Amazon pays a lot more than that for people just out of school. 6 figure is routine for Amazon hiring straight out of school. 60-70k is more typical at less prestigious companies.
Amazon HQ2 RFP
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Amazon pays a lot more than that for people just out of school. 6 figure is routine for Amazon hiring straight out of school. 60-70k is more typical at less prestigious companies.
FenwayResident
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In general top-tier, entry-level tech talent can expect to make $100-150k + options depending on location and company. That's also exactly the talent that Amazon is hoping to get.
stellarfun
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My own hunch is that Harvard is going to build out Beacon Yards, and lease the space primarily to start-ups and emerging technology companies. And many/most of these companies will have an association with Harvard, and pay licensing frees for patents held by Harvard.
Harvard's income from licenses is pathetic. And it must grate them still that Gates ran off to Seattle and Zuckerberg to Palo Alto.
MIT: Fiscal year 2016 saw 800 new invention disclosures (plus 82 from Lincoln Lab), 341 US patents filed, 279 US patents issued, 110 licenses granted, 25 companies started, and $ 62 million in total licensing income.
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How much did MIT pay per acre at Volpe? MIT paid $760 million; cost of new Volpe to be deducted. So, maybe $35 million an acre.
Would Amazon be willing to pay Harvard $25 million an acre for 100 acres in Allston?
Tombstoner
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Pittsburgh tops or comes near to the top of every list of "top choices for millennials." Has for years. Hardly "ïn decline" as another poster suggested. Really, people need to get out more...
bigpicture7
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It's a pretty basic phenomenon: pittsburgh has that rare combination of still being somewhat affordable while also having some stuff for millenials to do in their leisure time. Just made a couple of trips there for work recently, though, and while there are some hip areas a decent cultural scene, it is nowhere near what Boston has. The entire university scene is basically CMU and Pitt (nothing to be ashamed of for sure), but that's just two medium/small-ish schools. The magnitude of young, urban scene is just much smaller. In some ways its like Austin: you keep hearing the "everyone wants to go there" thing, and then you look at some basic stats and realize despite all the talk, there's just not that much / that many people there. Yes I know they're both 7-figure metros, but I'm talking core, urban happenings...not headcount in adjacent cow country.
But to reinforce your point: Pitt is certainly not in decline; if anything a very solid upswing.
JohnAKeith
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Really good article about the potential of putting it at South Station.
To me, it just seems risky to submit a bid in 31 days that says, "proposal contingent on every piece of the puzzle must fit in order for this to work for you" which is how I see South Station - the land swap / purchase etc. is just a wish-for right now.
The pluses are, as they point out in the article, you get the South Station tower and the USPS parcel, but then that opens up Parcel 25 (the power plant) and that feeds into Widett Circle and even the Flower Exchange. That would be offices, but bordering all that is the new New York Streets neighborhood as well as the higher-density zoned land between Broadway and Andrew Square for (future) housing.
Also in the news today was that Mass House Speaker Bobby "Slots" DeLeo says he's on board for putting HQ2 at Suffolk Downs. But of course he is - it's his district. No doubt he'd arrange a sweetheart deal for his cronies just like he did when we approved the casinos (basically, kick-backs to the horse racing industry).
To me, it just seems risky to submit a bid in 31 days that says, "proposal contingent on every piece of the puzzle must fit in order for this to work for you" which is how I see South Station - the land swap / purchase etc. is just a wish-for right now.
The pluses are, as they point out in the article, you get the South Station tower and the USPS parcel, but then that opens up Parcel 25 (the power plant) and that feeds into Widett Circle and even the Flower Exchange. That would be offices, but bordering all that is the new New York Streets neighborhood as well as the higher-density zoned land between Broadway and Andrew Square for (future) housing.
Also in the news today was that Mass House Speaker Bobby "Slots" DeLeo says he's on board for putting HQ2 at Suffolk Downs. But of course he is - it's his district. No doubt he'd arrange a sweetheart deal for his cronies just like he did when we approved the casinos (basically, kick-backs to the horse racing industry).
Tombstoner
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Pittsburgh has a college student population of 100K+. Pitt and CMU account for about half that. Yes, it is smaller than many cities. I'm not trying to compare Pittsburgh to Boston or San Francisco, but the place is hardly lacking in world-class robotics, computer science, engineering, medical sciences (which Amazon is eyeing) or infrastructure that could support a very large tech company. 5 very large companies? No, but then Amazon would be the only truly big fish (though Uber and Google are developing R&D centers there like crazy). The cultural scene punches far about its weight (Boston is not amazing in this regard though it of course has more as befits its size). I'd like Amazon to come to Boston, but in some ways I think given all the trade-offs Pittsburgh would look much more appealing.
