Amazon to Build Second HQ in North America | Hacker News Reader

Amazon to Build Second HQ in North America

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300 pointsmartymatheny468 comments

The RFP is rather more interesting than the marketing page:

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/G/01/Anything...

The 2nd criterion is basically the total amount of sweet, sweet taxpayer dollars available to subsidize them:

Please provide a summary of total incentives offered for the Project by the state/province and local community. In this summary, please provide a brief description of the incentive item, the timing of incentive payment/realization, and a calculation of the incentive amount.

And anyone wonders why the USA does not have money for healthcare, higher education, high speed rail, etc. etc.

I am in West Africa and everyone continually asks about the corruption.

At least here it's up front and honest. The guy with the AK-47 just wants $5.

In the USA, it's the guys in suits getting billions.

Since when does the US not have money for healthcare and higher education? We spend more on both per capita than any other nation on earth.

We don't have money for high speed rail? Sure we do, we spend $7 trillion per year on government - 37% of our economy goes to government. Pick your priorities.

It might be morally questionable but isn't Amazon doing what you're describing? Most companies shopping around don't publically announce their plans to move in exchange for tax breaks. Amazon, OTOH, is explicitly calling this out.

The thing is, those tax cuts are largely offset by income taxes that those employees bring in, along with all of the $ that having a huge corporation like Amazon would bring into the area. It's not corruption, it's business.

I mean, if you don't like the tax cuts your city government offers Amazon to try and get their headquarter, you can vote them out come the next election.

sorry but if i have to choose between a guy with an AK47 demanding $5 from me, and a shadowy power pulling the strings of a vibrant economy to extract 10% of my income, I know what I'd choose.

Funny, that's what an Afghani co-worker and I talked about during the last election cycle. We just obfuscate things with lawyers.

This is exemplary of the type of sway which massively concentrated enterprises can have over governments, and will continue to have as more and more companies engage in M&A: http://piketty.pse.ens.fr/files/Brennan2016.pdf

Replace HRC with Jeff Bezos and "algorithm" with "consumer": https://busy.org/life/@blakemiles84/clinton-book-excerptish-...

At some point we're going to have to Bust the Trusts.

Teddy Roosevelt, where for out thou?

The trend, barring an exceptional individual, is for power to consolidate further in the hands of the megacorps.

Yea, this is pretty clearly an RFP directed at politicians soliciting taxpayer money. That said, if given the choice between my city ponying up for a stadium (or datacenter that will support 50 total jobs) and an actual Amazon HQ that's comparable to Seattle, I know which way I'd lean. Unfortunately, a big reason politicians go for these kinds of proposals is that they sound great as "accomplishments" in stump speeches. Maybe its my cynicism, but my assumption is that most politicians go for these proposals, and at least this could actually support jobs long term.

Totally agree! 50,000 people making 100k+ per year is a lot of taxes, it will increase land values. Please come to my city so my house can double in value. Hm...

Yeah, shocking huh? This is the only reason this whole thing is being done. It's basically a solicitation, and Amazon will go to the highest bidder. It happens all the time, it's just that this initiative is more public.

what a year do I live in that governments must bow to corpos and politely submit RFP document asking for tax money .... reduction.

There was once a story on hackersnews why this (demanding tax cuts) its unethical on much larger scale than race etc. It went like this (forgive my memory, english, and feel free to correct it):

There were two states, neighboring, with similar budgets and number of people. They werent rich, there werent many benefits for citizens in each state, yet people managed to get by. Then one day, a company came to them and asked, who can give me corpotax subsidy ? I'll build a factory there and employ maaaany people. State A objected, while state B agreed. That was a 10 years deal. A lot of people from State A migrated to state B in search of work. 5 years into the deal, company thrived: no taxes to be paid = most competitors in both states are killed. Company is building another factory. Again asking both states of tax subsidy. This time, due to loss of population, being on verge of collapse, state A had to offer super deal. Company built second factory there. The pendulum is swinging the other direction. The rest of the cycle is left for the reader.

Because population is relatively constant, allowing this shenanigans is effectively allowing corpos to be tax free at the expense of states^H^H^H citizens. Because states or nations are WE, and asking for such reduction is a zero sum game.

This gains of capital because of amazon HQ2 WILL HAPPEN no matter what or where. Asking for tax deduction is abuse and effectively reducing total citizenhood wellness/capital in benefit of Amazon, payed by all other states where HQ2 is not built.

The best policy for all states and cities in USA is saying: no matter who will you choose, we will NOT give you a subsidy. And if you want to talk about offshore outsourcing, let me rephrase it: all countries in the world should show the A a middle finger in unison.

> The best policy for all states and cities in USA is saying: no matter who will you choose, we will NOT give you a subsidy. And if you want to talk about offshore outsourcing, let me rephrase it: all countries in the world should show the A a middle finger in unison.

If we could only get all governments together to conspire against third parties. How could that ever wo grong.

This has been going on forever. It is a natural consequence of free people acting in their own best interests. Giving an employer $1Bn in tax breaks knowing you will get more than $10Bn in increased tax revenue is good for the government and good for the employer.

