Amazon HQ2 thread

[dc_denizen]

well, U of Washington vs Harvard, MIT, uMass, Yale a short distance away, BU, Tufts...pac northwest is a bit light on the academic complex.

[skyscraperpage17]

Originally Posted by IrishIllini

Dallas and Atlanta are more comparable to Chicago regarding COL than Charlotte or Nashville. I know rents are climbing quickly in Nashville, but I don't know if they're at Dallas/Atlanta/Chicago levels just yet. Regardless, 100k is good money in all five cities.

I'm not 100% sure about Charlotte, but I know Nashville is suffering from a severe housing shortage, especially when it comes to condos and apartments. Good luck finding a decent-sized apartment right now for less than $1,500 in a decent neighborhood.

Their downtown/midtown is on a tear with the skyscrapers going up everywhere, but almost none of them are residential developments. This is despite the fact that 100 people are currently moving there per day.

[Shawn]

Originally Posted by skyscraperpage17

The million-dollar question for a candidate like Boston is how much does a cheapstake CEO of a company that's barely making a profit value tax incentives and the cost of real estate.

That's just it though, and I don't get why people seem to overlook this: Amazon barely makes a profit by design. Instead of chasing short-term stock valuation and keeping institutional investors happy, Bezos chooses to plow tons of profit back into R&D. No one owns Amazon stock to live off the dividends.

Tax breaks are nice and all, but if there were one single big company for which tax breaks mean less, it would be Amazon. That R&D environment is a lot more important to their long term goals than the cost-savings / cost-mitigation side of the P&L.

[skyscraperpage17]

Originally Posted by Shawn

That's just it though, and I don't get why people seem to overlook this: Amazon barely makes a profit by design. Instead of chasing short-term stock valuation and keeping institutional investors happy, Bezos chooses to plow tons of profit back into R&D. No one owns Amazon stock to live off the dividends.

Tax breaks are nice and all, but if there were one single big company for which tax breaks mean less, it would be Amazon. That R&D environment is a lot more important to their long term goals than the cost-savings / cost-mitigation side of the P&L.

You may be right.

The thing is, if that were the case, why would Amazon turn this whole HQ2 ordeal into The Hunger Games and stress the fact that they're looking for someone to cut them a huge check? They could have just picked some place like Boston from the start and called it a day, saving themselves and everyone else a bunch of time and energy.

[Shawn]

Originally Posted by skyscraperpage17

You may be right.

The thing is, if that were the case, why would Amazon turn this whole HQ2 ordeal into The Hunger Games and stress the fact that they're looking for someone to cut them a huge check? They could have just picked some place like Boston from the start and called it a day, saving themselves and everyone else a bunch of time and energy.

Branding! PR! This whole exercise has been nothing but free press and love letters to Amazon from every prominent civic leader in the country. It's costing them nothing to do this, so why not? And it just might lead to an unexpected option, like Nashville or wherever. This way Amazon can see with relative certainty if a a dark horse net-net would be a better move than to a Boston. It very well could be, but they'd never know if they didn't put out this RFP.

[skyscraperpage17]

Originally Posted by Shawn

Branding! PR! This whole exercise has been nothing but free press and love letters to Amazon from every prominent civic leader in the country. It's costing them nothing to do this, so why not? And it just might lead to an unexpected option, like Nashville or wherever. This way Amazon can see with relative certainty if a a dark horse net-net would be a better move than to a Boston. It very well could be, but they'd never know if they didn't put out this RFP.

I don't think their brand is going to look any better once people find out the fix was in, if you're right.

[bnk]

Originally Posted by Centropolis

damn, chicago really is the dark horse.

Oh come on that's Paddy power from Ireland, their clueless. They list like 10 cites and Halifax is 100-1 and most of the cities that have a real chance at this are not even listed.

When other odds makers make lines closer to the decision I might pay some attention to them.

EDIT

lol the sight got updated with a lot more cities now. Chicago is on the board. Dublin Ireland is 50-1 shot, that's where the smart money is.

