Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Amazon Has Swallowed Downtown Seattle

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 134 posts

Re: Amazon Has Swallowed Downtown Seattle

#41

Post by ghaff »

techsupporter wrote: post #39
erickhill wrote: post #32

To be honest, the section of the city Amazon has "swallowed" was grass and weed filled parking lots 5 years ago as well as broken down buildings. While the construction has been a drag for drivers in that area, the city looks and feels so much better, IMO, due to their investments. Now, has Amazon invested enough in infrastructure to help the swelling population they are partly to blame for increasing (not to mention…

That's how I feel about Amazon, too. It cracks me up some of the things the author laments losing. No broken bottles? No cigarette trash? I like having at least one area of the city somewhat clean.

You hear this sort of thing about the "Disney-fication" of Times Square in NYC all the time. Not that I'm a fan of Times Square for a variety of reasons but anyone who looks nostalgically back to the 42nd Street on 1985 has some seriously rose-colored glasses.

Re: Amazon Has Swallowed Downtown Seattle

#42

Post by aab0 »

adventured wrote: post #18
sbierwagen wrote: post #5

In a story on Arthur Sulzberger, Mark Bowden wrote in Vanity Fair, "Whether owing to hubris or sheer distraction, the erection of a new headquarters often seems to spell trouble for corporations." http://www.businessinsider.com/poorly-timed-headquarters-200... Anecdotal experience tends to lead many people in the technology industry to suggest that growth (or newly “sexy”) companies rapidly head into difficulties at…

The problem with that correlation in this case, is that in all of the best examples of that phenomenon, the companies were no longer being run by their founders. I'd be willing to bet that's not a trivial factor in the overall situation.

And also regression to the mean (a constant factor in any of these attempts to predict the fall of a big company). When will a company want to, or need to, build a big headquarters? When things have been going very well and the sky seems like the limit.

Re: Amazon Has Swallowed Downtown Seattle

#43

Post by SaberTail »

johan_larson wrote: post #27

Do you need specially-designed places to be creative? Off-hand, the places that were really wildly creative during the 20th century were pretty standard offices and workshops, weren't they? Think of Xerox PARC, Bell Labs, and Bletchley Park. They all accomplished wild things. But the buildings were unremarkable.

I've read that the Bell Labs offices were designed in order to promote collaboration. It was laid out such that there'd be long hallways between the offices and things like restrooms and stairs, so that there'd be greater chances of colleagues bumping into each other and talking about work.

I don't have a copy of The Idea Factory[1], where I recall reading this handy, but that's my best recollection.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Idea-Factory-Great-American-Innovatio...

Re: Amazon Has Swallowed Downtown Seattle

#44

Post by WalterBright »

yunong wrote: post #2

"one of the best recruiting tools Amazon has is if people come interview on a nice day, and people are sitting outside having lunch from a food truck." Have they been to Seattle during the months of November to June?

I've lived here for most of my life and I love the weather. Never too hot, never too cold, for just one aspect.

Re: Amazon Has Swallowed Downtown Seattle

#45

Post by dgbmeow »

Johnny555 wrote: post #6
sbierwagen wrote: post #5

In a story on Arthur Sulzberger, Mark Bowden wrote in Vanity Fair, "Whether owing to hubris or sheer distraction, the erection of a new headquarters often seems to spell trouble for corporations." http://www.businessinsider.com/poorly-timed-headquarters-200... Anecdotal experience tends to lead many people in the technology industry to suggest that growth (or newly “sexy”) companies rapidly head into difficulties at…

For example, Zynga's office building is worth more than the entire company: https://medium.com/halting-problem/zyngas-offices-now-worth-...

This is a satirical blog. Please take a second to look at the rest of its content.

