Amazon HQ2 bid

[skyscraperpage17]

The Gulch developmemt is getting more national attention, now being featured in a CBS News article...

Amazon's second HQ: Heading for Atlanta?

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/is-amazon-second-hq-heading-for-atlanta/

[Mentallect]

Originally Posted by skyscraperpage17

This discussion has gotten way off topic, having gone from silly Chicago trolling to ignorant racist stereotyping. Hopefully, it'll be cleaned up soon enough.

Getting back to Amazon HQ2, below is yet another analysis show how the finalist stack up. It's mostly based on freight traffic, but (with exception to LA) the cities that made the top 5 seem reasonable overall...

1. Northern VA
2. Atlanta
3. Chicago
4. Austin
5. Los Angeles

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/market-insight/wheres-bezos-amazon-hq2

Austin is a no go. Raleigh is more likely. LA is deader than NYC.

[Mentallect]

Originally Posted by Atlanta3000

I can appreciate not sharing your personal info. I tend to be an open book, but that is probably a function of my genetic trailer trash genes.

If what you are saying is true and I am totally open to your thesis, there should be a high unemployment rate for African Americans with STEM degrees....correct? I have a Big Data background - so info is my specialty and I can't find one article to validate there is a high unemployment rate with African Americans with STEM degrees.

Can you explain why I can not find any data to validate this?

Continuing with a demographics debate is not useful.

[skyscraperpage17]

There's been some complaints about the state of Georgia putting so much effort into luring Amazon to Atlanta while ignoring the rural areas.

What they fail to understand is that companies, for the most, want to be in regions where their employees have access to direct flights all across the globe, world class cultural institution to peruse in their free time and the road/utility/transit infrastructure to handle the growth they would bring with them.

That said, a news article out of Columbus, GA puts things into perspective and debunks the myth in the first paragraph...

Economic development is not just about Atlanta

https://www.ledger-enquirer.com/opinion/article217071350.html

[BlueSangha]

Originally Posted by skyscraperpage17

The Gulch developmemt is getting more national attention, now being featured in a CBS News article...

Amazon's second HQ: Heading for Atlanta?

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/is-amazon-second-hq-heading-for-atlanta/

Being featured, but says nothing.

[Mentallect]

Originally Posted by skyscraperpage17

There's been some complaints about the state of Georgia putting so much effort into luring Amazon to Atlanta while ignoring the rural areas.

What they fail to understand is that companies, for the most, want to be in regions where their employees have access to direct flights all across the globe, world class cultural institution to peruse in their free time and the road/utility/transit infrastructure to handle the growth they would bring with them.

That said, a news article out of Columbus, GA puts things into perspective and debunks the myth in the first paragraph...

Economic development is not just about Atlanta

https://www.ledger-enquirer.com/opinion/article217071350.html

Urban centers carry states, not rural areas. Rural areas create conditions for their own demise: Cutting education leading to low productive adults, cutting taxes for the wealthy creating poor infrastructure funding, passing biblically oriented culture war laws driving away educated job creators, pursuing old obsolete industries like coal and manufacturing instead of tech, service, and other future growth sectors, etc. Corporations desire wealth creation above all else Rural areas aren't situated to assist, they hinder job creation. Liberal and left leaning cities are GDP juggernaults. Rural areas have most of America's population, yet create less than 25% of America's wealth.

[skyscraperpage17]

Take about a low blow, lol...

"Would it be something like, oh, I don't know, holding a 28-3 lead with six minutes left in the third quarter of the Super Bowl and then losing?"

https://www.nola.com/opinions/index.ssf/2018/08/atlanta_makes_3rd-quarter_push.html

[skyscraperpage17]

Originally Posted by BlueSangha

Being featured, but says nothing.

As the saying goes, all publicuty is good publicity, just as long as our name relative to Amazon HQ2 makes the headlines and not for something negative.

[Mentallect]

Bezos's own newspaper just posted an interesting article, but I think it is also a red herring.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/...irect=on&utm_term=.24c57b4c23ff#comments

[wonshirim]

Okay, I would usually pass on racist nonsense but I'll bite. I'm an Asian male EE PhD from a top program and I worked at one of the FANG companies in an engineering role and interviewed at many places.

Let's just say one would be crazy to assume Atlanta's tech talent pool is subpar. Of course Atlanta isn't Seattle or the Bay Area. But we have Georgia Tech churning out talent in both hardware and software ends. The only problem is that Atlanta lacks an anchor tech employer HQ, which leads to us bleeding freshly minted tech talent to other cities.

