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Amazon HQ2: Advanced talks about second headquarters in Northern Virginia

washingtonpost.com

121–130 of 412 posts

Re: Amazon HQ2: Advanced talks about second headquarters in Northern Virginia

#121
post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People keep saying this and I really don't follow. Why does the DoD care where the headquarters of the parent company of their contractor is located? Are they gonna pop in and ask questions about the Amazon retail site? Sure AWS needs a sales office in the region. And a datacenter. And a lobbying shop too. Pretty sure they got all that covered already.

I don't follow this logic either. Boeing has their HQ in Chicago, Raytheon in Massachusetts, UTC in Connecticut. The key thing these companies seem to do is spread their offices into relatively small states so when votes happen Senators have to go against large employees in their districts.

Boeing moved it's HQ to Chicago solely to cut down on the travel time to DC.

Re: Amazon HQ2: Advanced talks about second headquarters in Northern Virginia

#123
post #91
post #58

This is clearly a DoD play. The federal government as a whole is thirsty for cloud services and having a services provider like Amazon literally at their doorstep is going to win them a lot of work. If they do bring good experts to government work instead of what the typical government contractors in the area provide this will be a good thing for taxpayers.

People keep saying this and I really don't follow. Why does the DoD care where the headquarters of the parent company of their contractor is located? Are they gonna pop in and ask questions about the Amazon retail site? Sure AWS needs a sales office in the region. And a datacenter. And a lobbying shop too. Pretty sure they got all that covered already.

Not only that but AWS is already in northern VA. They operate gov-cloud out of there as well. It’s already established. This is Amazon not AWA

Re: Amazon HQ2: Advanced talks about second headquarters in Northern Virginia

#124
post #58

This is clearly a DoD play. The federal government as a whole is thirsty for cloud services and having a services provider like Amazon literally at their doorstep is going to win them a lot of work. If they do bring good experts to government work instead of what the typical government contractors in the area provide this will be a good thing for taxpayers.

Amazon is actually optimizing their HQ2 search to avoid being a benefit for taxpayers, like everything else they do.

Re: Amazon HQ2: Advanced talks about second headquarters in Northern Virginia

#125

Just a stones throw away from Washington DC, imagine that. I’m sure it’s no coincidence that Amazon is in talks to do billions of dollars worth of work with the DOD and that the location choice of the second headquarters might have a lot to do with that.

Crystal City really has so much going for it: 1. As you point out, right next to Pentagon and federal government. 2. Good transportation: right on the Metro and literally across the street from National Airport. 3. If you're going to have 2 headquarters, having them be on opposite coasts makes sense. 4. And I think another one that is pretty unique to Crystal City is that Amazon and their employees definitely want to…

It's debatable whether Metro will be able to handle another few tens of thousands of daily commuters going through the downtown core to get to Crystal City. The system's already crammed up at rush hour and nobody has the budget for capital improvements to start to put more tracks through Gallery Place, Metro Center, and L'Enfant Plaza.

It would be interesting though, if Amazon was prepared to invest in capital improvements for Metro...

Re: Amazon HQ2: Advanced talks about second headquarters in Northern Virginia

#126

I live in the DC area and this is entirely expected. Bezos owns the Washington Post and a very expensive DC home. Amazon's got data centers in Northern Virginia. We would've all been shocked if it went somewhere else.

But the entire point of the exercise wasn't to make Jeff happier and shorten his commute, it was to find a way to continue to grow without overloading Seattle any more than it already is.

HQ2 needs to be somewhere that people want to live, with the room for lots of them.

I really was hoping HQ2 would go somewhere more conservative politically. There's plenty of people who would work for Amazon but aren't really excited by Seattle (I'm not one of them, but I know some).

Detroit specifically would have been perfect- low cost of living, lots of space to grow, great airport, lots of robotic/mechanical industry leaking from the failing car industry, plus UofM nearby. I don't know how they didn't make the finalists.

Re: Amazon HQ2: Advanced talks about second headquarters in Northern Virginia

#127
post #58

This is clearly a DoD play. The federal government as a whole is thirsty for cloud services and having a services provider like Amazon literally at their doorstep is going to win them a lot of work. If they do bring good experts to government work instead of what the typical government contractors in the area provide this will be a good thing for taxpayers.

Amazon is actually optimizing their HQ2 search to avoid being a benefit for taxpayers, like everything else they do.

The whole point of announcing the search was to get the best from the taxpaxpayers. Quit being Amazons bagman.

Re: Amazon HQ2: Advanced talks about second headquarters in Northern Virginia

#129
post #91
post #58

This is clearly a DoD play. The federal government as a whole is thirsty for cloud services and having a services provider like Amazon literally at their doorstep is going to win them a lot of work. If they do bring good experts to government work instead of what the typical government contractors in the area provide this will be a good thing for taxpayers.

People keep saying this and I really don't follow. Why does the DoD care where the headquarters of the parent company of their contractor is located? Are they gonna pop in and ask questions about the Amazon retail site? Sure AWS needs a sales office in the region. And a datacenter. And a lobbying shop too. Pretty sure they got all that covered already.

They care because having lots of cleared consultants close to secure sites is a big help.

Re: Amazon HQ2: Advanced talks about second headquarters in Northern Virginia

#130
post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People keep saying this and I really don't follow. Why does the DoD care where the headquarters of the parent company of their contractor is located? Are they gonna pop in and ask questions about the Amazon retail site? Sure AWS needs a sales office in the region. And a datacenter. And a lobbying shop too. Pretty sure they got all that covered already.

I don't follow this logic either. Boeing has their HQ in Chicago, Raytheon in Massachusetts, UTC in Connecticut. The key thing these companies seem to do is spread their offices into relatively small states so when votes happen Senators have to go against large employees in their districts.

Boeing has a big presence near national airport and in the northern virginia suburbs.
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