Amazon expected to announce NYC and Northern Virginia as new headquarters • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon expected to announce NYC and Northern Virginia as new headquarters

#121

Post by CydeWeys » Tue, Nov 13, 2018, 3:33 AM UTC

dunpeal wrote: post #80

wpietri wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whoa. Bezos indeed has homes in NYC and Washington DC. (As well as Seattle, Beverly Hills, and a ranch in Texas. [1]) I can't find it now, but years ago The Economist ran an article about a study that said a key factor in corporate headquarter moves was where the CEO lives. Disappointing to see it play out like that on such a grand scale, and after such a pretense of a nationwide search. Yet another thing that convin…

Doubt it was a factor with Bezos. The guy is rich enough to live anywhere, and has houses everywhere, as you also observed. Somehow the office didn't land in Beverly Hills or the Texas ranch. I expect the fact that he already has homes in NYC and DC is related to the fact they are in fact important locations for his business.

The point isn't that he can't afford houses anywhere (obviously he can), it's that the places he already owns houses in are places he enjoys spending his time in. So he'd want to locate additional offices in those places. He's probably not all that interested in spending time in, e.g., Dallas.

Re: Amazon expected to announce NYC and Northern Virginia as new headquarters

#122

Post by hueving » Tue, Nov 13, 2018, 3:33 AM UTC

roymurdock wrote: post #106

dunpeal wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they have massive bargaining power Wouldn't call it "massive" in NYC. The office size is projected to employ 25,000 people in total. Nice number, but not "massive" for a city of 8,623,000 people.

The average salary for these employees will be many x greater than the average NYC resident - you need to compare the relative size of the +25k employees to the ~200k subset of residents that make $200k+ in NY, not the entire 8M pop. Not to mention the knock-on effects of the many jobs the HQ will indirectly create - cleaning, food prep, waste mgmt, facilities, security, transportation, etc. But yes, I agree that NYC…

>The average salary for these employees will be many x greater than the average NYC resident

This isn't just an office for software developers so that's not likely to be true.

Re: Amazon expected to announce NYC and Northern Virginia as new headquarters

#123

Post by cddotdotslash » Tue, Nov 13, 2018, 3:33 AM UTC

max76 wrote: post #94

ghaff wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NYC is more attractive than it used to be, to be fair. But, especially the parts of NYC young tech workers are actually interested in is still urbanization on steroids. I can tolerate and even revel in it for a week or so but it takes a lot of adjusting from most places, even other large cities.

NYC is very urban, but it isn't even the largest or most dense city in North America. I think you just have a bias against heavy urban areas. Lots of people are comfortable living in large dense cities. Hundreds of millions, if not more, live in cities with similar levels of urbanization as NYC.

It's the second largest and the second densest behind Mexico City. Somehow I don't think Mexico City was in the running for HQ2.

Re: Amazon expected to announce NYC and Northern Virginia as new headquarters

#124

Post by justapassenger » Tue, Nov 13, 2018, 3:33 AM UTC

pratik661 wrote: post #74

justapassenger wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For some quality of life means being able to get a drink at 3AM. For others - house with a backyard.

You can literally have a house with a backyard and a less than 1 hour commute from Manhattan.

2h of commute per day to get a backyard maybe good life quality for some. But not for everyone.

Re: Amazon expected to announce NYC and Northern Virginia as new headquarters

#125

Post by ghaff » Tue, Nov 13, 2018, 3:34 AM UTC

max76 wrote: post #94

ghaff wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NYC is more attractive than it used to be, to be fair. But, especially the parts of NYC young tech workers are actually interested in is still urbanization on steroids. I can tolerate and even revel in it for a week or so but it takes a lot of adjusting from most places, even other large cities.

NYC is very urban, but it isn't even the largest or most dense city in North America. I think you just have a bias against heavy urban areas. Lots of people are comfortable living in large dense cities. Hundreds of millions, if not more, live in cities with similar levels of urbanization as NYC.

