261–270 of 412 posts
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I feel like the South has a long way to come before the average tech worker would want to live and work there. You couldn't pay me enough (literally since comp is so low out there, but also kind of metaphorically as well) to go work and live in any Southern state. Maybe you need a critical mass? - fellow Bay Area tech worker
Do you not realize that this is a bigoted statement?
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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'm not convinced this is really true in a lot of the "actually desirable to young tech people" areas of southern cities. I just checked rent prices in Franklin, TN for a contract project opportunity and found newish apartments are going for $1300+. Trendy parts of Raleigh are renting apartments for $1100+. Meanwhile, it's very difficult to live in the South without a car, and salaries are far lower than $24k under a…
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…
I don't always feel good about being the person pointing out the obvious, but perhaps the American south would have more such companies if it wasn't full of white separatists yearning for a rematch of the Civil War. People with an abundance of intelligence aren't attracted to states where the capitols are adorned with monuments to confederate generals and notorious white supremacists.
I mean, that's SUCH a generalization.
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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.
North Carolina?
2. The politics are still overtly racist: https://twitter.com/haroldpollack/status/1051657219899617280
3. The HB2 saga demonstrates how strong the Christian right is in the state. As does a candidate in a race too close to call insisting there will never be peace in Jerusalem until Jews acknowledge the divinity of Christ: https://forward.com/fast-forward/413488/gop-candidate-no-pea...
4. gun laws are relatively permissive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_laws_in_North_Carolina
5. MJ legalization is behind west coast states: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannabis_in_North_Carolina
1. There isn't sufficient space for a large campus. 2. DCA is a small airport.
Loudoun county has a higher chance than Crystal City based on the above parameters. Of course, the parameters could have been wrong. And I would much prefer Crystal City over Loudoun, too.
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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.
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Denver still makes the most sense to me. Single hop to Beijing & Shanghai Why would Amazon need a single (longer) hop to Asia, when it can already get there from Seattle? Going to DC/VA gives it better access to EMEA.
Because they explicitly don't want the HQs to specialize. And the thought is that at some point there's going to be two Internets, US and China. There's a pretty good chance that China is going to run Africa's Internet access. Europe has been a also ran against the US as far as the Internet is concerned, and the Middle East is projected to lose their economic momentum in the coming decades. https://nypost.com/2018/09…
The main advantage you get from geographical proximity is the fact that you can build closer networking opportunities to other businesses and entities in the area. (A secondary advantage is timezone alignment). Denver's not exactly close to any other major cities; by contrast, it's only a half day of travel between Chicago and the Northeast, and it's even possible to commute between NYC and Boston or DC for a day.
For siting a second major HQ, Denver is just too close to Seattle. You don't get the benefits of having people 3 hours ahead (and more aligned with Europe, for example). The marginal costs of extra travel time to Asia from the east coast versus the west coast just aren't going to be a major factor in determining whether or not travel can happen--your employees have already lost a day or two of travel. Move the site to the east coast, and now you can open up more travel opportunities because it's only a half-day (or less!) of travel.
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I don't always feel good about being the person pointing out the obvious, but perhaps the American south would have more such companies if it wasn't full of white separatists yearning for a rematch of the Civil War. People with an abundance of intelligence aren't attracted to states where the capitols are adorned with monuments to confederate generals and notorious white supremacists.
Requires citation. I mean, that's SUCH a generalization.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/22/us/confederate-statues-no...
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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…
When people are talking about this, they're usually talking about local government positions like teachers, librarians, and social workers. Or the post office. Very rarely are people talking about contractors or white collar bureaucrats.
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How could the federal government possibly pay "incredibly well" in the context of software? ~185k is the current cap on salaries. That's not the bottom or the median, it's the top, a place most people will not reach in their whole careers, and there are rigid rules around how to get there. As far as I know, pretty much everyone is on something equivalent to the GS? Even contractors are on a proxy version of it, based…
You are vastly, vastly discounting the value of the benefits. THE most secure pension in the world (you cannot buy one that good on the private market), incredible health benefits, incredible vacation policies, lax work policies for most jobs, great holiday schedule, Gov will pay to train you, you effectively cannot get laid off (try downloading porn at most corporations for hours and hours and see what happens), etc…