Is it fair? No. But liberalism doesn't aim to make the world fair; it aims to make it free.

The EU tries to do that by banning Member States from giving targeted tax breaks (see the Irish-Apple affair), although with dubious results.

Amazon was built upon the competitive edge of pricing devoid of state and local sales tax. Now it is soliciting tax breaks from state and local governments.

That's not quite true. Washington state (where Seattle is) has no state income tax. The sales tax rate, however, is a whopping 9.5%. As a mail order/online retailer, Amazon only had to charge sales tax on in-state purchases. Washington state's low population made it more favourable relative to California with a much less worse tax structure, and Texas and Florida which also have no state income tax and the population centers necessary to support a growing business. Of course, I'm sure Microsoft's established engineering talent pool helped too.

The US could just do what the EU does and ban sweetheart tax deals. Such tax deals are anti-small-company/unfair and it's a race to the bottom that no one will win.

Consumers, employers and investors would win. What are you talking about.

A tax break to a company that otherwise wouldn't be there at all is a lot different than a straight-up bribe.

How is it different? "If you want our business, pay up."

Does it matter if the economic benefit of Amazon's presence in a city outweighs the initial tax breaks?

This kind of tax cuts should be illegal. The problem is that taxation itself is some kind of extortion from the state. So morally speaking it is a bankrupt system from all sides.

OK, what are the options? Here's the list of the top 50 North American metro areas over the desired 1,000,000 population.[1] This gets down to the Nashville, TN area, at 1.8 million, so it's not the full list. Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and Cuba are probably out, both for political reasons and being islands. Mexico is probably out given the current administration's positions. San Juan is on an island and too remote, although the tax deal in Puerto Rico might keep it in consideration.

Amazon seems to want a city where they would be a Big Deal, maybe the dominant employer. In New York or LA, they'd just be another big business.

Weather is an issue. They'll want some place that doesn't flood or get snowbound, since their HQ city will include some distribution centers. That knocks out Minneapolis - St. Paul, Houston, Miami, and Tampa.

They probably don't want a super high cost area, which knocks out SF-Oakland-San Jose. Maybe Washington, DC, too.

Extreme high crime areas are out - that takes out Tijuana and Detroit.

Mass transit is a specified requirement. This takes out cities with weak transit systems.

Not too close to Seattle, since they want to be more geographically distributed. That probably takes out the West Coast cities.

So what's left?

    Chicago 
    Dallas–Fort Worth 	
    Toronto 	
    Philadelphia 	
    Atlanta 	
    Boston 	
    Phoenix 	
    Montreal 	
    Denver 	
    St. Louis 	
    Baltimore 	
    Charlotte 	
    Orlando 	
    San Antonio 	
    Pittsburgh 	
    Cincinnati 	
    Las Vegas 	
    Kansas City 	
    Cleveland 	
    Columbus 	
    Austin 	
    Indianapolis 	
    Nashville

I'm going to guess Austin or Nashville. Small enough that Amazon can be a big fish in a small pond, big enough to support the work force, liveable enough that people will come, good land availability.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_North_American_metropo...

I've only seen Minneapolis really snowbound maybe once in my career. We just work from home when it happens.

Also, the city has the most sophisticated snow removal in the western world. Both downtowns have extensive skyway systems to avoid walking outside.

The Twin Cities have 18 Fortune 500s to draw talent from. Meanwhile, Saint Paul has recently opened up a ton of prime commercial real estate at the Ford plant site (130 acres), Arden Hills armory site (>400 acres), Hillcrest Golf Club (110 acres), and the old EcoLab, Cray, and Gander Mountain buildings in the skyway system.

As a former Orlandoan, I would pull Orlando from that list based on public transit.

Transit in Central Florida is basically non-functional, and not likely to change anytime soon. The region is entirely car-centric, and there is a strong cultural bias against public infrastructure of any kind.

You can surely look up a map with lots of bus lines drawn across the Orlando core (Lynx), but the service is so remarkably horrific, I never met anyone who used Lynx in the 21 years I lived in the region.

Roads are public infrastructure.

> They'll want some place that doesn't flood or get snowbound, since their HQ city will include some distribution centers. That knocks out Minneapolis - St. Paul

Snow removal in the Minneapolis/St. Paul metropolitan area is quite efficient and even heavy snowfall rarely causes issues. Plenty of large companies are headquartered here and do not struggle with this issue, ex: UnitedHealth, Target, Best Buy, and 3M.

Atlanta has Georgia Tech but would need to build public transport, picking Baltimore would let them be near the Acela corridor. Baltimore might be a safe bet methinks.

Austin, Denver, Chicago, Kansas City, St. Louis, would almost be shoe-ins if they weren't in the middle or on the west coast. All have some public transport, and good universities. It would be quite a coup if a smaller more "standalone" city got it like Charlotte, Columbus, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Indianapolis, Nashville, Pittsburgh, Orlando, San Antonio, Minneapolis, or Detroit. Not sure which of these could build public transport fast enough.

I would agree they probably don't want to be near extreme weather, but I don't think they would necessarily discount a city because of snow. Not having good universities could be a deal breaker. Dallas is the definition of sprawl, sorry Dallas.

