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Amazon Selects New York City and Northern Virginia for New Headquarters

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141–150 of 279 posts

Re: Amazon Selects New York City and Northern Virginia for New Headquarters

#141

Hope all you want, but a good half+ of the HQ2 hires will be minorities. Not a lot of minorities want to live in a deep south or Texas region due to racism, stand-your-ground, etc. Same thing for gays. If you want to hope for diverse knowledge businesses opening in Dallas, perhaps start with pushing for equality. I can think of a thousand examples, but here is the latest: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/07/us/dallas-…

Preach all you want, but the south is no more homophobic than any other region. Your own hefty bias only muddies the waters.

Re: Amazon Selects New York City and Northern Virginia for New Headquarters

#142

Unless I'm misreading this, it looks like Nashville got the best deal > Amazon will receive performance-based direct incentives of up to $102 million based on the company creating 5,000 jobs with an average wage of over $150,000 in Nashville. This is a pretty big deal for Nashville, and costing them only $12,000 per job is a pretty big win.

Nashville makes sense for anyone doing distribution. Great airport with tons of planes, pilots, distribution center workers already there for the largest couriers. Also because you can reach 60% of Americans by road in 1-2 days and efficient hub and spoke distribution for air freight.

Re: Amazon Selects New York City and Northern Virginia for New Headquarters

#143
post #8

Wouldn't you call two new offices that are smaller than the headquarters "satellite offices"? It really does feel like Amazon successfully played a lot of municipalities against each other to try and extract the biggest concessions, knowing all along that it didn't make sense to try and hire 50000 people in a decade in any one location. I know that's how the game is played, but it's still feels a little disingenuous.

Are VA or NY considered union friendly states?

Just wondering out loud...

Re: Amazon Selects New York City and Northern Virginia for New Headquarters

#144
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Wouldn't you call two new offices that are smaller than the headquarters "satellite offices"? Not quite. Amazon has satellite offices, that employ an order of magnitude fewer employees. At 25k/branch, the term "regional headquarters" can be considered justified. They did game the system though. Feels like they negotiated tax benefits with 50k employees in mind, and kept the same benefits while only giving locations…

> Fin-tech firms WILL HAVE TO compete against Amazon for (supposed) west coast wages, and could help build a much stronger tech industry than NYC has atm. Those fin-tech companies almost certainly pay more than Amazon already. IIRC amazon has a cap of 275k for base pay, which means even if you're James Gosling that's the most you're getting, the rest has to come from RSUs which amazon also has a terrible vesting stru…

Very true. It's amusing to see people talk about "west coast wages" comparing favorably to wages in NYC.

The reason top tech generally kept out of NYC until recently is that they had trouble competing against investment bank salaries.

This only changed as top tech (especially FAANG) comp increased to catch up.

The less charitable interpretation is that top tech found itself compelled to pay more and more due to the talent crunch, until after all the increases it finally caught up with average NYC pay. Now, since it already pays at NYC-competitive levels, it might as well open offices in NYC and enjoy the talent pool there.

Re: Amazon Selects New York City and Northern Virginia for New Headquarters

#145

> Long Island City is a mixed-use community where arts and industry intersect It's mostly empty warehouses, housing projects, and luxury condos. There's very little in terms of culture or even basic needs, like grocery stores. > Long Island City has some of the best transit access in New York City, with 8 subway lines, 13 bus lines, commuter rail, a bike-sharing service, and ferries serving the area Realistically it'…

I spend a lot of time passing through in this neighborhood, and can mostly confirm this. In fact, about those luxury condos and housing projects… they're _very_ new, popping up within the past two years and more coming all the time. I’ve been wondering for years what kind of people make the sort of money to afford these places and would also _want_ to live in that area… now I wonder if this decision wasn't made long…

I highly doubt this was leaked to developers, I think this was developers realizing that long island city was within close proximity to Manhattan and people want luxury rentals without the price of paying for one in Manhattan.

