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

941–950 of 1001 posts

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#941

Post by will_brown »

balls187 wrote: post #714
will_brown wrote: post #588

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know about having more talent, but amazon definitely has more ego...At least LeBron didn’t demand special tax deals and non-public data from cities to bring his talents.

Unfortunately it doesn't work like that. First, state income tax is exactly that, income tax imposed by the state, and governed by the state. There may be local jurisdictions that impose additional income tax but any savings there would be trivial. While sports are important to the local economy, my understanding is that they are relatively minor at the state level. Second, LeBron (and other athletes) earn playing in…

>Second, LeBron (and other athletes) earn playing income in every jurisdiction they play in, not based solely on the jurisdiction that the team is based in. This means they are responsible for filing taxes in each of these jurisdiction.

That’s pretty funny how well settled that area of Law is, and yet again Amazon thinks it’s pretty special in that regard also...historically they haven’t paid those taxes either (state or local) and there was just a Supreme Court case confirming that in fact amazon isn’t special and that all this time they themselves should have been paying taxes where they had been selling/shipping goods.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#942

Post by TulliusCicero »

rsj_hn wrote: post #813
TulliusCicero wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a reason you get superstar hubs, instead of companies and employees equalizing to somewhere else as soon as one metro gets a bit more expensive. Network/ecosystem effects are a real thing. Google already has some dev offices in cheaper areas, like Pittsburgh, where office space is cheaper and the salaries they pay slightly lower. And yet, they still choose to double their headcount in NYC. Just saying, "well…

Honestly, I think you are not capturing the trade offs here correctly. There is some value to being in a hub, but not infinite value. For example a start up gains a lot more benefit from being in Silicon Valley than a company with 10,000 developers. The startup needs access to VCs, and it needs to hire superstar programmers. Once a company reaches critical mass, it doesn't need access to VCs, and isn't able to hire s…

> For example a start up gains a lot more benefit from being in Silicon Valley than a company with 10,000 developers.

No, I'd say they have about equal value. Consider, Google has tens of thousands of tech workers in the bay area. How many other metros could they feasibly relocate their HQ to? Even if you assume that only, say, a third of their employees decline to relocate with them, you're possibly looking at ~10,000 job openings you'd need to staff up on within a year or two to not be absolutely crippling.

> You can still do the latter in a research center that you can keep in the hub and move a lot of the other code to the periphery, which will be most of your employees.

This completely glosses over how companies work. Google doesn't have two tiers of software engineer types, where one gets more exciting stuff and better pay/benefits, while the other languishes on boring things with mediocre pay. Trying to split up the company that way, "we'll just hire crappier engineers in [cheap place] now and treat them worse because they're dumber" would be a total disaster.

> you have housing markets that are so insane that the majority of your developers will not be able to buy a house, which means they are going to leave you or demand really high wages -- wages that a company with 20K devs can't afford.

While this is absolutely a problem, and I applaud efforts to increase affordability either in the areas where tech HQ's already are, or by distributing more offices elsewhere, you're missing the obvious fact that these major tech companies already do this, and it already works. Yes, some people leave. The strongest, and probably most valuable employees largely don't, because they make enough to offset the increased cost of housing: a T6 at Google may make 400-500k/year.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#943

Post by bradleyjg »

sammycdubs wrote: post #675
bko wrote: post #554

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most new Yorkers supported the project even when told about the subsidies. It's a vocal minority that sank the project https://www.wsj.com/articles/majority-of-new-yorkers-support...

Most New Yorkers don't live in LIC and won't be directly impacted. If you asked me about a proposal in a borough I never go to I'd probably say "yeah sure no problem"!

There are a vanishingly small number of long time LIC residents. Up until ten years ago it was mostly industrial, one commercial tower, and a smattering of low rise residential.

So who makes up this supposed groundswell of local opposition? People that moved in to one of those shiny new towers last week and are already looking to slam the door behind themselves?

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#944

Post by Melchizedek »

bko wrote: post #808
siruncledrew wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon's spectacle reminds me of Lebron's "The Decision". It's one thing to work out the details and make an announcement, but to purposefully turn it into a show about "What can you do for me?" instead of "Here's what I can do for you" made it not sit well with people. Also, the pull-out letter also basically dumps the blame on state/local officials for not wanting Amazon, despite not all stakeholders being present…

I don't see it as a "what can you do for me". A lot of Amazon's interest were aligned with that of many New Yorkers. Both Amazon and most New Yorkers want to have a strong transportation system and a diverse economy that doesn't just rely on taxing bloated financial bonuses to pay for services. They also want New York to be an in-demand tech hub with a deep labor pool and be a place where people actually want to live…

Would it? Silicon Valley used to be a great place to live for normal people. Now it's hell for anybody who isn't rich.