I would disagree that Minneapolis is disqualified for the reasons you gave. They already have a fulfillment center about half an hour from Minneapolis and a small development office downtown. The real question is whether there is enough local talent here to fill their needs.

A few points not yet mentioned: - Increasing the diversity of the Amazon culture by having an HQ in a new city will help Amazon understand the customer better... the last election has shown how little we all understand each other. - Could Amazon be planning to eventually split the consumer and cloud divisions into two companies? - Is this an opportunity to flip a red state to a blue state by getting a lot of tech workers to be employed in a red state? Which cities/states are closest to flipping? Atlanta, Pittsburg/Phil, Detroit, Cleveland, Phoenix, Austin/Houston?

Mexico is probably out given the current administration's positions

I don't think the current administration would complain if thousands of mostly liberal tech workers moved to Mexico.

What about NJ? It's not really a city but it's the densest state and they could pick a location close to NYC. I read somewhere they want the place to be immigrant-friendly and NJ is that.

Phoenix does not qualify the mass transit requirement in any way shape or form. Public transit here is shit.

I think we can assume that Jeff Bezos saw how Elon Musk played the game in 2014 to find a location for Tesla's GigaFactory.[1][2][3]

The upcoming stories for Amazon's high-profile decision will probably play out in a similar way. However, the particular candidate cities probably won't be the same since Elon was building a site for factory workers whereas Jeff is building a campus for more software developers. Therefore, a location like Austin with U.Texas compsci students to recruit is more important for Amazon HQ2 than a Gigafactory.

The desire to attract tech employers like Amazon appears to be more competitive than winning the bid to host the Olympic Games.

[1] http://www.businessinsider.com/how-elon-musk-ingeniously-man...

[2] https://www.forbes.com/sites/michelinemaynard/2014/02/27/the...

[3] google results of similar stories: https://www.google.com/search?q=tesla+bidding+nevada+texas

>The desire to attract tech employers like Amazon appears to be more competitive than winning the bid to host the Olympic Games.

And for good reason! There aren't many companies that people would be willing to move across the US to join.

People tend not to move around too much after University of their first job. Having another magnet to bring in people for relatively little (compared to a university's for example) is a great deal for a city.

Based on how many have moved to Seattle Amazon is one of them though.

You have to consider that this may be a political move by Bezos. The term "anti-trust" has been brought up a lot lately in regards to 'Big Tech.' If Amazon becomes a big employer in a lot of low population states, it would effectively be buying itself those states's Senators and creating an 'Amazon Industrial Complex.'

On the other hand, Bezos might want to just move the margins and try to make a purple state blue. For a big state, that might make have a bigger impact and make more sense, especially since you're not going to find 50,000 software engineers in Montana.

I think Cincinnati could be a good choice. I don't know much about Cincinnati, except that it's in Ohio and borders Indiana and Kentucky, and that it's not a tech hub. But, I don't think it would be that hard to convince a lot of people to move there. If the move is really successful, it could create somewhat of a tech hub there, which would have spillover effects in those other states (giving them 3 for the price of 1?).

As a generalization, the people who want to work for Amazon tend to be more on the progressive wing, and an HQ in a heavily conservative region would make it harder to hire talent.

I would guess places like Denver/Boulder (where Google has a site coming), Boston, Portland, or Las Vegas are much more likely than Austin, Charlotte, or Salt Lake City

Anybody who says People's Republic of Austin (ref: Bernie movie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JREkqCvLzSo) is not on progressive wing is kidding.

Also, Whole Foods is head-quartered in Austin, so there could be "synergy" there.

Although Austin is in Texas, it is famous for being independent. It's also fairly progressive.

Why do you think that Ohio (Cincinnati) is a conservative stronghold? They are typically considered a swing state.

I would not be too surprised if the final decision was Columbus. There's no shortage of land, there's reasonable access to tech talent, a reasonably solid major research university, prices are comparatively low, and the city also has a positive reputation in a way that neither Cleveland or Cincinnati have. Further, the current governor and legislature of Ohio have really been going to bat in recent years to try to turn Columbus into a tech hub to generally revitalize Ohio.

It's plausible. One of the things that protected Walmart for the last 25 years, was its high distribution among red states and mid to low population areas (blue cities have notoriously disliked Walmart and worked to keep them out). They overwhelmingly sought to appeal to the lower to middle classes in terms of their customer demographics and still have wide support there politically.

Have to agree that Amazon will go for either the mid-west or east coast as the hub. It's the logical political choice, to re-balance itself away from the west coast as a center. To compete with Walmart & big retail politically, it'll need far greater physical representation within states.

I dont think it's political.

Seattle is a competitive market, which is slowly trending towards SV, SFO.

A 2nd HQ makes a ton of sense for Amazon.

> For a big state, that might make have a bigger impact and make more sense, especially since you're not going to find 50,000 software engineers in Montana.

I bet you would if you announced next month that Amazon was opening an 8,000,000 square foot facility in Montana and would be hiring software developers at Amazon wages.

Have you seen any evidence that Bezos is willing to trade the interests of his company for a beneficial impact on society? I haven't, and it doesn't seem in keeping with what I know about him. He's going to look for the best place for Amazon in the medium and long term.

