I'd be willing to bet Bezos knew with 90% confidence where he'd want HQ2 a year ago and put on this prisoner's dilemma game amongst states to reap the most benefit possible before moving there.
Amazon HQ2: Advanced talks about second headquarters in Northern Virginia
311–320 of 412 posts
Re: Amazon HQ2: Advanced talks about second headquarters in Northern Virginia
#312Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
You need to apply the marginal tax rate for California workers, which would typically be ~41% (24% federal + 9.3% state + 7.65% Social Security + Medicare), to figure out how much more is needed on a pre-tax basis. You need an extra $2.5k/month ($30k/year) pre-tax to make up a $1.5k/month difference in rent, or $3.4k/month ($40k/year) pre-tax to make up a $2k/month difference in rent, which is more realistic if you w…
Re: Amazon HQ2: Advanced talks about second headquarters in Northern Virginia
#313Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
To be fair, pro sports are an obvious waste of valuable time and attention. Personally, I’d rather actually connect with someone (or not) than use such mindlessness as a social crutch. I don’t find the extremely common phenomenon of people who don’t like sports forcing themselves to pretend they do for career-related reasons to be particularly healthy, either.
Re: Amazon HQ2: Advanced talks about second headquarters in Northern Virginia
#314Earlier quoted context omitted.
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
Can you elaborate why the south has a long way to go before the average tech worker would want to live there?
Re: Amazon HQ2: Advanced talks about second headquarters in Northern Virginia
#315Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, but also for a long time (8+ years).
Oh, wow... when and why did that change?
Even San Francisco is to some degree a backwater office for engineers. Many projects have been “defragged” out of there, which is a term that means the project is given to some engineers in Mountain View and the original developers have a choice of finding a new project or moving there.
Re: Amazon HQ2: Advanced talks about second headquarters in Northern Virginia
#316Earlier quoted context omitted.
"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…
I’ve had no trouble finding fishing and hunting partners in SV. I’ve never personally felt anyone hugely opposed to hunting either, unless it some how conflicted with how they feed themselves. I do find it interesting thatduck hunting during season can be done just a maybe a mile from the Yahoo/Google Cloud buildings in north Sunnyvale. I have frequently seen full camo duck hunters carrying shotguns from the water tr…
Re: Amazon HQ2: Advanced talks about second headquarters in Northern Virginia
#317Earlier quoted context omitted.
If by FULL OF you mean less than a half a percent of the population, then maybe you are right. Seriously, this is offensive and inaccurate and wrong. It is just as bad as saying all Muslims are terrorists. Only people who have never been to the South, and let New York media and Hollywood caricatures inform them ACTUALLY believe this. It is terrible that CNN and MSNBC have followed the Fox News model of peddling fear,…
There’s a statue of a confederate soldier right in front of the Arkansas Capitol in Little Rock. If you think it’s still standing because of the efforts of only .5% of the citizens of that state, that suggests that those few citizens wield disproportionate power, although the more likely explanation is that your estimate is very low. In fact the state of Arkansas has a systemic racism problem that begins at the Capit…
Re: Amazon HQ2: Advanced talks about second headquarters in Northern Virginia
#318Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
Re: Amazon HQ2: Advanced talks about second headquarters in Northern Virginia
#319Earlier quoted context omitted.
To be fair, pro sports are an obvious waste of valuable time and attention. Personally, I’d rather actually connect with someone (or not) than use such mindlessness as a social crutch. I don’t find the extremely common phenomenon of people who don’t like sports forcing themselves to pretend they do for career-related reasons to be particularly healthy, either.
"To be fair, pro sports are an obvious waste of valuable time and attention." Ha ha ha - this is so funny. If this comment is not satire, then I think I just made my point! I hope that readers here realize how fairly uncommon (and elitist, i.e. everyone is obviously wasting their time) this kind of statement is. Surely, a lot of people don't like pro-sports, but most are not so antagonist about it. My gosh, if you wa…
Re: Amazon HQ2: Advanced talks about second headquarters in Northern Virginia
#320Just 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.
Yeah, congratulations to everyone who called it ages ago or pointed out that a CEO is going to put HQ2 near an already established home. Good work on 6+ months of press and making cities embarrass themselves for what seemed obvious from the start. https://www.townandcountrymag.com/leisure/real-estate/news/a...