[UrbanRevival]

Originally Posted by Shawn

I still think Boston has a much stronger bid than most

...

I think people are also looking past the whole "while we are looking to the future, we also need this show up and running within the next two years" aspect of the RFP. Shovel-ready sites and supporting infrastructure needs to be there now.

You make strong points, and Boston is certainly a very formidable candidate "on paper," but I think the strong counter-argument is that, like Seattle, Boston has become a victim of its own success.

In terms of workforce availability (the Boston area is very much at "full employment" with labor shortages reported in high-demand fields like tech), housing (supply is severely constrained and prices becoming astronomical, particularly for single-family detached in the suburbs), and infrastructure (public transit and highways are at capacity), such a dramatic development would definitely be met with more "growing pains" in Boston than in other cities. Let's be honest, it's a region that nearly prides itself on keeping growth/development out.

That's the reasons the Suffolk Downs site was chosen--it's basically a "no man's land." It's transit and highway-accessible to be sure, but it's an extremely uninspiring location for a high-profile company like Amazon and far removed from the vibrant academic/business "core" found in downtown Boston/Cambridge that makes that city so appealing to begin with.

This is where I think Chicago and Philadelphia have the strongest cases for the most ideal sites. They're the "Goldilocks" cities in that even though they are both among the most dense/vibrant large cities in the US, they are pitching vast sites in the MIDDLE of their cores, with incredible transit connections, walkability, and are accessible to far more affordable housing options--both urban and suburban.

I think it ultimately comes down to whether Bezos has a strong preference for regional differentiation from the current Seattle operation. If so, an Eastern Seaboard beachhead makes the most sense, but if not, the competition is far more fierce.

[Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by Shawn

That's just it though, and I don't get why people seem to overlook this: Amazon barely makes a profit by design. Instead of chasing short-term stock valuation and keeping institutional investors happy, Bezos chooses to plow tons of profit back into R&D. No one owns Amazon stock to live off the dividends.

Tax breaks are nice and all, but if there were one single big company for which tax breaks mean less, it would be Amazon. That R&D environment is a lot more important to their long term goals than the cost-savings / cost-mitigation side of the P&L.

What "R&D"? He's building distribution centers and now bricks/mortar outlets and a new headquarters (and maybe, to a minor extent, smoothing the rough edges on the web site which after all this time is pretty smooth). You are right he's more interested in building market share and capital assets than in profitability, but it's a retail business in the end, not really tech.

[Shawn]

Originally Posted by Pedestrian

What "R&D"? He's building distribution centers and now bricks/mortar outlets and a new headquarters (and maybe, to a minor extent, smoothing the rough edges on the web site which after all this time is pretty smooth). You are right he's more interested in building market share and capital assets than in profitability, but it's a retail business in the end, not really tech.

Amazon's long term goal is to own shopping, period. To do this, Amazon needs consumers to adopt new ways of shopping, with new devices and platforms, as a means of collecting and building a comprehensive consumer behavior profile for every one of us.

This will be realized by introducing things like Smart Fridges, which can actively scan the contents inside it and automatically place orders with Amazon to refill and restock as items get low. Home lockers for FMCGs which will also auto restock. Other ways Alexa can be leveraged we haven't even thought about yet. This all still needs to be developed, and doesn't even take into account the logistics / supply chain optimization that can be realized via miniaturization.

Amazon needs as many people as possible engaging in commerce in the Amazon ecosystem via Amazon devices - that's their future. These devices and their supporting infrastructure will need hefty R&D.

[Pedestrian]

^^For some time now I've wondered how many employees Amazon actually has working on the techy stuff like that versus their total employee count. Surely the vast majority of their employees just stuff packages in "fulfillment centers". But it does seem likely that the most sensible reason to need a second HQ (aside from the possibility of an ultimate corporate brakup under anti-trust pressure) is simply that there are not enough people with skill sets to do the tech work left in Seattle and they need to tap another metro.