Of course personally I'd love it if they chose a swing state and added 50-100,000 progressive-leaning voters to its population...

He was willing to (personally) buy the Washington Post, but I agree that it doesn't mean politics will factor into his decisions at Amazon.

Come to Atlanta! Great schools, great weather, downtown is under utilized, decent mass transit. One of the fastest grow tech locations in the country.

We offer, no hurricanes, no earthquakes, no tidal waves, no forest fires, no flooding, and once every 10 year snow storms. We are on the opposite coast which protects you from N Korean actions. Plus you can fly anywhere from our airport!

Atlanta is also subject to the whims of a state legislature that passed a "religious freedom bill" that required the governor's veto as recently as last year.

and sadly, a number of the gubernatorial candidates have indicated they are in favor of this bill.

What about Chattanooga? It's in the same area with a rapidly-growing startup/tech scene, but it has gigabit municipal internet and a slightly cooler climate.

Chattanooga is great! Just not sure if they have the infrastructure to handle that big of a corp. And Gigbit is kinda passe by now.

They recently put a giant fulfillment center in Chattanooga- which really would make Atlanta an even better choice for HQ2

Atlanta was one of the top places that came to my mind given their requirements. It's really compares favorably with Seattle for size, access, tech talent.

Having grown up in ATL and moved to SEA I don't think there's a lot of tech talent in ATL, but there's tons of potential for that to change. GT's college of computing has ~4k undergrads and masters. There's also ga state and emory within a short drive.

Right now it seems like mailchimp is getting as much of the graduates as they can.

A reasonable choice to be sure, but I do disagree on the weather and mass transit part. Atlanta's urban sprawl means that fewer residents live near a transit stop than in most cities of comparable size. And the weather - obviously that's a personal choice, but for me the heat and humidity in summer is debilitating.

ATL does have marta it's just that white people neglected it for most of it's history.

The last year I lived in ATL I took marta to work as my commute.

Summer is hot for sure. But in a world of AC I find it doesn't bother me as much. I go for a bike ride at 7 am when its 73 outside, and work all day!

As for the sprawl, there is a huge building boom going on inside the city, 10's if not a 100 thousand new apartments going up. Bike lanes being added, its actually becoming civilized!

> "no hurricanes"

Don't jinx it.

Agree. Atlanta is a great choice.

Except that I want to live in Atlanta even less than I want to live in Seattle. It has a kind of psychic oppression field over it that makes me want to immediately turn around and leave.

Atlanta looks good on paper. It always does. But actually being in the city tells me a different story.

That said, I think only Atlanta, NYC, Chicago, or Boston could absorb the extra demand for skilled employees without sucking the wind out of the other local businesses' sails. The Texan cities could, too, but I don't think Amazon will go there, for some reason.

If Amazon plopped down in Chattanooga or Harrisburg, or even Indianapolis or Detroit, it would exhaust the local talent pool immediately, and cause a local inflation bubble.

"Decent mass transit" huh...

I'm surprised that no one has mentioned Pittsburgh yet. uber did some early self driving pilots there. CMU is there. Google has a large office there. Amazon has also started hiring software engineers for an office in Pittsburgh too. Cost of living is very cheap. Many upsides to Pittsburgh. I don't know what the city could afford in terms of subsidies though.

Philly sits halfway between NYC and DC, via Amtrak or I-95. They could get in on the new project to cap the rail yards next to 30th Street Station and find themselves situated between the University of Pennsylvania and Drexel campuses, with Temple University a stone's throw away and Princeton accessible via NJT/SEPTA regional rail.

There's also available suburban sites in Southern NJ and Malvern, PA that are accessible via mass transit, the Navy Yard (which desperately needs a subway spur) and tons of developable/reclaimable industrial space in North Philly.

Given how accommodating PHL has been with Comcast, I'm sure Amazon could get what they need.

Pittsburgh was my first thought. Northeast near DC/NYC, colleges, low cost (for now), a city with good bones

I have mixed feelings about this for Pittsburgh. The main con is 50,000 tech jobs in this city means a lot of new people. Being conservative, we can call it 30,000 new families. I think that will cause chaos in the housing market and increase the cost of living. I'm not sure about it.

There is real estate downtown that (I believe) is still undeveloped and unplanned where the Igloo was. The biggest issue I see is travel. There are no direct flights almost anywhere from PIT.

PA Corporate tax is one of the highest in the country. Though it's not a terrible option.

How does that affect a company like Amazon that cam claim its primary HQ in another state, and its actual realized revenue as mostly in other states? What part of Amazon's profits would get taxed in PA?

Philadelphia has gross receipts tax. It is a no go.

Effective rate, or published rate?

Agree, when tech company choose sites, they tends to locate near schools. Somewhere in Midwest is no go, since Amazon would find it difficult to recruit people. I would say Pittsburgh is a reasonable bet.

Apple and Microsoft also have a presence here.

They mention at-site transit in the RFP, and the transit in Pittsburgh seems light.

To the suburbs, yes. Just a few park-n-ride lots.

