote: post #221
JPKab wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in Colorado and work at a software company. I have a crew of people here who relocated from Philly. I've been hearing a ton about this because this crew has been steadily recruiting from there to Denver. The comments they say when they are doing this: Philly has worse crime by far. The weather (measured in number of sunny days) is obviously worse. Outdoor activities are limited. Yeah, you can get to pretty pla…

Out of curiosity, what's the appeal of being near the mountains for a not athletic type. Arguably being near the beach is more broadly beneficial.

If your date is more fit than you, you get a great 'view' of their tuckus all the way up the 14er?

;)

Re: Dear Amazon, We Picked Your New Headquarters for You

#234

Post by curun1r »

tttt5 wrote: post #221
JPKab wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in Colorado and work at a software company. I have a crew of people here who relocated from Philly. I've been hearing a ton about this because this crew has been steadily recruiting from there to Denver. The comments they say when they are doing this: Philly has worse crime by far. The weather (measured in number of sunny days) is obviously worse. Outdoor activities are limited. Yeah, you can get to pretty pla…

Out of curiosity, what's the appeal of being near the mountains for a not athletic type. Arguably being near the beach is more broadly beneficial.

Umm...becoming more athletic?

I can't speak for others, but I'm more fit because I live near mountains and other outdoor activities. I don't choose to live near those things because I'm fit. The causation is mostly the opposite of what you're implying.

Getting out and into nature will change your lifestyle for the better, no matter what your current abilities. And there are plenty of ways to get out there that don't require any fitness level whatsoever. Sitting in a boat and fishing, RV camping...I spent much of the past few weeks hiking in the Sierras and most of the people in our campgrounds were retirees.

Re: Dear Amazon, We Picked Your New Headquarters for You

#235

Post by all_blue_chucks »

JBlue42 wrote: post #229
all_blue_chucks wrote: post #88

The major factor that isn't mentioned: state income tax. Washington has no income tax. It's no small coincidence that it has so many billionaires living there. But Seattle is trying to impose a 2.5% income tax on high earners. This might be Jeff's way of reminding them they have to compete to keep his business around. Also, a 0% income tax rate makes a HUGE difference in attracting tech workers who earn $200k+...

Boo hoo for rich people?

Are you lost? This is a site full of software industry types. Everyone here is either "rich" already or trying to be...

Re: Dear Amazon, We Picked Your New Headquarters for You

#236

Post by Johnny555 »

tttt5 wrote: post #221
JPKab wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in Colorado and work at a software company. I have a crew of people here who relocated from Philly. I've been hearing a ton about this because this crew has been steadily recruiting from there to Denver. The comments they say when they are doing this: Philly has worse crime by far. The weather (measured in number of sunny days) is obviously worse. Outdoor activities are limited. Yeah, you can get to pretty pla…

Out of curiosity, what's the appeal of being near the mountains for a not athletic type. Arguably being near the beach is more broadly beneficial.

They are still nice to look at, even if you don't climb them.

Re: Dear Amazon, We Picked Your New Headquarters for You

#237

Post by rdtsc »

JPKab wrote: post #182
rdtsc wrote: post #8

Not sure if Washington, DC includes Northern Virginia (Ashburn, Herndon, Reston). AWS is already here. And a ridiculous amount of fiber seems to out through this area. I see new data centers popping up quite often. And prices are crazy expensive but probably still cheaper than the city itself. So I would pick this area if I was them. Though not sure how I'd personally feel about prices and traffic going up even highe…

I currently live between Denver and Boulder. Lived in the DC area for 8 years. It's an AWFUL place to build an HQ, but Amazon might do it anyway. 1) Salaries are artificially inflated by competition from the Govt and Govt contractors. 2) Traffic is nightmarishly bad. 3) Housing is incredibly expensive 4) Tech skills aren't as high as the stats indicate. The gov't and contractors have an amazing way of creating people…

Heh.

Yeah it's a mix of tech companies and gov. + gov contractors. A lot of people seem to work for the "State Dept." here (cough CIA cough) or other such agencies.