Georgia Tech's presence is extremely important and you will understand if you have worked in the tech industry. Tech talent vetting isn't a regular job interview--you need to fly kids in from elsewhere and challenge their thinking at each stage to really see what they're made of. And "school prestige" is not as critical as business/law schools in tech because its all about the projects you worked on and problems you solved--which might be correlated but not the causally linked to--say an MIT degree over a flagship state school degree. It's why tech companies often overlook GPA and instead focus on cores like data structures, algorithms, operating systems, and capstone project courses.

Tech companies want to vet kids who can solve tech problems QUICKLY and the best way to do it is to have those kids available to come over when an interesting project appears. It's why UW in Seattle poaches so many top CS faculty and Microsoft/Amazon fund their research and vice versa. Unlike say Wall Street, who care about client presentability, prestigious image and possibly even race or sex, tech companies don't and can't afford to care because the competition is extremely cutthroat and industry standards can change over weeks.

Tech companies don't care whether you're an MIT 4.9/5.0 grad or whether you dropped out from the Colorado School of Mines (where one of my BEST engineer hire briefly attended). They don't care whether you're heterosexual, transexual, homosexual. They don't care whether you're a 5th generation citizen or you need an H1B visa. They want the job done. That's why the racial engineering BS is not true.

Of course I'm speaking generally about big companies like Amazon so you might find corner case exceptions, but tech companies in general do not discriminate based on race. Well I'll say they're the LEAST likely of industries that might consider race as a factor in recruiting.

[Atlanta3000]

Originally Posted by wonshirim

Okay, I would usually pass on racist nonsense but I'll bite. I'm an Asian male EE PhD from a top program and I worked at one of the FANG companies in an engineering role and interviewed at many places.

Let's just say one would be crazy to assume Atlanta's tech talent pool is subpar. Of course Atlanta isn't Seattle or the Bay Area. But we have Georgia Tech churning out talent in both hardware and software ends. The only problem is that Atlanta lacks an anchor tech employer HQ, which leads to us bleeding freshly minted tech talent to other cities.

Georgia Tech's presence is extremely important and you will understand if you have worked in the tech industry. Tech talent vetting isn't a regular job interview--you need to fly kids in from elsewhere and challenge their thinking at each stage to really see what they're made of. And "school prestige" is not as critical as business/law schools in tech because its all about the projects you worked on and problems you solved--which might be correlated but not the causally linked to--say an MIT degree over a flagship state school degree. It's why tech companies often overlook GPA and instead focus on cores like data structures, algorithms, operating systems, and capstone project courses.

Tech companies want to vet kids who can solve tech problems QUICKLY and the best way to do it is to have those kids available to come over when an interesting project appears. It's why UW in Seattle poaches so many top CS faculty and Microsoft/Amazon fund their research and vice versa. Unlike say Wall Street, who care about client presentability, prestigious image and possibly even race or sex, tech companies don't and can't afford to care because the competition is extremely cutthroat and industry standards can change over weeks.

Tech companies don't care whether you're an MIT 4.9/5.0 grad or whether you dropped out from the Colorado School of Mines (where one of my BEST engineer hire briefly attended). They don't care whether you're heterosexual, transexual, homosexual. They don't care whether you're a 5th generation citizen or you need an H1B visa. They want the job done. That's why the racial engineering BS is not true.

Of course I'm speaking generally about big companies like Amazon so you might find corner case exceptions, but tech companies in general do not discriminate based on race. Well I'll say they're the LEAST likely of industries that might consider race as a factor in recruiting.

Is there really a Colorado School of Mines? Just kidding.

Dude - what you wrote is brilliant and I just wish we had a way to have it pinned to the top of each page. Please stay engaged in the conversation going forward!

[Mentallect]

Originally Posted by wonshirim

Okay, I would usually pass on racist nonsense but I'll bite. I'm an Asian male EE PhD from a top program and I worked at one of the FANG companies in an engineering role and interviewed at many places.

Let's just say one would be crazy to assume Atlanta's tech talent pool is subpar. Of course Atlanta isn't Seattle or the Bay Area. But we have Georgia Tech churning out talent in both hardware and software ends. The only problem is that Atlanta lacks an anchor tech employer HQ, which leads to us bleeding freshly minted tech talent to other cities.

Georgia Tech's presence is extremely important and you will understand if you have worked in the tech industry. Tech talent vetting isn't a regular job interview--you need to fly kids in from elsewhere and challenge their thinking at each stage to really see what they're made of. And "school prestige" is not as critical as business/law schools in tech because its all about the projects you worked on and problems you solved--which might be correlated but not the causally linked to--say an MIT degree over a flagship state school degree. It's why tech companies often overlook GPA and instead focus on cores like data structures, algorithms, operating systems, and capstone project courses.

