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

71–80 of 134 posts

Re: Amazon Has Swallowed Downtown Seattle

#71

Post by nickbauman »

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.

Building 20 on MIT, home of a string of critical innovations that came out of WWII, designed as a temporary building, is beguilingly crappy looking. In reality, Building 20 ended up being an ideal incubator: you could knock down or put up a wall anytime you wanted (nobody cares if everything is temporary), you could stick your head out of the corridor and as for some Barium or copper wires from the guys across the hall. The entrances encouraged smart people working on different project to bump into each other. Building 20's replacement, a piece of Magazine Architecture designed by I.M. Pei caused the same innovators to be blissfully unaware they were working at cross purposes because they never saw each other in the glistening gloom of interior of that slab.

http://mit2016.mit.edu/campus-cambridge/evolving-frontier/ma...

Re: Amazon Has Swallowed Downtown Seattle

#72

Post by jp57 »

"His survey of Amazon workers indicated they wanted cheap burgers and beer, which encouraged him to break from his traditional model and open the Brave Horse Tavern with a wide assortment of local brews, pub fare and long tables for family-style seating. "I'm sure glad we did that survey, because we might not have gone with this concept otherwise," Douglas said."

Cheap burgers and beer! A 1/4 lb cheeseburger + fries at Brave Horse is $13.50. Beer prices are not listed on the online menu. Presumably if you have to ask you can't afford it.

Re: Amazon Has Swallowed Downtown Seattle

#73

Post by Grishnakh »

techsupporter wrote: post #9
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 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.

>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.

I have to disagree: it depends on how you define "great". If you think Seattle in the winter is bad, try spending a winter in North Dakota or Minnesota. Or even the northeast, such as upstate NY.

I'll take dreary over -40 any day.

Re: Amazon Has Swallowed Downtown Seattle

#74

Post by DarkTree »

peterwwillis wrote: post #36

Nothing says connecting with nature more than being surrounded by concrete and steel.

Ok, well if you are in a city you are most likely already surrounded by concrete and steel. The idea of these structures is to displace some of that concrete with a green area. What's a better solution for you?

Re: Amazon Has Swallowed Downtown Seattle

#75

Post by nostrebored »

Grishnakh wrote: post #68
djsumdog wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've actually stopped shopping at Amazon. I'll pay and extra $10 for high ticket items to avoid that retailer. I'm sure many of the higher ups there don't have any ill-will, but they have unintentionally (or maybe intentionally; I dunno) become America's new Wal-Mart. That's a bad thing. Consumerist culture erodes long term sustainability. Laptop/cellphone replacement cycles need to be 10 years, not 2. Old electronic…

There are plenty of valid concerns and complaints about Amazon (I'll list some of mine below), but I don't see why you're blaming them for electronics recycling and lifetimes, or "Walmartification". Amazon has done a pretty good job of being an all-in-one place to shop online and having very low prices overall. For cellphone replacement cycles, I have absolutely no idea where you get the idea that Amazon has anything…

In response to 1)

The phenomenon you're viewing is usually the opposite of what you're suggesting. Amazon is trying to let you opportunistically buy things at a lower price by allowing prices to change frequently.

Part of the appeal of Amazon is being able to get something on your doorstep in two days at the click of a button -- if this isn't something that interests you then services like Ebay might be better -- but the sheer convenience of being able to not plan out bulk orders and having a near 100% reliability with no hassle is great.

When I was purchasing things on Ebay, shipping was frequently late, or entire items would be fraudulent, which I've heard has gotten better, but I'd prefer to offload that stress for a few dollars a year.

Re: Amazon Has Swallowed Downtown Seattle

#76

Post by nostrebored »

jp57 wrote: post #72

"His survey of Amazon workers indicated they wanted cheap burgers and beer, which encouraged him to break from his traditional model and open the Brave Horse Tavern with a wide assortment of local brews, pub fare and long tables for family-style seating. "I'm sure glad we did that survey, because we might not have gone with this concept otherwise," Douglas said." Cheap burgers and beer! A 1/4 lb cheeseburger + fries…

Compared to other Tom Douglas restaurants that's a bit cheaper than usual. Brave Horse is also worse. You can expect to pay $4-9 for a beer depending on what you're getting. Not exactly cheap, but not expensive either, especially for food around a business area.

Re: Amazon Has Swallowed Downtown Seattle

#77

Post by dluan »

troydavis wrote: post #53
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…

This, many times over. Yes, Seattle's South Lake Union now looks a lot like downtown San Jose. It's a completely different world from 10 years ago, though, and so much better. We missed out on a chance to have a giant urban park ("Seattle Commons": http://www.historylink.org/index.cfm?DisplayPage=output.cfm&... ), but credit to Paul Allen for executing an unbelievable plan B. [Bloomberg's article focuses more on Amaz…

I dunno, a giant green park within the city like SF's golden gate park or NYC's central park sounds really incredible.

Re: Amazon Has Swallowed Downtown Seattle

#78

Post by abecedarius »

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 visited PARC a couple times in the 90s. It was unusual in sitting atop a hill with a nice view and (iirc) no immediate neighbors. In the group I visited, researchers had their own offices, plus communal area. I vaguely remember some long corridors which might've increased the frequency of bumping into people.

(Having an office was not so freaking unusual 20 years ago.)

Re: Amazon Has Swallowed Downtown Seattle

#79

Post by seizethecheese »

audleman wrote: post #67

Interesting that this article has a clear bias that Amazon is making Seattle better, starting from > Inevitably, the company's growing presence is making it a scapegoat for common urban woes such as traffic jams and rising rents > New, luxury, one-bedroom apartments packed with amenities that appeal to young urban tech workers fetch upwards of $4,000 a month, putting them out of reach of the Starbucks barista. This m…

The article is called "Amazon Has Swallowed Downtown Seattle" do you really think there's a bias towards Amazon here? Your evidence is basically that the passages detailing the downsides of Amazon's expansion include silver linings.

I mean, the article could have been called "Amazon Turns Blighted Blocks Into Shining Urbanity."

Re: Amazon Has Swallowed Downtown Seattle

#80

Post by Johnny555 »

dgbmeow wrote: post #45
Johnny555 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I first saw it reported in SFGate, they've since retracted the story:

Editor's note: SFGATE has removed this story after reviewing Zynga's company valuation. The initial report was based on the enterprise value of Zynga compared to its cash reserves and property value. The latest company financial data as of May 6th, 2016, however, indicates an overall market valuation of $2.2 billion, with cash reserves of $987 million, putting its enterprise value at $1.21 billion, which is significantly more than the projected value of the company's real estate holdings at 8th and Townsend Streets in San Francisco.

Post reply on HN