I think you're misinterpreting me. I'm literally sitting in NYC at the moment. I enjoy visiting it. I've lived here (briefly). I also travel throughout the US and elsewhere. I don't know how anyone else could seriously suggest that the sheer volume of blaring horns and crush of humanity is not at least somewhat unique in North America.

In my experience, Chicago comes closest.

LA is quite different.

I totally appreciate people are comfortable living in cities like this. I probably wouldn't be. But, if you are, more power to you. (Personally I live in the country.)

Re: Amazon expected to announce NYC and Northern Virginia as new headquarters

#126

Post by statguy » Tue, Nov 13, 2018, 3:35 AM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #65

Aloha wrote: post #6

I feel this choice is a mistake for the company long term, they're putting resources into two very hot housing and real estate markets, that have no real draw (in my opinion) for technical employees. Hew York is high tax (compared to Washington), unpleasant weather, overall high costs, and has a housing shortage, Washington DC, once described has having "Southern Efficiency, and Northern Charm" has similar issues of…

> Washington DC, once described has having "Southern Efficiency, and Northern Charm" This is so great.

Are you sure, this sounds reversed - Northern efficiency, and Southern Charm?

Re: Amazon expected to announce NYC and Northern Virginia as new headquarters

#127

Post by justapassenger » Tue, Nov 13, 2018, 3:36 AM UTC

Rebelgecko wrote: post #14

What will it mean for a company to have three "headquarters"? Will each location focus on a different part of the business?

It means nothing. Most of big companies have multiple big offices, with big autonomy and owned parts of the business in each of them.

It's all just marketing buzz from amazon.

Re: Amazon expected to announce NYC and Northern Virginia as new headquarters

#128

Post by cddotdotslash » Tue, Nov 13, 2018, 3:36 AM UTC

untog wrote: post #104

In New York, at least, this is going to be quite a mess. Many within the city - politicians included - are against it. But Cuomo, the governor of the state, is all in, and is planning to remove the city council from the decision: http://gothamist.com/2018/11/12/amazon_cuomo_city_council.ph... As if it needed to be said, there are other cities that would be a lot more receptive, and would benefit a lot more. Even just…

I'm normally not in favor of side stepping the processes in place, but I can guarantee you that if the community board was allowed to inject themselves into this process, you would be unlikely to see Amazon in NYC in 2050, let alone this decade. Nimbyism would never let this kind of thing progress.

Re: Amazon expected to announce NYC and Northern Virginia as new headquarters

#129

Post by hueving » Tue, Nov 13, 2018, 3:36 AM UTC

dunpeal wrote: post #108

sonnyblarney wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NYC has a lot of developers, more than the valley. It's already a 'draw' of sorts, this is an advantage. "DC, access to policymakers - but I see no real strategic advantages here." Amazon is going to become the #1 IT vendor of choice for the biggest government of the world AND reach their tentacles deep into the political arena for all sorts of other benefits. Military, FBI, CIA, Gov, Fannie/Freddie. All huge . Also…

This Quora response uses US Bureau of Labor Statistics to show there are 92,350 programmers in the whole SF Bay area, compared to 62,530 programmers in the entire NYC municipal area. So about 50% more in the Bay. https://www.quora.com/How-many-software-engineers-work-in-Si...

You forgot to adjust for the standard NYC ego inflation. Each NYC developer is worth 2x what any other developer is worth so NYC would win with 125k developers.

Re: Amazon expected to announce NYC and Northern Virginia as new headquarters

#130

Post by pratik661 » Tue, Nov 13, 2018, 3:36 AM UTC

scarejunba wrote: post #101

pratik661 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can literally have a house with a backyard and a less than 1 hour commute from Manhattan.

An hour is too much. Ain't nobody got time for one hour commuting each way.

I agree. An hour is considered a slightly above average commute in the Bay Area. However in NYC its considered way above average. When I was interviewing there, I was low key shocked that the interviewers considered 30 minutes to be a 'long' commute. Thats when I knew I was in the right place. Density + transit is the way to go.