Tech companies want to vet kids who can solve tech problems QUICKLY and the best way to do it is to have those kids available to come over when an interesting project appears. It's why UW in Seattle poaches so many top CS faculty and Microsoft/Amazon fund their research and vice versa. Unlike say Wall Street, who care about client presentability, prestigious image and possibly even race or sex, tech companies don't and can't afford to care because the competition is extremely cutthroat and industry standards can change over weeks.

Tech companies don't care whether you're an MIT 4.9/5.0 grad or whether you dropped out from the Colorado School of Mines (where one of my BEST engineer hire briefly attended). They don't care whether you're heterosexual, transexual, homosexual. They don't care whether you're a 5th generation citizen or you need an H1B visa. They want the job done. That's why the racial engineering BS is not true.

Of course I'm speaking generally about big companies like Amazon so you might find corner case exceptions, but tech companies in general do not discriminate based on race. Well I'll say they're the LEAST likely of industries that might consider race as a factor in recruiting.

As someone who has been at the top of industry in the private sector, I have more practical knowledge than you who is all theory. You read books. I am in the real world. and real data state otherwise as well as observational facts.

[908kiddo]

Originally Posted by Mentallect

I think its safe to say you have no practical knowledge of Silicon Valley's hiring practices and tech company demographics in general. They lack racial and gender diversity. Statistics don't lie. Intentional cultural engineering out non-white and non-Asian male minorities. This practice is intentional, not due to hiring the most qualified, but due to hiring official's bringing in talent they are comfortable being around. Tech companies locate in areas of high Caucasian density almost exclusively. ATL is majority African American. This non-politically correct statement is true, and certainly works against ATL with HQ2.

I said your scope is limited because if all you view Atlanta as is an "African American city" then there's not much more that need's to be discussed. But I would recommend taking the shades off and taking a look at the tech-related companies headquartered in Atlanta and those that recently moved here. Then I would read through some of the articles deeming Atlanta the Silicon Valley of the South. Or read about the tech/data companies rushing here in droves. Like I said, take the shades off.

I won't feed you any further, but oh will it burn when Atlanta is selected

[wonshirim]

Originally Posted by Mentallect

As someone who has been at the top of industry in the private sector, I have more practical knowledge than you who is all theory. You read books. I am in the real world. and real data state otherwise as well as observational facts.

Oh really? How many engineers have you recruited? How do you conduct algo/DS/DB interviews?

[skyscraperpage17]

Ok, so which one of you guys posted this on Reddit?

https://www.reddit.com/r/Atlanta/comments/99de00/my_thoughts_on_the_gulch_redevelopment_and_amazon/

[AlwaysMoving]

If Amazon is announcing in the next few weeks then CIM and the COA would wait until the deal was in hand. They wouldn't want to risk spooking Amazon. It's far more likely that CIM is using the Amazon HQ2 excitement to push the incentives through.

[Triptychtwo]

Originally Posted by AlwaysMoving

They wouldn't want to risk spooking Amazon.

So Amazon is going to say, after a year of site evaluations, crunching the numbers, discussing incentives and long term company strategy, oh no, Atlanta seems to have jumped the gun here with public discussions of a redevelopment property in downtown, we better go elsewhere? FFS, Amazon doesn't get spooked like a small puppy during a thunderstorm. I'm tired of all these people thinking a couple mansions here, maybe some defense contracts here are going to determine where AMZN lands, it's going to come down to the $$ and the continued growth of the company and where strategically that makes the most sense.

[skyscraperpage17]

Originally Posted by AlwaysMoving

It's far more likely that CIM is using the Amazon HQ2 excitement to push the incentives through.

I wouldn't go as far as to say "far more likely," but that's definitely a possibility.

[908kiddo]

Originally Posted by Triptychtwo

So Amazon is going to say, after a year of site evaluations, crunching the numbers, discussing incentives and long term company strategy, oh no, Atlanta seems to have jumped the gun here with public discussions of a redevelopment property in downtown, we better go elsewhere? FFS, Amazon doesn't get spooked like a small puppy during a thunderstorm. I'm tired of all these people thinking a couple mansions here, maybe some defense contracts here are going to determine where AMZN lands, it's going to come down to the $$ and the continued growth of the company and where strategically that makes the most sense.

Like I said a few pages back, when it's all said and done and when Atlanta is selected, we'll be laughing at how hard we tried to convince ourselves otherwise.

[Atlanta3000]

Originally Posted by skyscraperpage17

Ok, so which one of you guys posted this on Reddit?

https://www.reddit.com/r/Atlanta/comments/99de00/my_thoughts_on_the_gulch_redevelopment_and_amazon/

You caught me - I started drinkin' my "medicinal" Bud Lite a little early today to alleviate the pain from college soccer injury and next thing I know I am chatten all over the internet. FYI - stay off the NSFW areas of Reddit or you may see more of me than you care to - just sayin.