As James Damore recently tweeted: "Amazon abuses its near-monopoly to bankrupt its competitors by selling at a loss, threaten brands with counterfeits until they sell on Amazon, and use third-party merchants’ data to undercut them. All while being subsidized billions by the government." https://twitter.com/JamesADamore/status/1094985319575969792

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#945

Post by trizzak »

nihonde wrote: post #867
betterunix2 wrote: post #861

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LIC and the rest of the broader NYC region has been undergoing gentrification for many years now, and Amazon probably would not have had much impact on that. Amazon's vertical integration will impact local businesses regardless of where they place their offices. The reason New Yorkers are not going to suffer is that there are tons of jobs in NYC and numerous big corporate offices. This is probably one of the most ove…

True about LIC already undergoing gentrification. But it’s still kind of affordable, at least to young white collar workers who are priced out of Manhattan or the expensive parts of Brooklyn. Amazon execs are paid big bucks. My friends who work there left behind multi-million dollar salaries without missing a beat. Having that kind of money fall into a developing area would ensure that even the baby bankers and lawye…

I’d be pretty surprised if a large percentage of those 25,000 jobs were going to have million dollar salaries. And who is to say that the handful that might have income that high would live in LIC, as opposed to a neighboring area.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#946

Post by dagw »

jusssi wrote: post #924
gmanley wrote: post #741

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you really think only a minority oppose animal cruelty? How many people are proponents of animal cruelty? Neither of us have data to back it up but if you polled people I think the majority would be against animal cruelty, they just wouldn't spend their time opposing it, that's the difference.

Majority of people (me included) continue to buy meat and other animal products, thus promoting animal cruelty.

I do too, but animal cruelty still bothers me and I try to buy products where I believe that the cruelty has been minimized. Animal cruelty is a spectrum and a lot of people care where on the spectrum they lie.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#947

Post by jtms »

Androider wrote: post #768
Q6T46nT668w6i3m wrote: post #646

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except it isn’t 0. It’s far from 0! LIC’s growth is really impressive without Amazon.

The waterfront is slowly getting nicer, but as soon as you go even a few blocks inwards it's still sketchy and/or industrial. An anchor like Amazon HQ would have had a ripple effect of improving the whole area (like maybe we could finally get a decent grocery store? It's cheaper to take the train into Manhattan and go to Whole Foods than visiting the local LIC Food Cellar and Key Food markets!), especially the more e…

I know the Key Foods you are talking about - I used to live nearby it roughly 10 years ago. I can’t believe that it’s still really the only choice. Something is holding back LIC’s development to where it doesn’t seem to be keeping pace with surrounding areas. I think amazon could have been a big boon to getting things like a Whole Foods or other, better grocery stores into the area.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#948

Post by jtms »

anth_anm wrote: post #672
rhegart wrote: post #626

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Majority of the incentives are from Amazon’s taxes. 27B in economic activity for 3B in tax breaks for just 10 years is wayyy better than almost every other corporate deal. Better than Tesla for sure. That 3B will no longer be generated. You want a net 24B or a net 0B? New Yorkers chose 0

I'll choose that 0 over giving away 3 billion every day. I don't care how you try to justify this sort of corruption.

Perhaps consider having even a mild understanding of how tax incentives work before spouting nonsense righteous indignation?

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#949

Post by trizzak »

adventured wrote: post #420
digianarchist wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Turns out that publicly shaking down cities across the US tends to draw out the opposition. Unless it's for a football stadium.

Hundreds of thousands of people don't turn out for a parade for Amazon. They do when pro teams win championships. Football stadiums get subsidized because football is extraordinarily, wildly popular with most of the people that pay taxes. Those taxpayers spend massive sums of money on sports every year, across the NFL / MLB / NBA / NHL / MLS / NCAA. Those people pay most of the taxes that fund the government that the…

Being a sports fan does not imply you are happy with tax dollars being used to fund stadiums.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#950

Post by jamroro »

asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #842
bko wrote: post #808

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see it as a "what can you do for me". A lot of Amazon's interest were aligned with that of many New Yorkers. Both Amazon and most New Yorkers want to have a strong transportation system and a diverse economy that doesn't just rely on taxing bloated financial bonuses to pay for services. They also want New York to be an in-demand tech hub with a deep labor pool and be a place where people actually want to live…

I'm of two minds on this issue, but: how can the city have good mass transit if there are no tax dollars to pay for it?

New York, the wealthiest, biggest city in the country can have good mass transit by properly spending the money it already collects.

New Yorkers already pay tremendous tax dollars yet we have the mass transit that we do. The idea that there are no tax dollars is a myth. The funds are simply siphoned off to some other who-knows-what, and the remaining is poorly spent. The purported Amazon tax base would have likely been spent the same.

Post reply on HN