Amazon HQ2: Advanced talks about second headquarters in Northern Virginia • Hacker News Board

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

#231

Post by ihuman » Sun, Nov 04, 2018, 2:02 AM UTC

clubm8 wrote: post #191

totablebanjo wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, Crystal City is pretty soulless, but a bunch of AMZN cash will make that millenial ready in no time. Also, some nyt writer that’d never been there called it the Brooklyn of DC which was hilarious.

>Also, some nyt writer that’d never been there called it the Brooklyn of DC which was hilarious. Meanwhile, Columbia Heights and Eastern Market will probably see their gentrification rapidly accelerate since they're a short Blue or Yellow line ride away on WMATA. H street will probably be safe since Washingtonians seems to have a pathological fear or switching lines during their commute and it's closest to a Red line…

> H street will probably be safe since Washingtonians seems to have a pathological fear or switching lines during their commute and it's closest to a Red line station (Union Station).

What if the gentrification spreads out from Union Market?

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

#232

Post by moonka » Sun, Nov 04, 2018, 2:06 AM UTC

bearcobra wrote: post #108

eli wrote: 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 from Washington State to Chicago.

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

#233

Post by dionidium » Sun, Nov 04, 2018, 2:11 AM UTC

fierro wrote: post #227

ethagknight wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you elaborate why the south has a long way to go before the average tech worker would want to live there?

I suppose the culture, politics, and traditions. Bay Area is generally quite liberal and tolerant, even if it is not the most diverse. Tech workers tend to be highly educated, well traveled, and open to new ideas. In contrast, I feel like the South is more xeno/homophobic, resistant to change, conservative etc. I have well educated family members in the South who are low-key racist. As a single data point, most young…

> most young people I know/work with in California who comes from the South does not want to return for these specific reasons

I lived in the City of St. Louis† for 13 years (and in the County for 6 before that) before moving to NYC. What I find is that young folks here who say they're from, say, Cleveland or St. Louis or similar cities in the South and whose experiences since moving have led them to believe that nothing they've found here exists back home, are often from the exurbs of those places and don't actually know what it's like to live in the center of a Midwestern or Southern city.††

I suspect they wouldn't much like the exurbs of New York, either.

We like to talk about red states vs. blue states, but the reality is that blue cities give way to purple and then red counties pretty quickly, even in liberal strongholds like New York.

Now, look, that's not to say that there are no differences in culture between, say, Atlanta and San Francisco. Obviously there are big ones! But when you dig into what people actually know about living in this or that part of the country, there's often not a lot there. Or, more charitably, individual experiences vary wildly (even within a single metro area).

† Not the South, but I think the point I'm trying to make here still holds.

†† It also seems worth noting that the experience of living in a big, new city in your early 20s (with all the new freedoms that come with that) as compared to wherever you happened to be when you were 14 is -- well, let's just say there are important perception-shifting factors.

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

#234

Post by sonnyblarney » Sun, Nov 04, 2018, 2:19 AM UTC

fierro wrote: post #227

ethagknight wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you elaborate why the south has a long way to go before the average tech worker would want to live there?

I suppose the culture, politics, and traditions. Bay Area is generally quite liberal and tolerant, even if it is not the most diverse. Tech workers tend to be highly educated, well traveled, and open to new ideas. In contrast, I feel like the South is more xeno/homophobic, resistant to change, conservative etc. I have well educated family members in the South who are low-key racist. As a single data point, most young…

"quite liberal and tolerant"

The Bay has a kind of a specific moral view, which is sometimes applied in a fairly authoritarian manner.

It's not very Liberal, and arguably not hugely tolerant either.

For example, all sorts of activities which are common and normal in the rest of America and the world are either frowned upon, or considered fully uncool in the Bay. Things like fishing. Hunting. Most sports. Talking about sports. Twangy accents. Country music. This is a long list.

For example, promoting vegetarianism, and frowning upon those who are not (or forbidding it) as is now the case at 'We Work' - isn't remotely liberal. (Can you imagine if Texas Oil required their employees to be meat eaters?)

Though most of that won't get you in trouble in the Bay, it puts you in the 'out club' in much the same way that being a little bit to colourful or effete might put you in the 'out club' in Texas.

FYI - Having lived both in Texas and The Bay, I'm confident in saying that in the vast, vast majority of Texas you have nothing to worry about if you don't fit the Texas profile though in some legal cases it might be tricky. You just won't be 'cool' in their sense. There are tons of out gay people in Texas, working in all sorts of industries. It's not as good as the Bay, surely, but it's not hell on earth.

When I was in Texas, the ladies in the office would not have it that a young single man would be alone for Thanksgiving. They put myself and the other ex-pats into homes for the holiday dinner.

In Cali, nobody really cared about Thanksgiving, and certainly did not think to care that some people might be alone during this festive time.

Both areas have a general view of how things ought to be, and that view is applied sometimes in an authoritarian manner, and neither of them are hugely tolerant or Liberal. They have 'their ways'.

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

#235

Post by solidsnack9000 » Sun, Nov 04, 2018, 2:38 AM UTC

sonnyblarney wrote: post #234

fierro wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose the culture, politics, and traditions. Bay Area is generally quite liberal and tolerant, even if it is not the most diverse. Tech workers tend to be highly educated, well traveled, and open to new ideas. In contrast, I feel like the South is more xeno/homophobic, resistant to change, conservative etc. I have well educated family members in the South who are low-key racist. As a single data point, most young…

"quite liberal and tolerant" The Bay has a kind of a specific moral view, which is sometimes applied in a fairly authoritarian manner. It's not very Liberal, and arguably not hugely tolerant either. For example, all sorts of activities which are common and normal in the rest of America and the world are either frowned upon, or considered fully uncool in the Bay. Things like fishing. Hunting. Most sports. Talking abou…

The Bay has a kind of a specific moral view, which is sometimes applied in a fairly authoritarian manner.
...