Re: Amazon Selects New York City and Northern Virginia for New Headquarters

#146
post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There have been stories about this for months. It's reasonable to assume that most people reading and commenting on them are familiar with the history of this long running story and the well publicized last minute change in the terms of the agreement by Amazon in the last week. If you are honestly unaware of this and need it explained to you, then in the future take some time to familiarize yourself with the context…

I was rather careful not to insult you. I merely said that your style resembled that of obsessive ranters and nut cases; I didn't accuse you of being one. You came at least as close to being insulting as I did. In the future, take some time to familiarize yourself with peoples' posting history before you jump in and question whether they are shills.

Your style resembles that of a moron. I'm not saying you are one, just that the things you say make you sound like one.

See how insulting that isn't?

Re: Amazon Selects New York City and Northern Virginia for New Headquarters

#147
post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Moving is a substantial expense. Should people be forced to consider the likelihood that housing costs that are currently within their means might rise outside of them at some unknown point in the future, and to some unknown degree, when choosing housing? How exactly should that be considered? It seems regressive, socially, to force this consideration on the people least able to afford it. After all, people who "choo…

...Yes? This has been happening for hundreds of years. Part of being a responsible adult is managing your finances and being prepared. It is crazy to me that so much attention these days is basically advocating for the babysitting of adults. It is not as if this will happen overnight, either. If we allow people to stay in subsidized housing we remove the biggest carrot for self-motivation.

[deleted]

Re: Amazon Selects New York City and Northern Virginia for New Headquarters

#148
post #140

Why do we give Amazon subsidies but not small businesses, who altogether provide over 50% of the jobs in America? The reason, as I understand it, is because Amazon as a single corporate entity provides far more jobs and holds more power. Following that: Wouldn't the small businesses, due to our anti-trust regulations, actually be considered a cartel if they tried to negotiate as a group and gain the same tax advantag…

Also not a lawyer, but cartel behavior usually refers to price-fixing and other anti-competitive behavior. Small businesses banding together the way you described would just be lobbying and already happens frequently.

Amazon should be investigated for anti-competitive practices, and their ability to negotiate this kind of a circus is certainly an indication of that. The problem has been two-fold -

1. The Sherman act is over 100 years old and was written to target 19th century trusts like Standard Oil and the railroads. These need to be updated to reflect new types of models of trusts and conglomeration (and accumulation of power) that have developed.

2. Enforcement - the SEC and FTC are largely toothless and everyone knows it. If you are a company that can afford a team of lawyers, its unlikely you will be penalized in a way that actually hurts.

Re: Amazon Selects New York City and Northern Virginia for New Headquarters

#149

> Long Island City is a mixed-use community where arts and industry intersect It's mostly empty warehouses, housing projects, and luxury condos. There's very little in terms of culture or even basic needs, like grocery stores. > Long Island City has some of the best transit access in New York City, with 8 subway lines, 13 bus lines, commuter rail, a bike-sharing service, and ferries serving the area Realistically it'…

Vernon Blvd and some of the areas closer to Greenpoint are pretty lively, but you're mostly right about the emptiness. Biking through LIC can be kind of spooky (although not actually dangerous), and LIC is where a lot of "fight under abandoned bridge" scenes are filmed in NYC these days. The M and E trains all go to LIC at Court Square or the station you take the moving sidewalk to. Depending on where the offices are…

They'll be using the Citi Building, which is a few minutes' walk from the stations you cited.

Re: Amazon Selects New York City and Northern Virginia for New Headquarters

#150
post #8

Wouldn't you call two new offices that are smaller than the headquarters "satellite offices"? It really does feel like Amazon successfully played a lot of municipalities against each other to try and extract the biggest concessions, knowing all along that it didn't make sense to try and hire 50000 people in a decade in any one location. I know that's how the game is played, but it's still feels a little disingenuous.

Are VA or NY considered union friendly states? Just wondering out loud...

VA is definitely not.
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