Besides package stuffers, it must take a vast army of plain old-fashioned administrators and eye-shade folks to run such a retail empire. But I'd love to see the various categories totaled up. This is something Amazon has in common with Google: An array of these hobbies instigated by the founders that don't make money and may never. Only time will tell if they are brilliant or a waste.

[James Bond Agent 007]

Originally Posted by Shawn

That's just it though, and I don't get why people seem to overlook this: Amazon barely makes a profit by design. Instead of chasing short-term stock valuation and keeping institutional investors happy, Bezos chooses to plow tons of profit back into R&D. No one owns Amazon stock to live off the dividends.

Tax breaks are nice and all, but if there were one single big company for which tax breaks mean less, it would be Amazon. That R&D environment is a lot more important to their long term goals than the cost-savings / cost-mitigation side of the P&L.

Is it actually "R&D" they're plowing all that money into, or is it distribution warehouses? I suspect it's mostly the latter.

[James Bond Agent 007]

Originally Posted by Pedestrian

But it does seem likely that the most sensible reason to need a second HQ (aside from the possibility of an ultimate corporate brakup under anti-trust pressure) is simply that there are not enough people with skill sets to do the tech work left in Seattle and they need to tap another metro.

It's pretty obvious to me Amazon decided to open a 2nd HQ because it was becoming clear their 1st HQ was starting to overwhelm Seattle, and they (correctly) reasoned that if they needed to double what they already had, they would overwhelm Seattle even more.

Now you'll surely get some Seattle forumer coming by and reading what I just wrote and tell you about how Seattle has all this wonderful capacity to add a zillion more employees and people, but that's a croc of you-know-what. There's a reason why home prices and rents in Seattle have been going through the roof, and you can be confident that would not be happening nearly so much if it weren't for Amazon.

And having said that, it makes me really think Amazon is going to select one of the bigger cities (Philly, Chicago, Dallas, Wash-Balt, etc) rather than KC or Cleveland. If 50K existing employees in a city the size of Seattle is overwhelming Seattle, imagine how much the same # would overwhelm a smaller city?

[The North One]

Originally Posted by Shawn

Tax breaks are nice and all, but if there were one single big company for which tax breaks mean less, it would be Amazon. That R&D environment is a lot more important to their long term goals than the cost-savings / cost-mitigation side of the P&L.

So you're saying Christie just made a complete fool of New Jersey for no reason... again.

[bigstick]

Originally Posted by James Bond Agent 007

It's pretty obvious to me Amazon decided to open a 2nd HQ because it was becoming clear their 1st HQ was starting to overwhelm Seattle, and they (correctly) reasoned that if they needed to double what they already had, they would overwhelm Seattle even more.

Now you'll surely get some Seattle forumer coming by and reading what I just wrote and tell you about how Seattle has all this wonderful capacity to add a zillion more employees and people, but that's a croc of you-know-what. There's a reason why home prices and rents in Seattle have been going through the roof, and you can be confident that would not be happening nearly so much if it weren't for Amazon.

And having said that, it makes me really think Amazon is going to select one of the bigger cities (Philly, Chicago, Dallas, Wash-Balt, etc) rather than KC or Cleveland. If 50K existing employees in a city the size of Seattle is overwhelming Seattle, imagine how much the same # would overwhelm a smaller city?

Funny how you leave Atlanta out when it is clearly one of the top contenders...SMH..

[LouisVanDerWright]

Not crossing my fingers for this to end up in Chicago but it would be nice. Amazon is stupid if they don't set up shop in some affordable post industrial city with huge bones for them to grow on like Philly, Chicago, or maybe one of the smaller rust belt cities. There aren't a lot of places in the country that aren't already in Seattle's predicament or will end up in the same boat rapidly if Amazon showed up. They need to locate somewhere with some leg room but also all the amenities they need.