For example, all sorts of activities which are common and normal in the rest of America and the world are either frowned upon, or considered fully uncool in the Bay. Things like fishing. Hunting. Most sports. Talking about sports. Twangy accents. Country music. This is a long list.

So true.

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

#236

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Nov 04, 2018, 2:39 AM UTC

fierro wrote: post #229

mbrumlow wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Comp may be lower, but so is everything else. At the end of the day the guys in the south have more in their pocket than most Bay Area workers.

I hear this often. I would like to see an analysis, breakdown, or a real life comparison that suggests this, and for which tier of engineers this is true. I think two things; 1) non bay area tech workers severely underestimate the total comps that bay area workers are earning right now. 2) many renters in the Bay Area may actually have more in their pocket. If you are willing to rent a room (i.e not have a studio or…

[deleted]

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

#237

Post by JeremyNT » Sun, Nov 04, 2018, 2:45 AM UTC

dionidium wrote: post #233

fierro wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose the culture, politics, and traditions. Bay Area is generally quite liberal and tolerant, even if it is not the most diverse. Tech workers tend to be highly educated, well traveled, and open to new ideas. In contrast, I feel like the South is more xeno/homophobic, resistant to change, conservative etc. I have well educated family members in the South who are low-key racist. As a single data point, most young…

> most young people I know/work with in California who comes from the South does not want to return for these specific reasons I lived in the City of St. Louis† for 13 years (and in the County for 6 before that) before moving to NYC. What I find is that young folks here who say they're from, say, Cleveland or St. Louis or similar cities in the South and whose experiences since moving have led them to believe that not…

While this is true about the urban areas, the reality of life in a southern city is that the rural areas dominate the political environment and that hamstrings municipalities in various ways.

I live in and am from North Carolina and find it barely tolerable despite now living in the most "progressive" part of the state (Durham). Every attempt a city makes to move things forward is faced with obstruction and preemption by state representatives from rural areas who resent the progressive population centers. Investment in infrastructure is especially seldom possible, so we have little public transit, few sidewalks, and lots of traffic.

There are things to recommend the south, but it's sure to be a culture shock for anybody who moves from a major metro.

As an aside, I think the transit situation alone makes this sort of area a non starter for somebody like Amazon and indeed I'm glad they did not select this region. This is an area which grows through sprawl and additional roads. The extra traffic combined with an unwillingness to spend money on public transit would have caused major issues.

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

#238

Post by akhilcacharya » Sun, Nov 04, 2018, 2:45 AM UTC

noahl wrote: post #220

throwaway713 wrote: post #185

Aargh, I wish ONE tech company would put a HQ somewhere in the South. I currently live in the Bay Area working at a company I love, but I'll have to move back at some point (my wife wants to be closer to family). Crystal City, VA is still an 8 hour drive from the part of the South I'm from. Atlanta, Raleigh, and Nashville have so much potential... I think if just one of FANG put a HQ there (or even an office), the ot…

FYI - I used to work for Google in Seattle. Now I work for Microsoft in Raleigh, and I'm very happy. (Not technically FANG, but close.)

What's the TC difference?

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

#239

Post by mdorazio » Sun, Nov 04, 2018, 2:46 AM UTC

tifnufiene wrote: post #228

octonion wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The politics and culture (which are intertwined). Even if one area or city is more liberal, you're still dealing with a conservative, and possibly racist, sexist and homophobic, state government.

Having lived in Alabama, this would be rather offensive if it weren’t so endearing; Sounds like a child who’s so certain that the closet hides a monster, that they’re too scared to go learn that the noise is just an air vent.

Having lived in Georgia and Tennessee and still having family in the Carolinas, you're either a straight white man or living in denial.

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

#240

Post by tormeh » Sun, Nov 04, 2018, 2:51 AM UTC

JPKab wrote: post #189

erichurkman wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or: Amazon is going to heavily recruit former-DoD and government workers, luring them from low pay rates to high paying jobs. Reduce hiring friction: you don't need to convince them to uproot their families to move. They already live in the area, hell, their commute doesn't even change. Are you more likely to award contracts to AWS if you work at the DoD knowing that in two years you can move over and suddenly quintu…

Your statement is incredibly naive and ignorant. The Federal government pays incredibly well, but has few technology workers. They instead primarily act as managers for embedded contractors, who themselves are paid far above average for a given role. Additionally, AWS already has a DoD presence. Source: Lived in DC area for 8 years, worked on numerous federal contracts, witnessed highly overpaid, lazy shitbags who we…

Maybe the reinvention could get automated? Like, any agency is going to be shut down and rebuilt without previous staff every 30 (or whatever) years after it was originally formed? Hard to see how the transitions from old to new version would be done unless you kept outwardly backwards compatibility, though. At least it could shake things up internally.

Norway is actually doing this a rebuild of one agency. The Government's Road Agency has essentially been deigned ineffectual and FUBAR, so a new agency has been formed (New Roads) with responsibility for all new roads. The old agency has stopped replacing retirees (I think) and will eventually disappear. This is of course never said loudly in plain words. I just wish they would do the same for the railroads agency, which is a peerless shitshow.