Amazon HQ2

[mumu]

It'd be interesting to know what the package was for Nashville. The airport is similar to that of Austin in terms of number of cities served.

It is in the Central Time zone, but just barely. The sun rises and sets much earlier than in Austin.

Nashville has all the hallmarks of being a back office city without plans of making it a prime tech location. Austin is rapidly eclipsing mere back office operations. Vanderbilt is a small university that has elite liberal arts programs, but science and engineering isn't at the level of UT, and even more so with producing many graduates. (Vanderbilt graduated just 70 CS undergrads vs 477 at UTCS.)

Oracle's next expansion stages are going to be much higher tier tech than where they are starting off. Indeed, reading the tea leaves, the sheer pull that Oracle is going to make on the local employment pool in the next few years may have been one of several large yet silent factors that made Amazon pass. Oracle is going full bore into cloud and Amazon may have wanted to steer clear of being too close to their competition. There's been enough of a bruising with Microsoft as it is, in term of poaching wars, back in Seattle.

[the Genral]

Found it amusing that while Austin is about not getting H2Q, Dallas is all , , and about losing out. And apparently, Leslie Pool is all : having opposed it from the beginning. The CoA will not release to the public the offer they made to Amazon, but LP said it wasn't even close to the accepted incentives.

[enragedcamel]

Originally Posted by the Genral

The CoA will not release to the public the offer they made to Amazon

Can't it be FOIA'd?

[urbancore]

Originally Posted by enragedcamel

You're right, congestion is a problem in London... for people who insist on driving. My point was that not driving is a very, very viable choice in London. From that perspective, I would argue that they have transportation problems largely solved.

I mean, as the saying goes, you can lead a horse to the water, but you can't force it to drink it. London has excellent public transportation. The fact that many people continue to use their personal vehicles is what leads to congestion.

I would love Austin to have the mass transit of London. But that will NEVER happen. We don’t have the density, and given our current NIMBY zoning....we never will the density of London, or even Portland...maybe not even Dallas/Houston, that is needed to make mass transit feasible, and most importantly, affordable. (It would probably cost 10’s of billions of dollars to build a London type system in Austin). We don’t have the money, and voters have voted down much smaller amounts each time they could.

We might at well talk about the jet packs we all thought we’d have by now.

The only hope (and I think it’s a good one) is for tech to allevaite transit issues I think in less than 10 years, it will. Look how many trips scooters have made in just 6 months. Those represemt car trips, never taken.

Housing is the other issue. Since I moved here in ‘83, people have complained about housing prices, and traffic. Like homelessness, and addiction, you can never “solve” them. They are the consequences of a democratic, market driven society.

[GoldenBoot]

Originally Posted by enragedcamel

Can't it be FOIA'd?

FOIA all you want...there is literally nothing there. The City & State offered nothing to Amazon.

The Chamber was behind the bids. They are a completely separate organization.

[ILUVSAT]

Originally Posted by AwesomeSAView

Sorry, NOT trolling, just stating facts!

And like I said before, I was ROOTING for Austin for HQ2, a so called front runner according to major news networks!
Why am I even explaining myself????

IT IS WHAT IT IS......

Yes. It is what it is. You are a troll. As a San Antonian myself, I will not stand up for you.

Please stop it with the: "I was pulling for you" B.S. You sound like a high school bitch.

And, you're giving San Antonians a bad name.

Oh...unless you are a fan of country music, who gives a flip about the CMAs?

[ILUVSAT]

Originally Posted by wwmiv

Vandy has a slightly larger endowment

I'd love to see your source on this. Please provide it.

[the Genral]

Originally Posted by enragedcamel

Can't it be FOIA'd?

Something about it being proprietary to the CoA. I'm guessing to protect it from the competition during the competition. But now that its all over, I don't understand why the incentives will never be released to the public. Regardless, I think the CoA can offer incentives but would need a public vote to approve them. Because of this, I don't think Austin was ever really being considered despite being in the top 20. I think we were being used as bait to get who they really wanted to up their ante. All the speculation about it all coming down to someone else and Austin just played into Amazon's hands. I don't recall Amazon ever declaring Austin's position in the game. I wouldn't put it past them to have "arranged" for this speculation to circulate. Bezos is a clever old fart.

[austlar1]

Originally Posted by mumu

It'd be interesting to know what the package was for Nashville. The airport is similar to that of Austin in terms of number of cities served.

It is in the Central Time zone, but just barely. The sun rises and sets much earlier than in Austin.

Nashville has all the hallmarks of being a back office city without plans of making it a prime tech location. Austin is rapidly eclipsing mere back office operations. Vanderbilt is a small university that has elite liberal arts programs, but science and engineering isn't at the level of UT, and even more so with producing many graduates. (Vanderbilt graduated just 70 CS undergrads vs 477 at UTCS.)

