Amazon expected to announce NYC and Northern Virginia as new headquarters

Post by code_duck » Tue, Nov 13, 2018, 3:46 AM UTC

dunpeal wrote: post #80

wpietri wrote: post #77

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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.

Post by jganetsk » Tue, Nov 13, 2018, 3:46 AM UTC

cddotdotslash wrote: post #123

max76 wrote: post #94

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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.

Post by code_duck » Tue, Nov 13, 2018, 3:47 AM UTC

Buldak wrote: post #89

roymurdock wrote: post #64

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Obviously Amazon was going to get a great bargain and bunch of info to boot - they have massive bargaining power. Not participating in the bid would have been suicide for the politicians of any major city save perhaps Kreuzberg, Berlin [1]. The amount of wealth creation and subsequent tax payments/land value boost that any FAANG company would bring with a new HQ is way too big to be ignored. [1] https://www.theguardi…

>Not participating in the bid would have been suicide for the politicians of any major city I find that pretty implausible. Foxconn didn't save Scott Walker (and I don't think that's because his would-be supporters later realized that it wasn't such a sweet deal, either).

Post by dunpeal » Tue, Nov 13, 2018, 3:47 AM UTC

briandear wrote: post #137

roymurdock wrote: post #106

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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…

And NYC gives a tax deal to the corporation, while the workers get to pay city income tax, state income tax and federal income tax, high property and sales taxes, while also having one of the highest costs of living of most cities. Not great for the future workers at all while Amazon gets to cash in on tax incentives. Amazon could have gotten great tax benefits elsewhere in places that don’t tax their employees so da…

Post by itronitron » Tue, Nov 13, 2018, 3:47 AM UTC

sneak wrote: post #66

CPLX wrote: post #33

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New York is literally the greatest city in the history of world civilization and the planetary capital of finance, media, business, fashion and culture. It’s easily the largest city in the country, and iconic globally. But you’re finding it hard to understand why people might want to live here? I’d post more but my New York life is veritable cornucopia of novel and enriching experiences and I’d better get back to it.…

Someone (I forget who) once said that New York’s real specialty is convincing twentysomethings that it is the center of the universe. It certainly seemed that way to me for a long time.