Tech talent is varied as you say. There are a lot of tech companies, some of Amazon's AWS is here, and there Microsoft, Google and others. They are probably dwarfed by Lockheed, Booz, Northrop and "We put butts in seats" ManTech but overall at least the NoVa area seems tech-y enough.

Traffic is not bad if you don't have to get on the beltway or go all the way to DC in rush hour. And there is Metro, with all the hate and issues they've been having it works and is better than other cities I've lived in.

> Housing is incredibly expensive

Compared to Midwest or South it is ridiculously expensive. But out in suburbs (and not DC proper) it's more manageable than Seattle, SF, NY and such it seems.

> 5) Weather fucking sucks. I lived there 8 years, it sucks

True, true. Though it's fall now. Finally a few weeks of nice cool mornings when opening windows feels nice. And I do like the mountains out West. Skyline drive, hiking and the small towns and farms.

> 6) Quality of life just isn't good. Average commute times and cultural amenities are bad.

I just tried not to commute and lived closed to work. Now work from home. Now you might ask why would I still stay in this area, and that would be a good question. So far it inertia mostly and maybe the idea that it's probably safer to stay in a tech area if had to wanted to switch jobs and working from home wasn't an option any more.

Re: Dear Amazon, We Picked Your New Headquarters for You

#238

Post by Corrado »

mcbits wrote: post #148

Instead of two headquarters, why not 50 headquarters? They have one of the largest and most reliable networks in the world - use it! With offices spread across the country (continent, even), they could hire from a talent pool that dwarfs Seattle and Denver. They wouldn't have to find 100+ contiguous acres for sale in one metropolis. City Council elections wouldn't have to be of strategic importance. Likewise for disa…

I've always thought it curious as to why AWS requires people to relocate to one of their offices. My understanding was that one of the major benefits of the cloud (aka AWS) was to free companies from having to hire locally.

Re: Dear Amazon, We Picked Your New Headquarters for You

#239

Post by Corrado »

I'm a native of Louisville, KY and while I was excited to see them on the original list of cities, I can understand why it might not make it. To me, Louisville is a great place to live; we are average in almost every way possible. So, we get snow but not blizzards, rain but not hurricanes, heat but not heat waves, etc... We also have a lot of growth potential and plenty of room to expand.

The place we falter, IMHO, is the social aspect; it's just not cool to live/work here. Sure we have Churchill Downs (The Kentucky Derby) and quite a lot of bourbon but I'm not sure that makes up for the lack of cool places to live and out downtown shuts down after 5PM. Still, if Amazon HQ showed up I'm sure those things would change pretty quickly. $50MM and 50,000 extra people have that effect. :)

Re: Dear Amazon, We Picked Your New Headquarters for You

#240

Post by drawkbox »

Johnny555 wrote: post #160
mcbits wrote: post #148

Instead of two headquarters, why not 50 headquarters? They have one of the largest and most reliable networks in the world - use it! With offices spread across the country (continent, even), they could hire from a talent pool that dwarfs Seattle and Denver. They wouldn't have to find 100+ contiguous acres for sale in one metropolis. City Council elections wouldn't have to be of strategic importance. Likewise for disa…

The same reason Google, Facebook, Apple, et all still bus employees 40 miles south from SF to their offices -- having people together in one office (or campus) makes them more productive, no matter how much technology you throw at it.

Most communication in an office still takes place virtually just as you do remotely. Within a company located in the same physical area you might communicate across floors, across buildings, across campuses.

Yes it is nice to have small groups together on regular basis in meetings, integration sessions, brainstorming but for the most part jobs are virtual even in an office today with chat, email, text, phones, video chat, etc. Everyone in one location is both a single point of failure and doesn't scale well to employees changes, i.e. people move frequently, skill is available in different technologies not always in one location, etc. Better virtual communication in companies even on-site is needed, being in one place without that can actually put a damper on performance and ability to ship.

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