Anecdote time: when one of my friends graduated and was scouted by Microsoft, their starting salary was 90k, and that was 6 years ago, so wages have probably increased since then.
FenwayResident
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What does Pittsburgh have that Boston doesn't have even more of? Affordable housing, bridges, ...?
I'm sure it's a cool city with fun things to do, but it's like comparing the local county fair to Disneyland.
It's more like, you're already there, why leave?
Keep in mind this is Amazon. As mentioned they are going to be working all the time. They're not going to be doing culture, nightlife, etc. They will be working.
Amazon's thing is stock options. They use it quite well, they got Whole foods for free basically. Not that most of their employees actually collect since you have to be there a period of time. It's sort of like a carrot that you'll never collect.
Year Population Change
2015 304,391 -0.40%
2010 305,704 -8.60%
2000 334,563 -9.50%
1990 369,879 -12.80%
1980 423,959 -18.50%
1970 520,089 -13.90%
This is Pittsburgh. Look, I'm trying to be nice here, but the city sucks. Went there back to back to back to back years and you have to send out a search party to find something to do after 2 days. They've got some low rent art museum (Mellon) that has plaster cast models of all great works of art. Since I've already seen Winged Victory and the Venus de Milo statues in person, a yellowing plaster cast model just wasn't doing it for me, but hey that's just me. That was the main exhibit.
Then I went to another museum for a photography display and it was the most depressing thing I've ever witnessed. The whole exhibit was like people drowning. Literally. I'm not making this up. I almost needed a drink afterwards.
Drinking - I was told the "hot spot" is this place called The Strip. It looks like Landsdowne St before the Red Sox started cleaning it up. Mind you, I spent a lot of time around Landsdowne as youngster since I went to BU, but if I was telling a visitor to Boston where to hang out, that wouldn't be the top of my list (Back Bay, North End, Seaport, etc).
Not to mention that nice 20 block slum in the middle of the city (behind the old hockey arena) that I had the pleasure of driving through. This is like blocks from downtown.
Oh, and if you plan on taking a river cruise, I really, REALLY advise you to not look down at what's floating in the water. Fair warning.
So, I'm not telling you not to like the place. I'm telling you it might not quite have the appeal to others that it has to you. Its a run down Rust Belt city that IMO the city leaders are doing their best to revitalize, but it ain't there yet.
PS - Whoever said Pittsburgh can count WVA in their college population that's fine but that would mean Boston can boast two ivies as Brown situated in Providence is closer to Boston distance wise.
2015 304,391 -0.40%
2010 305,704 -8.60%
2000 334,563 -9.50%
1990 369,879 -12.80%
1980 423,959 -18.50%
1970 520,089 -13.90%
This is Pittsburgh. Look, I'm trying to be nice here, but the city sucks. Went there back to back to back to back years and you have to send out a search party to find something to do after 2 days. They've got some low rent art museum (Mellon) that has plaster cast models of all great works of art. Since I've already seen Winged Victory and the Venus de Milo statues in person, a yellowing plaster cast model just wasn't doing it for me, but hey that's just me. That was the main exhibit.
Then I went to another museum for a photography display and it was the most depressing thing I've ever witnessed. The whole exhibit was like people drowning. Literally. I'm not making this up. I almost needed a drink afterwards.
Drinking - I was told the "hot spot" is this place called The Strip. It looks like Landsdowne St before the Red Sox started cleaning it up. Mind you, I spent a lot of time around Landsdowne as youngster since I went to BU, but if I was telling a visitor to Boston where to hang out, that wouldn't be the top of my list (Back Bay, North End, Seaport, etc).
Not to mention that nice 20 block slum in the middle of the city (behind the old hockey arena) that I had the pleasure of driving through. This is like blocks from downtown.
Oh, and if you plan on taking a river cruise, I really, REALLY advise you to not look down at what's floating in the water. Fair warning.
So, I'm not telling you not to like the place. I'm telling you it might not quite have the appeal to others that it has to you. Its a run down Rust Belt city that IMO the city leaders are doing their best to revitalize, but it ain't there yet.
PS - Whoever said Pittsburgh can count WVA in their college population that's fine but that would mean Boston can boast two ivies as Brown situated in Providence is closer to Boston distance wise.