Originally Posted by Pedestrian

Only if you count the 5 biggest as the only "big cities" in the country. That article says its the best educated (by perccentage with bachelor's degrees) of the 5 biggest. Cities like San Francisco, San Jose and Seattle aren't counted.

Leaving aside even medium sized college town/cities, I'd certainly count Washington, Boston and San Francisco as "big cities":


https://www.cnbc.com/2017/07/27/the-top-10-most-and-least-educated-cities-in-the-u-s.html

Oops! Where's Chicago?

Lol this is one of the silliest responses I've read in a long time on these boards. Because Amazon wouldn't eat the entire college educated population of Madison whole and Provo is a reasonable place to compare to Chicago or any city on Earth with more than 1 million residents.

We all know where Amazon is going to end up:



PS, Tallahassee? Really?

[cabasse]

Originally Posted by bigstick

Funny how you leave Atlanta out when it is clearly one of the top contenders...SMH..

gurl chill

[The North One]

Provo has a nice mountain backdrop, too bad their lake is disgusting.

[bnk]

https://thenextweb.com/opinion/2017/10/25/five-reasons-amazon-should-build-hq2-in-puerto-rico/

I didn't even know Puerto Rico even put in a bid. I like that they did though


It would be as transforming in the style of Detroit. But being on an Island I don't understand how it could even be in contention, or how it could recruit 50 K top employees anytime soon.

If moved there it would be for pure charity. I mean the amount of groveling is getting almost out of hand by now... No its pretty much over the top and out of hand at this point.

I do not think at this point Amazon is a charity company.



5 reasons Amazon should build HQ2 in Puerto Rico

by Tristan Greene — 5 hours ago in Opinion

One: Location, location, location
Before it was destroyed by a hurricane, the island of Puerto Rico was a beautiful paradise, and the proposed location, formerly Roosevelt Roads Naval Base, is the origin of some of the most well-traveled sea-stories in the US Navy’s history.


Two: Do things your own way
Puerto Rico needs infrastructure; it’s in trouble and trying to piece things back together in any way it can. People are dead because there’s no power and the living aren’t getting much help.

Three: It’s an island, go bananas with your drones
If delivery by drones is the future, you could do worse than to have the entire island as a testing ground. Tucson tried to pitch you a 20 foot cactus, so I know you’re used to strange requests Mr. Bezos. I may not speak for Puerto Rico in any way, shape, or form, but at least consider asking the mayor if turning the island into a drone testing ground is on the table. I bet it is.


Four: Image is everything
Imagine the headlines Jeff! “Amazon saves millions, creates jobs, and has coolest CEO ever” or “Amazon makes best move ever building HQ2 in Puerto Rico, tech journalist weeps with joy” or something else even better, we should talk about it.

Five: Prove everyone wrong.
Nobody believes that a multi-billion dollar tech company would possibly risk losing hundreds of millions upfront by doing business in Puerto Rico right now.
Other media outlets believe the logistics of traveling and shipping are too much to overcome even if it did have infrastructure in place. It feels like they’re right, when considering the ease of handling things in the continental United States and how that aligns with business stuff like “bottom lines” and “cost effectiveness.”
And if I’m being honest, I believe them. Amazon will probably pick Chicago — in my opinion — because it’s the most “ready” for HQ2


...








I think statehood would be needed to be addressed before such a bailout from Amazon could be enacted.


But Dublin Ireland, via Patty Power, seems to want you to bet on Dublin being the next HQ2 even though they made no bid....



This whole thing is mindboggling to say the least.

[wwmiv]

Originally Posted by Sun Belt

Traffic may be bad today, but the future is totally unknown. We have drones. We have rideshare. If Austin were to land something like HQ2, would that not be a catalyst for some sort of mass transit system to break ground?

UT, Texas State, Southwestern, St. Edwards, as well as nearby A&M, Baylor, St. Mary's, and UTSA all produce either good or reasonable students in tech who generally stay in or move to Austin. Austin also attracts lots of people from Cali universities, Rice/UH, and the schools in DFW.