Amazon HQ2

[clubtokyo]

Originally Posted by N90

The guy that asked Alexa to play country music was sitting on a burnt orange couch and had burnt orange furniture.

Obviously Amazon is choosing Austin for HQ2

[austlar1]

Originally Posted by We vs us

The new Amazon med company is interesting to me. Here's some good reporting from CNBC on the "1492" project, which would seem to be a precursor to the announcement yesterday.

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/07/26/amaz...h-project.html

IMO, 1492 seems tailor-made for the Innovation District and Dell Medical School. Makes me wonder seriously if we aren't pegged for a major Amazon investment one way or another, HQ2 or no HQ2.

Seems to me that Amazon's desire to become a direct supplier of pharma products might give places like Philly and Newark an advantage, assuming that this new business is something that will operate out of HQ2. Austin's nascent "Innovation District" is pretty much non-existent at this point, and having one pharma company with a planned outpost there hardly makes Austin a hotspot for developments in that sector. The biggest chunk of pharma in the US is headquartered in New Jersey between Philly and New York. Medical policy (hence prescription drug policy) is increasingly a product of Washington and Congress. Amazon's adventure in medicine will probably operate out of the east coast.

[chinchaaa]

Originally Posted by austlar1

Seems to me that Amazon's desire to become a direct supplier of pharma products might give places like Philly and Newark an advantage, assuming that this new business is something that will operate out of HQ2. Austin's nascent "Innovation District" is pretty much non-existent at this point, and having one pharma company with a planned outpost there hardly makes Austin a hotspot for developments in that sector. The biggest chunk of pharma in the US is headquartered in New Jersey between Philly and New York. Medical policy (hence prescription drug policy) is increasingly a product of Washington and Congress. Amazon's adventure in medicine will probably operate out of the east coast.

Why do you think Philly and Newark? Are they big pharmaceutical hubs?

[sammyk]

Originally Posted by chinchaaa

Why do you think Philly and Newark? Are they big pharmaceutical hubs?

There's a ton of pharma companies that have significant presence in New Jersey.

[Sigaven]

Originally Posted by clubtokyo

The famous wild peacocks in Austin. My mom is from the NE and wanted to see the peacocks when she visited for the first time.
http://www.texasstandard.org/stories...o-be-in-texas/

The peacocks aren't really well known outside of austin though. Not so much as our bats for example.

[austlar1]

Originally Posted by chinchaaa

Why do you think Philly and Newark? Are they big pharmaceutical hubs?

http://www.nj.gov/njbusiness/industry/pharmaceutical/

[masonh2479]

This is an interesting read about a potential hq2 site in Austin.
https://www.bizjournals.com/austin/n...re-amazon.html

[DMPHL]

Originally Posted by sammyk

There's a ton of pharma companies that have significant presence in New Jersey.

Philadelphia (and its suburbs) and New Jersey are a huge pharmaceutical/medical/bio hub. Johnson & Johnson, GlaxoSmithKline, AstraZeneca, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Merck, Novartis, NovoNordisk, Bayer, Sanofi, and huge generics manufacturers like Teva and Ranbaxy, have HQs or significant R&D, business, and manufacturing presences along the corridor.

[KevinFromTexas]

So, after realizing today that Google Earth had updated their imagery for Austin, I "flew around Texas" to check out the other cities, and I can't see that any other Texas city had their imagery updated. I wonder if there are any Amazonian eyeballs looking at Austin on Google Earth. It seems odd that we'd be the only city in this huge state that was updated. I wonder if Google knows something everyone else doesn't (probably).

[Novacek]

Interesting Statesman story

http://www.512tech.com/technology/th...JiFKssTSaNGjK/

One detail I hadn't heard before

"Bohls, now managing director for commercial real estate services firm Newmark Knight Frank in Austin, said Amazon last year had a large expansion lease “teed up at the Domain” but tabled it until the HQ2 search is decided. That, he said, has led him and other brokers to think “that Amazon’s interest in Austin is earnest and may even signal we are a top contender; otherwise, one would surmise that they’d move forward with the Austin expansion.” "

[We vs us]

Originally Posted by Novacek

Interesting Statesman story

http://www.512tech.com/technology/th...JiFKssTSaNGjK/

One detail I hadn't heard before

"Bohls, now managing director for commercial real estate services firm Newmark Knight Frank in Austin, said Amazon last year had a large expansion lease “teed up at the Domain” but tabled it until the HQ2 search is decided. That, he said, has led him and other brokers to think “that Amazon’s interest in Austin is earnest and may even signal we are a top contender; otherwise, one would surmise that they’d move forward with the Austin expansion.” "

I zeroed in on that, too. That's a pretty strong indicator.

