Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 1001 posts

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#191

Post by jhall1468 »

CydeWeys wrote: post #101
akhilcacharya wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They do! Audible is headquartered in Newark, and there are lots of larger Ads, AWS, and Video orgs in the city too. This isn't internal information, you can look it up on the career page. https://www.amazon.jobs/en/search?offset=0&result_limit=10&s...

Fair enough, thanks for the info. I wonder if this change means they'll simply be expanding those existing offices more rather than (presumably) moving many of them into the new space?

Basically NY will be treated like any satellite campus. It will grow, but slowly as it has for years. The big "deal" with this move was bringing 25k jobs to NY, which has 5k now. That isn't going to happen, at least nowhere near the timeline it was.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#192

Post by Analemma_ »

legitster wrote: post #118
jandrese wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would't feel too bad for Amazon. They are the ones that made it a big spectacle and dragged it out for far longer than necessary or wise.

I don't necessarily feel bad for Amazon - I guess I just hate how disappointing the result was. Transparency lost. They likely could have avoided it if they had just selected one of the dark horses like Indianapolis or Saint Louis.

You’re being tremendously naive about this. There was never any chance of Amazon locating to St. Louis or whatever: NYC and DC were always the only options on their radar. The entire “HQ2 search” malarkey was just to extract the maximum possible tax breaks from whichever one they chose.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#194

Post by drugme »

CydeWeys wrote: post #5

A shame. As an employee of a Big N company in NYC, this would have provided upward pressure on my salary (even if personally I wouldn't want to go work for Amazon). But I didn't like the big tax breaks, and as a taxpayer of the city I'm glad my money won't go towards subsidizing the expansion of one of the world's most valuable companies. It's too bad Amazon wasn't willing to pay their fair share.

As shame. As an employee of a Big N company in NYC, this would have provided upward pressure on my salary.

The fact that that's all you can think about ...

is exactly why people are starting to lose their love for Big Tech in general.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#195

Post by specialp »

jhall1468 wrote: post #164
specialp wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. The 25k number was just to make a splash and notice they aren't doing that again. Because there aren't really any other areas that could give them 25k skilled employees. They will scale up in Nashville which is expected since it is a growing area, and they will still be in NY due to the talent. The "HQ2" show was primarily to extract large concessions which almost worked. My initial reaction as a NY'er was "…

There's absolutely no way they are scaling up NY to the same degree they would have with the subsidies. There's no reason to. The value proposition is gone, so now Amazon will slow-roll growth in NY like they will any other office. The fact that you (and many others) consider this a win is an attempt to revise history. This tax deal was all about Amazon expanding very quickly. That deal is gone. But feel free to pat…

If it was primarily a deal to ease the regulatory burden of building such a big thing, I'd be all for it. Admittedly NY has an issue now with too many layers of bureaucracy. But this isn't entirely what it is about. It was also about large tax concessions when plenty of large companies are hiring tech in NYC without any of them. A skilled employee in NYC does not last very long at all on the job market. The 25k employee campus thing was a sham that was geared to an area like NY from the start. They could never move to a smaller area and still get who they need at that scale.

The commodity these days is skilled workforce. Amazon will still be where they can get that commodity, economic incentives aren't needed. Cash is not the limiting factor it is the people they need. It was a smart business move to try to extract some cash too but they did not need that to expand in NY.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#196

Post by magduf »

kokokokoko wrote: post #154
Bucephalus355 wrote: post #24

Totally anedcotal evidence, but the first 5 top level comments (make that 6 now) are all against Amazon for NYC. Looks like we’ve reached our “Gettysburg” moment against corporate welfare. Terrible years of war still left, but the tide has turned.

It's very different because a large amount of NYC residents rent as opposed to own. To a resident that rents in NYC, Amazon moving in means they will have higher rents and less money on their pocket. It ends up costing many NYC residents actual money in rent to host Amazon, regardless of the subsidy. I think this one is a special case.

I don't see the problem here at all. If you have higher rents, that's because there's more demand for housing, and not enough affordable new housing is being constructed. Who controls that? Your local politicians. Who controls them? The voters who elected them, which is you if you live there. So you have no one to blame but yourself, and no cause to complain. You have the government you deserve.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#197

Post by ahoy »

nerdb4itwascool wrote: post #183
untog wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A clarification: NYC didn't offer Amazon subsidies. New York State did. That's really the core of the tension - the whole deal was negotiated in secret then announced to the world as a finished product. That tends not to earn you goodwill with city politicians you deliberately excluded from the process.

agreed. the drive to squash this deal was mainly driven from local politicians who were whining that they were cut out of the process.

>

Is this 4chan now?

It's good when local politicians weigh in on local issues. Your comment is completely off the mark.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#199

Post by chiefalchemist »

magduf wrote: post #170
skh wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My current pet idea is that the Electoral College ought to be replaced with the CEOs of the Fortune 500 companies. That way we could do away with the facade that presidential elections currently create.

That's actually not a bad idea. We've already proven that the American people do a terrible job selecting a president with the current Electoral College system, so letting the F500 CEOs select the President surely can't be any worse.

Whoa. Let's back up a bit. The DNC and the GOP do a terrible job finding qualified candidates that can do the job. The system is designed to elect the electable. We The People don't have much say in who the parties serve up, who is willing to run, etc.

If the relentless (Media) attacks of DJT are an indication, there are few "outsiders" who are going to get involved in the future. And isn't that exactly what status quo'ers like the DNC and GOP want?

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#200

Post by lghh »

drugme wrote: post #194
CydeWeys wrote: post #5

A shame. As an employee of a Big N company in NYC, this would have provided upward pressure on my salary (even if personally I wouldn't want to go work for Amazon). But I didn't like the big tax breaks, and as a taxpayer of the city I'm glad my money won't go towards subsidizing the expansion of one of the world's most valuable companies. It's too bad Amazon wasn't willing to pay their fair share.

As shame. As an employee of a Big N company in NYC, this would have provided upward pressure on my salary. The fact that that's all you can think about ... is exactly why people are starting to lose their love for Big Tech in general.

Literally the next sentence, the commenter talks about more than just their salary and how it's a shame that Amazon didn't want to be a part of their community and pay their fair share.
Post reply on HN