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Dear Amazon, We Picked Your New Headquarters for You

nytimes.com

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Re: Dear Amazon, We Picked Your New Headquarters for You

#101

Post by danjayh »

rurounijones wrote: post #98
danjayh wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All depends on your perspective. Unlike many on ycombinator, I voted for Trump. I suppose it is more accurate to say that I actually voted for his Supreme Court justice list -- I viewed that issue as far more important than the president for the next four years. I lean libertarian, and while Trump had several justices that I'm OK with on his list, Hillary had no list and probably wouldn't have nominated anybody that…

You are the first person I have seen that has given supreme court justice list as reason fo voting trump and it seems like a pretty kosher reason. Not sure about the 4 year damage offset but hey, it is better than voting for him because wall

I really couldn't care less about the wall. I do think that choosing not to enforce immigration laws through an exective order was wrong - that is the domain of congress. In the case of an institution as important as the government of the United States, the ends do not justify the means if the means weakening the foundations of the entire system. I think that this applies equally to executive orders from both Trump and Obama that effectively seek to legislate through executive action.

Also ... sigh, I've already got negative two on that post :( The rain of judgement is why we're all silent.

Re: Dear Amazon, We Picked Your New Headquarters for You

#102

Post by Osiris »

I live in the Denver metro area and I think this assessment is pretty spot-on. The only downside is rush hour traffic around downtown can add 15-20 minutes to the commute. However, these is a significant light rail presence.

I would say quality of life is great for anyone that likes to do anything outdoors: fishing, skiing, mountain bikes, dirt bikes, etc.

And there's a pretty strong community of software engineers here.

Re: Dear Amazon, We Picked Your New Headquarters for You

#103

Post by tanilama »

shawn-butler wrote: post #95

I wonder if there is a study of these "sweetheart" municipal discretionary tax incentives deals? I have to imagine very few, if any, ever achieve the ROI the politicians claim and usually on top of non-tax incentives. Would be interesting to see some actual data. These people in power make these deals with little public oversight, usually negotiated in secret, knowing full well they won't have to deal with the long t…

Can't the residents vote the deal down if they are not happy with it? Just curious.

Re: Dear Amazon, We Picked Your New Headquarters for You

#104

Post by danjayh »

rurounijones wrote: post #98
danjayh wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All depends on your perspective. Unlike many on ycombinator, I voted for Trump. I suppose it is more accurate to say that I actually voted for his Supreme Court justice list -- I viewed that issue as far more important than the president for the next four years. I lean libertarian, and while Trump had several justices that I'm OK with on his list, Hillary had no list and probably wouldn't have nominated anybody that…

You are the first person I have seen that has given supreme court justice list as reason fo voting trump and it seems like a pretty kosher reason. Not sure about the 4 year damage offset but hey, it is better than voting for him because wall

Also, justices last a lifetime. A few bad justices could shred the constitution and trash our entire democracy faster than you can blink. A president properly constrained by congress and the courts cannot. Nominating activist judges and justices can seem like a great idea in the short term, when the chips are falling in your preferred way, but in the general case it's a terrible idea. If you don't believe me, think about how happy people were when Obama started abusing executive orders, and how upset they were when Trump continued the trend ... although they're not the first presidents to do this, there are some lines that just shouldn't be crossed.

Re: Dear Amazon, We Picked Your New Headquarters for You

#106

Post by conorgil145 »

Osiris wrote: post #102

I live in the Denver metro area and I think this assessment is pretty spot-on. The only downside is rush hour traffic around downtown can add 15-20 minutes to the commute. However, these is a significant light rail presence. I would say quality of life is great for anyone that likes to do anything outdoors: fishing, skiing, mountain bikes, dirt bikes, etc. And there's a pretty strong community of software engineers h…

I lived in Denver for the past 2 years and agree with this assessment as well. The light rail has expanded lines in recent years to the airport and I have read that the plan is for that expansion to continue to eventually link Denver and Boulder. Amazon could build their huge complex anywhere in that area and workers could take public transportation to the office.

Re: Dear Amazon, We Picked Your New Headquarters for You

#107

Post by PorgSmorg »

jacques_chester wrote: post #60
PorgSmorg wrote: post #22

Absolutely love, despite the fact that it's mentioned numerous times that Amazon is searching all of NA for its second hq, that both Canada, and Mexico are completely ignored. This is despite the fact that Toronto is currently the continents fastest growing tech market due to a lot of factors that would be of incredible interest to a behemoth like Amazon. Feels a like a bit of a snub of the thumb by NYT on that one..…

As they explained in the article: > (With apologies to Canada, we’ve set aside Toronto and several other large cities because they’re not included in most of the data sets we’ve used to determine which places meet Amazon’s needs.)

>we’ve set aside Toronto and several other large cities because they’re not included in most of the data sets we’ve used

Not because the data isn't available, which it is (in abundance), but because it's not available in the data sets the chose to use. Not to put on a tinfoil hat or anything, but I have a very strong suspicion that they chose the data they did, and specifically mention leaving Toronto out, because they know that if they did otherwise, the data would show that Toronto is probably, if not the best, one of the top 3 options, and that likely wouldn't go over well with their core readership...

Re: Dear Amazon, We Picked Your New Headquarters for You

#108

Post by PorgSmorg »

School-Cotton wrote: post #73
jacques_chester wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As they explained in the article: > (With apologies to Canada, we’ve set aside Toronto and several other large cities because they’re not included in most of the data sets we’ve used to determine which places meet Amazon’s needs.)

If the NYT were intellectually honest, that would have been the point at which the editor said "okay, this is pointless, let's not do the article". Reporting results you know are flawed is not the correct response to discovering that it's impossible to get non-flawed results.

Exactly! As I mentioned in my reply to this comment, if they actually used the platitudes of data available on the subject - instead of clearly cherry - Toronto would easily be in the top 3, at the very least. The fact that they admit that the data they chose didn't mention Toronto doesn't help their case any.

Re: Dear Amazon, We Picked Your New Headquarters for You

#109

Post by KGIII »

School-Cotton wrote: post #61
Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #25

Why doesn't Amazon choose a city that almost meets their criteria and invest the wealth they generate there back into the city? Then we get more good cities instead of overinvesting into any single city.

Well Amazon isn't a charity; why would you expect them to care about anything other than their own criteria?

For the same reason my company used to, I'm retired, sponsor the local little league sports teams - even though the audiences were absolutely never going to be clients?

Sometimes, you do the right thing, just because it's the right thing to do. It wasn't an investment. It was just giving back to the community that housed us.

I guess you could argue that it improved employee morale? I don't think any of our employees even had kids on the team.

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