[clubtokyo]

So i wasn’t the only one on the peacocks....
https://www.texasmonthly.com/the-cul...coming-austin/

[AustinGoesVertical]

Amazon’s super bowl commercial started with “In Austin, it’s 60-degrees...” before the Alexa humorously lost her voice. Bezos dropping a hint?

[Jdawgboy]

Originally Posted by AustinGoesVertical

Amazon’s super bowl commercial started with “In Austin, it’s 60-degrees...” before the Alexa humorously lost her voice. Bezos dropping a hint?

It is Blueberry Juniper (aka Mountain Cedar) pollen season after all...

[Jdawgboy]

https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/...-ad/308056002/


And funny enough an article about it.

But take a good look at the end.

I don't think it means much. I think it more likely that GSD&M might have produced the commercial however I haven't checked. Even if they didn't, it's not like Austin isn't hot in popularity on the national level. Also lets face it, Amazon already has and will continue to have a significant presence in Austin regardless where the 2nd HQ ends up.

[StoOgE]

Originally Posted by Jdawgboy

https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/...-ad/308056002/


And funny enough an article about it.

But take a good look at the end.

I don't think it means much. I think it more likely that GSD&M might have produced the commercial however I haven't checked. Even if they didn't, it's not like Austin isn't hot in popularity on the national level. Also lets face it, Amazon already has and will continue to have a significant presence in Austin regardless where the 2nd HQ ends up.

GSD&M definitely do not have the Amazon account.

The commercial was done by Lucky Generals and D1 (Amazon Creative), so the British and Amazon's in-house team. I do not think that Amazon has any D1 members in Austin.

I also seriously doubt this has any bearing on anything HQ2 related and probably is more likely that it seemed like a nice city name to drop during the Super Bowl given that we don't have an NFL team and it wouldn't seem to untoward as a result.

[Jdawgboy]

Originally Posted by StoOgE

GSD&M definitely do not have the Amazon account.

The commercial was done by Lucky Generals and D1 (Amazon Creative), so the British and Amazon's in-house team. I do not think that Amazon has any D1 members in Austin.

I also seriously doubt this has any bearing on anything HQ2 related and probably is more likely that it seemed like a nice city name to drop during the Super Bowl given that we don't have an NFL team and it wouldn't seem to untoward as a result.

Awesome, I was going to research who produced the commercial but you saved me from doing it. At any rate it's agreed that using Austin was simply because they could. Could have been another city but it wasn't.

[Tyrone Shoes]

This has nothing todo with AMAZON but it might shine a light on why Austin made the top 20:

Tech workers favor Seattle, Austin for relocation
....a new survey from job seeking platform Hired shows that tech workers aren’t willing to take a chance on just any city with a low cost of living....The report found that unsurprisingly, tech workers in San Francisco are paid the most, followed by other large “knowledge hubs” like Seattle, Los Angeles, and New York. Hired also surveyed tech workers on what city tops the list of places they wish to relocate to. The top 5, in order, are: Seattle, Austin, Denver, Chicago, and Atlanta.

for the whole article goto:
https://venturebeat.com/2018/02/08/t...or-relocation/

[urbancore]

https://www.bizjournals.com/austin/n...ml#g/428940/11


Follow the money.

[Austin1971]

Originally Posted by KevinFromTexas

In case anyone is interested, I keep track of Austin's murders in the thread below. My last update is in the link. By the way, I have 4 murders listed there for the metro so far this year. I need to edit one of those now since the case involved a man who shot another in self defense after that man shot at him in an apartment complex parking lot. It's still homicide, but it's a bit different than murder since it was "justified".

http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...220822&page=86

Did a quick search and found these numbers interesting concerning murders comparing Austin with some of the other cities the same size vying for HQ2. Probably missing a few murders but none the less I found the numbers staggering.

Murders for 2017

Austin-29, Travis County-12 Total-41

Raleigh-Durham-48
Nashville-107
Pittsburgh-58, Allegheny County-52 Total-110
Columbus-143
Indianapolis-152