Inside the city to downtown is pretty good though. Lots of busses to downtown and oakland from the most popular neighborhoods (East Liberty, Shadyside, Lawrenceville, etc).

It's pretty light in Seattle too

Why not put HQ2 in Vancouver?

Okay, yes, house prices are unrealistic, but hear me out:

1. Not in the US (helpful for any non-American employees who can't get a visa or don't want to live in the current political climate in the US)

2. Relatively easy for Americans to work in Canada

3. Close proximity to Seattle

4. Canadian salaries are typically lower than America, so this could be a huge boon to Canadians working in tech that they're finally paid similar to US counterparts and/or Amazon can save a bundle on salary costs by paying the Canadian market rate...

Why not? Because the single greatest threat to Amazon's business continuity is a major quake in Seattle. Vancouver sits on some of the same tectonic plates.

It's likely that this move is, in part, an attempt to address the business continuity risk.

Ottawa is an excellent candidate for this as it sits squarely on the Canadian Shield.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Shield

Not only that but the public transit is undergoing rapid modernization (ie: light rail) and the software industry is spiking.

They need it to be in America due to the current political climate here. Many politicians are looking at Amazon with an unfriendly eye. Investing Billions in the US and hiring tens of thousands helps remove that pressure. Doing all of that in a foreign country would be political suicide for them right now.

Salaries are lower in Canada indeed. Plus, their are substantial credits both at the federal and provincial levels to recuperate developer salary costs (30%+). Ubisoft and other studios have their R&D in Montreal just for this reason. There is a big talent pool in and around Montreal. Would be an ideal location.

> There is a big talent pool in and around Montreal. Would be an ideal location.

True, Montreal is also a great potential city for HQ2. They already have quite a tech presence there (OVH data centre, game studios, some media production)

Taxes are too high in Quebec. Also, not sure people in Montreal want to be dominated by Amazon and have it turn into some new Amazon-centric tech hub. It is doing relatively well without a megacorp there.

Amazon has had a development site in Vancouver for more than 6 years. It's one of the larger North American outposts today. The area probably doesn't have enough locally created talent to be the second HQ, and cost of living isn't favorable if you need to relocate large numbers of people. Doubling down on the PNW doesn't do much for cultural or geographic diversity, imo.

I'd imagine a city like Windsor might be better suited. There's tonnes of space for the HQ, it's close to the border, it has relatively easy access to Detroit Metro Airport, and has its own local airport for those flying within Ontario.

I'm sure every medium sized Canadian city will be clamouring for this.

Amazon already has a fairly sizeable office in Downtown Detroit, and a huge number of Canadians from Windsor working there. Would it make more sense to expand that?

If we are looking at Canada, Montreal could be attractive. Lower labor cost, large amount of schools churning out tech talent (including strong AI programs). Eastern timezone. Still reasonable housing prices.

Obviously there are down sides, perpetual construction, governmental corruption, and Airport kinda sucks but it's still not too hard to access. Visa situation for US workers isn't too bad under NAFTA most of their (US and Canadian citizen) employees could transit between the two at will with a simple VISA

They would probably get the incentives they want if they did move there too from the provincial and federal level.

I agree with these points, but I think the property costs are going to be a non-starter. I know housing is expensive in Vancouver so I'm assuming, possibly incorrectly, that office space will be at a premium as well. This puts Vancouver at a disadvantage since another metro can offer an insane tax deal plus cheaper property.

How about Calgary?

1. Huge amounts of Vacant office space.

2. > 1 Million People

3. No earthquakes

4. Educated population

5. Commuter rail (green line will make this even better)

6. Low corporate tax rates

7. Way lower cost of living then Toronto/Vancouver

8. Cheaper salaries

9. A very willing government

10. Close to tons of outdoor activities (similar to Denver here)

Calgary has major towers being built with < 50% vacancy, amazon here would be supported by almost everyone.

companies in Vancouver compete for a lot of the same talent that companies in Seattle do. Amazon already has a large office in Van and the local universities don't generate enough software eng. talent to justify having it so close.

And there are already more than 1000 Amazon employees in Vancouver. A couple warehouses that have easy access to China/Pacific shipping.

And the False Creek Flats are going through planned urbanization at the moment: http://vancouver.ca/files/cov/false-creek-flats-plan-2017-05...

Canadian market rate and Vancouver housing prices already kind of turn me off from this

Amazon's page says they'll bring high-paying jobs though, so I don't think that would be a major issue.

pretty sure they want to be further from seatlle on purpose (east coast ? south ?)

Why I wonder? While they're gobbling up DT Sea, they only have 1 building in Bellevue. Isn't there room to set up shop in Fremont or Kirkland and poach more engineers from Microsoft/Tableau/Expedia etc and reducing commute times? Not seeing the upside. This is a major management overhead, managing culture between both, all hands, IT infrastructure.

Austin, TX is a good candidate. Very strong engineering university attracting nationwide talent, better cost of living, they already have an office there so they must have some relationship w/ local govt, a good climate contrast to Seattle being much drier (barring the occasional hurricane), a Google Fiber city. $5B buys a lot more there than most places in the US.

I think many Seattlites would be OK with Amazon not gobbling up even more of the local economy.