Let's trash Austin because Texans voted for Trump.
Let's trash Baltimore because its a crime ridden dump.
Let's trash Chicago because of it's corruption.
Let's trash Pittsburgh because it's a not quite recovered rust belt dump.
How about we stop trashing other cities here. We're living up to the old snotty Boston reputation (with exception to NYC where we turn it into a inferiority complex for obvious reasons). Amazon is looking at a second headquarters. Boston has a lot of strengths we can sell on. Our strengths is what allowed us to punch above our weight and it's what allow Boston to forge a new path from becoming a rust belt city and hopefully now bring us Amazon.
But we don't know if it will be enough. They are looking at a lot of cities and there's a lot of things that influence their decision. Let's hope for the best.
Let's trash Baltimore because its a crime ridden dump.
Let's trash Chicago because of it's corruption.
Let's trash Pittsburgh because it's a not quite recovered rust belt dump.
How about we stop trashing other cities here. We're living up to the old snotty Boston reputation (with exception to NYC where we turn it into a inferiority complex for obvious reasons). Amazon is looking at a second headquarters. Boston has a lot of strengths we can sell on. Our strengths is what allowed us to punch above our weight and it's what allow Boston to forge a new path from becoming a rust belt city and hopefully now bring us Amazon.
But we don't know if it will be enough. They are looking at a lot of cities and there's a lot of things that influence their decision. Let's hope for the best.
I don't think an honest assessment of the competition is a bad thing. Boston needs to figure out who their most likely competitors are in this case and tailor their approach with that in mind.
If Mahhty and Charlie start thinking Pittsburgh is the balls, yet lose sight of a place like DC which is probably the actual frontrunner, then they run the risk of making the wrong appeal in terms of which of Boston's merits to highlight. It would be nice if we could all hold hands and sing Kumbaya but that's not reality in this case. I too hope for the best but also hope the city does everything it can to be in a good position.
If Mahhty and Charlie start thinking Pittsburgh is the balls, yet lose sight of a place like DC which is probably the actual frontrunner, then they run the risk of making the wrong appeal in terms of which of Boston's merits to highlight. It would be nice if we could all hold hands and sing Kumbaya but that's not reality in this case. I too hope for the best but also hope the city does everything it can to be in a good position.
stellarfun
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From a link on the Harvard Allston campus thread.
https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2017/09/shaun-donovan-named-senior-strategist-for-allston/
cadetcarl
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Agree with Ant, all those cities are great until we enter a competition with them, and suddenly they're all dumps? Come on. Let's just be secure in what we have.
I feel like we're also underestimating the difference in our willingness to bend over backwards on the tax/incentive side vs the competing metros. Marty's attitude seems to be that it'll be nice if we win but we're not going to bet the farm to do it, a sentiment I share. I say this inb4 we don't win and this thread becomes all bitching about how much better we were than the eventual winner. It'll be because the conditions weren't right, or we couldn't find a site, or we aren't letting them off the hook on taxes, not because we're a worse place. We have nothing to prove.
I feel like we're also underestimating the difference in our willingness to bend over backwards on the tax/incentive side vs the competing metros. Marty's attitude seems to be that it'll be nice if we win but we're not going to bet the farm to do it, a sentiment I share. I say this inb4 we don't win and this thread becomes all bitching about how much better we were than the eventual winner. It'll be because the conditions weren't right, or we couldn't find a site, or we aren't letting them off the hook on taxes, not because we're a worse place. We have nothing to prove.
Pittsburgh is actually pretty nice, architecturally and landscape speaking. Oakland is a fun college neighborhood. The view from Mount Washington is breathtaking, better than any public view of Boston for sure! The rivers and hilly terrain is beautiful. It definitely does have a lot of lousy neighborhoods though.
Can't speak for other posters but I never liked Pittsburgh long before this Amazon thing came along. It really is a city for people who think Worcester is too exciting. Don't get me started on Cincinnati either.
But to your point, I could see Chicago winning if Bezos isn't bothered by political dysfunction or Austin if Trump worshiping isn't a deal breaker. Both places as well as NYC, DC, Denver, etc have a lot going for them. Some cities (Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Hartford, St. Louis) don't have a lot going for them however despite pockets of progress here or there.
JumboBuc
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The LAST thing I want is for this to devolve in a political argument, but just for the record, Trump only got 36.7% of the vote in the five counties that make up Austin-Round Rock Metropolitan Area.
I'm more talking about Texas itself, but point taken about not turning this political.
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