Re: Amazon Has Swallowed Downtown Seattle

#46

Post by WorldMaker »

bko wrote: post #3

> Amazon's is the most ambitious gambit of them all. When its spheres and three surrounding towers are completed, the company will have 10 million square feet of office space in Seattle, more than 15 percent of the city's inventory, on a campus that occupies more than 10 square blocks. 15% of a city's commercial inventory seems like a lot. Any comparable levels to companies in other cities? Is this typical for one co…

Humana has more than 15% of the commercial inventory in downtown Louisville, KY, and maybe even still more than 15% of the entire Louisville metro area as a whole. I don't recall the exact numbers and searches aren't turning them up right now.

I'm not sure it's that unusual, statistically. If anything, one large company per city is maybe closer to the historic norm (especially if you count old fashioned company towns and more modern might as well be company campus towns like Redmond, WA) and something of the median or mode of city existence, at least in the US.

Re: Amazon Has Swallowed Downtown Seattle

#47

Post by gohrt »

jasonpeacock wrote: post #17
sbierwagen wrote: post #5

In a story on Arthur Sulzberger, Mark Bowden wrote in Vanity Fair, "Whether owing to hubris or sheer distraction, the erection of a new headquarters often seems to spell trouble for corporations." http://www.businessinsider.com/poorly-timed-headquarters-200... Anecdotal experience tends to lead many people in the technology industry to suggest that growth (or newly “sexy”) companies rapidly head into difficulties at…

Depending on how you count, Amazon has made ~5 campus moves in the last 20yrs. So far, so good...

Amazon didn't build headquarters before the SLU move. Before that they rented pre-existing structures. That difference is the point of the predictive signal.

Re: Amazon Has Swallowed Downtown Seattle

#48

Post by gohrt »

SaberTail wrote: post #43
johan_larson wrote: post #27

Do you need specially-designed places to be creative? Off-hand, the places that were really wildly creative during the 20th century were pretty standard offices and workshops, weren't they? Think of Xerox PARC, Bell Labs, and Bletchley Park. They all accomplished wild things. But the buildings were unremarkable.

I've read that the Bell Labs offices were designed in order to promote collaboration. It was laid out such that there'd be long hallways between the offices and things like restrooms and stairs, so that there'd be greater chances of colleagues bumping into each other and talking about work. I don't have a copy of The Idea Factory[1], where I recall reading this handy, but that's my best recollection. [1] https://www.…

And now we put everyone in open-floorplan barns to "promote colllaboration", with nowhere for people to go back and work at when they are done collaborating.

"Hallway conversations" have become "constant conversations"

Re: Amazon Has Swallowed Downtown Seattle

#49

Post by gohrt »

L_Rahman wrote: post #31
bko wrote: post #3

> Amazon's is the most ambitious gambit of them all. When its spheres and three surrounding towers are completed, the company will have 10 million square feet of office space in Seattle, more than 15 percent of the city's inventory, on a campus that occupies more than 10 square blocks. 15% of a city's commercial inventory seems like a lot. Any comparable levels to companies in other cities? Is this typical for one co…

The real information here is that 10 square blocks is enough to be 15 percent of the city's inventory. Seattle is tiny. So is SF. I'm amused by how small the core of all of the West coast cities seem to be when people try to convince me that there's dense urban living to be found outside of the East Coast.

Density and size are different dimensions.

Re: Amazon Has Swallowed Downtown Seattle

#50

Post by cafard »

edwhitesell wrote: post #28
techsupporter wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have (I live in Seattle, but don't work for Amazon) and the weather is pretty great roughly nine months out of the year. Late November to February are dreary but spring, summer, and most of fall make up for it. Sorry for leaking the secret, fellow Seattleites.

We lived in Bellevue for about 18 months and the weather was beautiful. Almost everyone we met said the whole "it always rains" thing is just something they tell people so they'll stay away.

I moved from a pretty dry state to the Potomac valley, and noticed that if I happened to mention Seattle people would say, But it rains there all the time. The ground that we were standing on might be soft from recent storms, mushrooms might be sprouting around our feet, but Hey it rains in Seattle.
Post reply on HN