As far as some of the outlying areas, I think it comes down to signaling around tax breaks from the governor[1] and available office space inventory.

[1] https://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/news/2017/07/07/inslee-v...

Perhaps they're working to help recruiting. It might be easier to attract top talent in a different area (for example, if they situated in Pittsburgh as another commenter mentioned, they could more easily recruit CMU grads/professors).

It also can't hurt their business to reduce their dependency on a single state/local government's policies.

Amazon is a frugal company and competing with FB/Uber/Snap/Lyft/literally every SV/SF startup was never part of the plan. Seattle used to be the cheap amazing engineering secret. Then everyone caught onto this and moved to the region. Once engineering salaries started to creep up into California territory it was only natural they'd want to leave for cheaper pastures.

> Why is Amazon choosing its second headquarters location via a public process?

Because Foxconn got such an amazing deal and we want to get some of those sweet, sweet tax credits, too

Amazon is more or less conducting an auction. Cities will bid on hosting their second HQ. The best bid wins. Or maybe a better analogy is the Olympics site selection process.

Yup. "Amazon seeks a city to provide cushy tax credits in exchange for vague, unenforceable promises of job creation" would've been a more accurate headline.

I'd argue Research Triangle Park (RTP) is better choice than Austin. Instead of using one feeder school Amazon could pull from three excellent schools: Duke University, North Carolina State University, and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. For those that are unfamiliar RTP is a major tech center.

Edit: Changed "RTP" to "Research Triangle Park" in initial comment.

I agree. There's a huge tech workforce in RTP, very good universities, affordable costs of living (which I suppose translates to affordable business property). Another indication: Take a look at the size of the Triangle AWS Meetup group on Meetup.com. It has 879 members.

I've been to Pittsburgh too, and I do think that a possibility. One advantage that Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill has over Pittsburgh is weather. Amazon is very fault-tolerant minded. There's not much chance they'd need to close the facility in Raleigh because of a blizzard (although it has happened a few rare times).

Forgive my ignorance, what is RTP?

Research Triangle Park- between Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill, North Carolina, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Research_Triangle_Park

Trying to figure that out too. I assume they're talking about the "Research Triangle" area, but I can't figure out what the P is.

Best guess: Dallas Forth-Worth?

That would be great! However a number of companies (like PayPal) cancelled their plans to move to the area last year because of the HB2 debacle. Not sure how Amazon feels about that. Good thing is that the situation seems to have normalized now with a democrat governor and some big companies (like HSBC) moving here this year.

I'd agree, Raleigh area would be a great choice. It is growing with lower cost of living than other tech centers.

If you take their transit and airport requirements seriously, Atlanta and perhaps Miami are top contenders. I'm biased, but the list of requirements looks like a description of a currently undeveloped area of downtown Atlanta that has been targeted for redevelopment:

https://atlanta.curbed.com/2017/6/30/15900526/downtown-atlan...

http://atlantaintownpaper.com/2017/08/lawmakers-want-revive-...

Looking at the RFP, minus the mass transit, it seems like it was written for Atlanta. And Atlanta has so many urban infill areas available for development.

Silicon Slopes? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_Slopes

- Population > 1,000,000

- Serviced by 2 great universities (UoU, BYU)

- Utah is a top 5 state for # of Unicorn Companies

From the wiki I shared: "The Utah Governor's Office of Economic Development allows a variety of grants and tax incentives to companies willing to either relocate or expand their enterprise"

Note: I live in Seattle, not Utah.

Socially, Utah could not be more different than Seattle. SLC is one thing, but that's one small slice of a much bigger state.

You'd be able to attract people who live there already, but there's 0 chance someone like me would be interested in living there.

Note: I work for Amazon, but have no input at all in this process. This is the first I'm hearing about it.

I completely agree with that generalization

The people who want to work for Amazon wouldn't like living in Utah, and the people living in Utah wouldn't like the people who work for Amazon

I've been in tech in Southern Utah for almost 20 years, and it's extremely difficult to find qualified people.

If I didn't have a house I love, and family around, I would have left a long time ago.

I live in SLC, Utah and I generally agree with this. I'm constantly shut down because I say that "Happy Valley" will never be able to attract high quality individuals, mainly because it so horrible out there.

Shutdown like this: https://www.reddit.com/r/SaltLakeCity/comments/6yqfgw/after_...

True, to an extent. You are right in that that residents of SLC (plus similar areas like Park City and Ogden) are politically disenfranchised due the state being something of a theocracy.

However, SLC itself is actually pretty liberal and has a lot to offer. It's far from perfect (mainly: air quality issues in winter and the political issues), but anywhere you choose has a different set of compromises. Is it right for you? Probably not, but I promise it's a better place to live than it looks from the outside.

Utah could be a great fit based on Amazon's preferences for a site if they build something along the I-15 corridor. It's within 30 miles of a population center, within 45 minutes to the airport, directly off a major highway, front runner rail stations run along I-15, and you might be able to find 100 acres of space - especially if they were to put it out where the prison is now (it's moving soon).

