Amazon HQ2 RFP

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shmessy said:
I have zero idea what you are talking about. HQ1 is already in Seattle.
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Yeah, they would leave Seattle. I get the sentiment that there's a decent % of the people who live in Seattle that hate Amazon's guts; enough to get people elected who also hate Amazon's guts. But when you own or lease 60% of the class A real estate in the area it's not something that can go away in an instant.
 
So Amazon buys Whole Foods, and the fresh food inventory in stores goes to hell in a handbasket. Blame is not so much on Amazon as on Whole Foods' decisions made prior to the sale.

http://www.bostonglobe.com/business...g-elsewhere/UpWrwJa1dteUvEFLBL67ZO/story.html

Since Whole Foods HQ is in Austin, I am guessing that diminishes Austin's chances. If as the article states, it may take 3-5 years to fix, I doubt Amazon is going to saddle Austin with a big expansion while a major fix at Whole Foods is in process.
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Maryland is offering Amazon $3B on financial incentives, and $2B in infrastructure. Legislature doesn't seem to be keen on all this love for Montgomery Co. at the expense of the rest of the state. Apparently there is a big clawback if Amazon doesn't hire at least 40,000, which could be a deal-killer.
 
I have difficulty believing that Raleigh, Toronto, and Atlanta have more tech talent availability than Boston.
 
I still don't get the availability to schools argument.

If you are from Ohio, or Manhattan or Mumbai and you are about to graduate from MIT, Harvard or BU and Amazon comes to you and says, "Hey we got a job for you in Austin" (or some other warm, hip place) are you really going to say, "Nah, I wanna stay here in Boston." ?

It not like these kids have deep roots here.
 
Arlington said:
For me the big takeaway is how much labor costs (and access to things that make people more productive) should totally dominate Amazon's thinking and not the cost of Real Estate
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These are basically the same thing since the cost of labor is highly correlated with the cost of real estate. The same engineering position that would pay $60k in the midwest would be at $100k+ in a coastal city. I'm guessing Toronto is an such an outlier here because of the USD/CAD conversion rate combined with some classification difference between countries. Toronto is not a cheap city.
 
chmeeee said:
I have difficulty believing that Raleigh, Toronto, and Atlanta have more tech talent availability than Boston.
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I question if they are including Cambridge and the other surrounding cities in their Boston calculations.
 
DZH22 said:
I question if they are including Cambridge and the other surrounding cities in their Boston calculations.
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Amazon isin't dumb, they are using surrounding cities. Plus they said they are looking seriously at the Somerville proposal.
 
statler said:
I still don't get the availability to schools argument.

If you are from Ohio, or Manhattan or Mumbai and you are about to graduate from MIT, Harvard or BU and Amazon comes to you and says, "Hey we got a job for you in Austin" (or some other warm, hip place) are you really going to say, "Nah, I wanna stay here in Boston." ?

It not like these kids have deep roots here.
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I think you are over simplifying and accidentally conflating 2 things.

1) Amazon cares about forming relationships with research professors and their PhD graduate students at elite universities. These are the people who (are supposed to) produce transformative innovation. These folks usually relocated from far and wide to get to their elite university and are more willing (than the average bear) to relocate again. Proximity to these research/innovation oriented people gives Amazon a slight advantage in both collaborating with them and recruiting them. Certainly, they will be actively courting these type of people from universities all over the world, but proximity helps.

2) Amazon has legions of practical coders, engineers, analysts, marketers, etc. These positions are mostly filled by people with bachelor and masters degrees from all sorts of universities from the local commuter school to the elite. More often than in the research oriented group, these folks may have gone to college closer to where they grew up and may be more eager to stay near friends and family. Being located in a metro or region with lots of schools means there is a larger pool of educated people who are likely to want to stay roughly in the same area. I'm not saying this applies to everyone, I'm saying they are playing the percentages.

Check out this list. It is topped by UDub, loaded with Bay Area schools, and filled in by the best engineering research universities. Many of those play double duty in groups 1 and 2, but you can't deny the shear number of Bay Area and other California schools. If Amazon came here, you'd see MIT and Harvard rise, and Tufts, BU, NEU, etc likely creep onto the list.
 
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fattony makes two excellent points.

The talent that Amazon is most avariciously seeking are those with masters and doctorates.

From the Univ of Washington campus to the Amazon Spheres is about 3.5 miles.
 
Observer has a pretty good write-up of the short-listed cities. Mostly stuff we already know, but a good concise rundown of what each city is offering.

And just because of how ridiculous this is:
A moment of silence, however, for one Georgia city that didn’t make the cut: Stonecrest, which offered to rename itself Amazon and appoint Bezos as permanent mayor if it won the HQ2 bid.
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Don't know how he could pass that one up.
 
"Boston’s cost of living is comparable to Seattle and lower than New York City or Washington, D.C."

False The Boston area is not cheaper then DC.
 
stellarfun said:
fattony makes two excellent points.

The talent that Amazon is most avariciously seeking are those with masters and doctorates.

From the Univ of Washington campus to the Amazon Spheres is about 3.5 miles.
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yup, it will be 20somethings who want to live in an urban environment and bike to work when they can. They'll want dog parks, Sunday brunch, indoor rock climbing, micro breweries, street festivals, independent bike shops, gig venues, bocci leagues etc etc...
They won't want to rely on a car.
This rules out any suburban site (and Atlanta)
If Baker and Walsh could get behind it, Somerville might have a real shot at this (until a sizable chunk of local residents have a gentrification meltdown)
 
I have a feeling they go with the Washington DC area for HQ2. Bezos has a 2nd home there and with all that Amazon plans to do in the future, I feel like they want to be as close as possible to the political hub of the country for lobbying purposes.
 
statler said:
I'm not sure that's a road we want to go down.
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The level in Boston was not the same - - they were not physically harming opponent fans. And it took place only around the most densely populated college area on earth where kids from all over took it as an opportunity to party. 9 arrests around BU/BC/Northeastern, etc. in 2013. That's a fraction of what happened on Sunday in Philly

In Philly, those were not limited to college campuses/areas. Those were adults, young, middle aged and older. Those people were the folks whom Amazon would be using NOW as employees/support. They weren't Bob and Sylvia's sophomore kid from Long Island.

Vikings fans arriving back in Minneapolis have been sharing horror stories that even Yankee fans in the 1970's never had in Boston.

Anyone with a passing knowledge of fanbases and their comparative cultures know there is nothing like Philadelphians - - (except perhaps Oakland Raiders fans). And, yes, it DOES say something about one's prospective neighbors.
 
Im pretty sure "local sports fan culture" ranks somewhere between "color hue of LED streetlights" and "geese per square mile" in their internal ranking system.
 
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