Oracle's next expansion stages are going to be much higher tier tech than where they are starting off. Indeed, reading the tea leaves, the sheer pull that Oracle is going to make on the local employment pool in the next few years may have been one of several large yet silent factors that made Amazon pass. Oracle is going full bore into cloud and Amazon may have wanted to steer clear of being too close to their competition. There's been enough of a bruising with Microsoft as it is, in term of poaching wars, back in Seattle.

This link spells out in some detail the incentives offered to Amazon by Nashville and the state of Tennessee in exchange for the 5,000 jobs. It is a pretty good deal for Amazon and presumable good for Nashville over the long haul.

https://www.tennessean.com/story/new...ub/1987736002/

[austlar1]

Originally Posted by ILUVSAT

I'd love to see your source on this. Please provide it.

Vanderbilt and UT Austin both have endowments in the range of $4.5 billion. Vanderbilt's might be the larger of the two. UT Austin does not control the entirety of the massive UT system endowment of $20 plus billion dollars. They have to share it with many other campuses. It is a complicated arrangement, and I suspect that UT Austin has other endowment funds separate from the UTIMCO general fund. I'd love to learn more on the subject.

[drummer]

I'm just happy we can put this speculation to rest and move on to other things. It would have been awesome to grab Amazon or a part of it, but good for the other three sites! It will be fun to see how especially the Arlington and the Queens HQ sites build out. Good for Nashville also!

[AusTxDevelopment]

Amazon is about to sign a 160,000 square foot prelease with Tier Reit at Domain 9. That equates to about 1,000 or more employees, depending on how much play space gets designed into Amazon's floorplans. Play space is lounges, cafes, game rooms, gyms, meditation rooms, dog parks, etc. All the things that make employees not mind their long hours.

[Sigaven]

Originally Posted by ILUVSAT

Yes. It is what it is. You are a troll. As a San Antonian myself, I will not stand up for you.

Please stop it with the: "I was pulling for you" B.S. You sound like a high school bitch.

And, you're giving San Antonians a bad name.

Oh...unless you are a fan of country music, who gives a flip about the CMAs?

AwesomeSAView is extremely annoying and posts like this in the SA forums, he's either a troll or a middle schooler. I say it's best to just ignore him, although I see that he's banned now. Maybe problem solved.

[Restless One]

Originally Posted by Sigaven

AwesomeSAView is extremely annoying and posts like this in the SA forums, he's either a troll or a middle schooler. I say it's best to just ignore him, although I see that he's banned now. Maybe problem solved.

I've had a few run ins with ASAV as well, but i'm not sure he's done anything ban worthy.

He takes any criticism of SA, no matter how constructive the intent, way too personally, and I'm sure is no fun at parties, but the ban hammer seems a little harsh.

[the Genral]

Originally Posted by ILUVSAT

Yes. It is what it is. You are a troll. As a San Antonian myself, I will not stand up for you.

Please stop it with the: "I was pulling for you" B.S. You sound like a high school bitch.

And, you're giving San Antonians a bad name.

Oh...unless you are a fan of country music, who gives a flip about the CMAs?

ILUVSAT, I dub thee an honorary Austinite Nice retort!

[urbancore]

Originally Posted by Restless One

I've had a few run ins with ASAV as well, but i'm not sure he's done anything ban worthy.

He takes any criticism of SA, no matter how constructive the intent, way too personally, and I'm sure is no fun at parties, but the ban hammer seems a little harsh.

I too am not a fan of the ban.

But I imagine he was given a couple warnings (at least I hope so). I know I’ve said some regrettable things on this forum. Is it too late to apologize to those I may have offended?

[the Genral]

Originally Posted by Dcbrickley

I too am not a fan of the ban.

But I imagine he was given a couple warnings (at least I hope so). I know I’ve said some regrettable things on this forum. Is it too late to apologize to those I may have offended?

I had to look up Trolling to see what the hub bub was about. I just don't make the troll connection with this person, but I do love me a good retort and banning once in a while. And Dcbrickley, you offend me when you claim to be a possible offender. It lessens my deliberate attempts at offending, especially since I put so much effort into it (see avatar) and you think you might have done so inadvertently. Apology accepted.

[KevinFromTexas]

He wasn't banned, only suspended. There's a functionality setting that if it isn't set to 'suspended' then it reads as banned, even though there was a duration set. Don't worry, he'll be back.

[drummer]

Ironically, Kevin's post has "troll fighter" on the bottom...just sayin'...

[lzppjb]

So, has the Atlanta forum begun devouring itself over the HQ2 news? I haven't wandered over there.