I know you want to pitch SS but saying UoU and BYU are great universities is just wrong. Indeed, attracting talent in Utah is going to be one of Amazon's biggest challenges if it opens an office there.

I wonder if SLC would be disqualified because it would harm rather than help Amazon's diversity efforts.

I live in Salt Lake City, Utah. I do AWS security consulting. I would love this. I've lived all over the US (Boulder, SF, Austin, DC, and more) and because I do remote work I can work anywhere, and I chose to move here as the best place for my interests.

gasp You forgot UVU!

I'll suggest a dark horse candidate: Indianapolis. Indy is close to two top 5 engineering colleges (UIUC and Purdue) and one top 10 business school (IU). Purdue has a unique product history with Amazon [1] and Amazon has four warehouses within an hour drive (though to be fair, that's true of a lot of cities). The city has seen major investment from outside tech companies like Salesforce [2], IAC [3], and others in recent years. Real estate and cost of living inside the city is ridiculously cheap, and there are hundreds of undeveloped acres [4] startlingly close to city center. The city has proven itself capable of hosting 400,000 people in a single day at the Indy500 every year. The state and city has a history of giving large tax incentives to outside tech companies [5].

[1] https://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/releases/2014/Q3/purdue,-ama...

[2] http://www.indystar.com/story/opinion/2017/05/20/why-salesfo...

[3] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-05-01/iac-to-ac...

[4] http://www.indystar.com/story/money/2017/05/02/550m-gm-stamp...

[5] https://www.ibj.com/articles/58486-salesforce-to-invest-40m-...

Unlikely. One of the requirements is daily direct flights to/from Seattle. Indy does technically have that but it's exactly 1 flight with poor timing for business considerations. They list a few other destinations as must-have nonstop flights, but I'm not sure how good those are. They're also putting a lot of stress on public transit, which is pretty abysmal in Indiana. They also don't want to sacrifice on some of their values surrounding renewable energy, recycling, composting, etc. I lived in Indiana for over 10 years and can't say I've ever seen a compost bin at a restaurant, and can count on one hand the number of places with recycling bins (for public use anyway, most places would recycle their boxes at least).

That said, moving some place in the midwest would be very interesting. Amazon has a lot of employees that are from those areas, so if they want to start moving teams it would probably not be too hard.

Having lived in Indianapolis for about 15 years, I also say it is unlikely. The talent pool is too shallow, because tech employers just haven't been there. I had to move to Chicago after graduating in order to get a [decent, career-advancing] job as a software professional. The majority of my high school friends also moved out to find jobs after college.

And parent confirms some of the other problems I have with Indy. Unigov overwhelmed the urban core with township voters, so city-county government is atypically conservative for a Midwestern city, which has a major impact on statewide politics. (Still less conservative than where I am now, though, and trust me when I say that being liberal or libertarian in a conservative state is like rubbing a cheese grater on your soul every time you visit the polls--no good options, and sometimes you don't even get two whole evils from which to choose the lesser.)

If you want to fly anywhere, you have to connect through ORD (American, United), MDW (Southwest), or ATL (Delta, Southwest). The direct flight to anywhere probably only runs once a day or less.

Also, all the tech people with kids will undoubtedly cluster in southern Hamilton county, and Washington or Lawrence townships, which won't be great for traffic, because there's no limited-access highway to downtown from anywhere on the north side. And what public transit? I might have seen a bus once or twice, while visiting downtown, within a 5-block radius of the circle. And the hospitals have a monorail since the merger, I guess. Beyond that, you're driving or walking.

The state government has very recent precedent of subsidizing nonstop flights [1], because it recognizes that they are key to drawing external investment in the city. This year, taxpayers voted to add a new north/south rapid transit line [2]. Maybe more importantly; public transit isn't as important in indy as it is in other cities. Substantially lower cost of living and a more sparse downtown allows driving to be more affordable, the city has some of the best traffic [3] of any major metropolitan area worldwide, and it is very bike friendly [4] with the downtown trails and a growing downtown core.

[1] http://onemileatatime.boardingarea.com/2017/09/06/delta-indi...

[2] http://www.indystar.com/story/news/local/marion-county/2017/...

[3] http://www.indianapolismonthly.com/the-hoosierist/hoosierist...

[4] https://www.rewardexpert.com/blog/studies/2017s-best-destina...

The direct flight requirement is odd. Adding flights is trivial, and it will happen if Amazon is buying the tickets. Airlines like to make money.

The flights will come as soon as the demand is there.

It always amuses me how stunningly bad Amazon really is at making standalone pages on their web site. This one is totally unresponsive, has images for headings, and a slightly blurry image for the table. Here's Amazon Locker, which is even more dismal: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Click-and-Collect-with-Amazon-Locke...

I guess they must have to produce all this stuff within the constraints of their CMS, but it really does make me wonder why they can't build better standalone pages outside of it if the occasion arises.

You'll notice the same applies to Amazon's mobile apps too.

I think they just prioritize functionality over aesthetics. In a lot of cases you can claim aesthetics lead to higher customer satisfaction and conversion, but I'm certain they've A-B tested the crap out of every decision for maximum purchases.

Amazon has many examples where they execute so poorly as to verge on the incompetent. Take the ads on the Kindle for example: why advertise books to me which I already own and purchased from Amazon? And then there is Prime video streaming, which is unwatchable through some client devices in the same house where Netflix is consistently excellent quality. I think they just have big areas where they don't give a rat's ass about doing any better than "meh".

The fact that the table is in image is just lazy web development - which is pretty disappointing coming from a major company like Amazon. I understand this isn't a major client-facing site, but it would still be nice to put some effort into it.

A skilled front-end designer/developer could convert that to an HTML table in a few minutes. Instead they throw up a 672KB 6250 × 1563 JPG image which manages to appear blurry when downscaled.

Oh wow, the JPEG block artifacts in the big orange buttons on that Amazon Locker page are really something. Thank you for sharing!

I don't know if they've changed the table image on the HQ page since your post, but at the moment, it looks to me like the blurriness is mostly due to the way my browser is scaling the image down to 1280x320 px dimensions. The JPEG is large (6250x1653 px and 655 kiB) and looks sharp enough at 100% scale.

This seems like a case where using vector graphics would be more appropriate, or at least not scaling the image down by a weird factor like 4.88.

Edit: I transposed some digits when typing into the calculator and initially thought height and width were being scaled by different factors.

That page is actually responsive, just based on user agent rather than viewport dimensions

You can also notice that this page loads 112Mo for images...

> totally unresponsive

You mean it's not weighed down with tons of JavaShit and annoying transition effects?

Minnesota. Budget surplus, tons of F500 companies / large companies to recruit from and a strong university system, with lots of other states to draw from, being the largest city in the area, save Chicago.

Lots of retail in that area. BestBuy HQ, Target HQ, and a host of others. A lot of their suppliers have satellite offices in the area as well. Seems like a solid choice.

This is one of the most likely locations I've read of so far. Minneapolis, Austin, Boulder in that order.

Denver possibly, but absolutely not Boulder. Boulder is a complete failure when it comes to transportation -- no light rail connection to Denver's system, although they collected sales tax for years claiming that was going to finance it; also, adding 50,000 new workers in a city of 100,000 would simply crush the existing infrastructure. Plus the local city council has been on a quixotic quest to confiscate electric utilities (distribution without production). The local developers have been giddy for the last few years that Google is bringing one thousand workers there, that's how strained housing already is.

Amazon has a small, but growing technical office in Minneapolis, as well as a DC in the suburbs.

It's also very affordable, with public transportation.

I think an East Coast city definitely makes the most sense. Realistically though, they probably can't get enough land in the ideal spot of NYC/Jersey meaning the next best options are DC, Philly and Atlanta. Baltimore could be a dark horse candidate. There's already a lot of construction going on there courtesy of Under Armour building out a new HQ. Charlotte could be an option as well.

My money would be on D.C. Lots of access to government agencies that could add a lot of AWS business, a major concentration of highly-skilled tech workers and colleges, close to the Washington Post, and a lot of up and coming neighborhoods in the southwest/southeast quadrants of the city. Also wouldn't hurt that it's on the opposite side of the country to add some geographic diversity.

I'd include Boston in there too. They already have a large presence in the area.

Baltimore would be a great choice. Easy to draw talent from DC area -- housing prices much lower. Plenty of land both right in town (sad, actually) and in the suburbs. Would be a very big fish in town, and could do much to revitalize an entire city. World-class university in-town. Has a subway. DC right next door to lobby like crazy. And don't forget that Bezos has purchased a house in DC himself.

Was thinking the same thing. I'll be a little surprised if it's NOT Atlanta just between the city, airport, public transit and Georgia Tech.

Thinking about what cities should lay out the red carpet, if I were a city official in, say, St. Louis or Detroit, I'd be putting together an incentive plan worth billions. Amazon could turn around an entire mid-size city.

Amazon announced plans to open up a Detroit tech office a few years ago [1].

[1]: http://www.freep.com/story/money/business/michigan/2015/09/2...

Have a look at what St. Louis offered to keep the NGA in the city:

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/metro/st-louis-prepares-f...

Columbus, Ohio seems like a good choice. I do agree with St. Louis and Detroit too.

And then have it (the city) by the balls forever, to the detriment of the human inhabitants who are supposed to be the ones in charge of deciding what government does.

Excellent. I think we've gone too far in trying to put all the tech work in the spots where early tech companies happened to spring up.

In the long term, I'd like to see VCs not be so provincial in their investments, so that people can start companies where they are. But in the short term, having established companies put offices elsewhere is a great next step.

> A stable and business-friendly environment and tax structure will be high-priority considerations for the Project. Incentives offered ... will be significant factors in the decision-making process.

It's a race to the bottom. Don't fall for it. Pro sports teams, recently Foxconn, they're all running the same game. You will all end up overbidding in order to win the deal and your constituents will foot the bill.

This is far from true. Jobs bring sales taxes, property taxes etc etc. Football stadiums pale in comparison. People in Seattle complain that there are "too many high income people around spending too much on stuff, raising the prices". If youre a city wanting growth, adding one of the largest national employers seems like a good bet.

I think it's possible Amazon is not so much shopping for a second HQ as it is looking to move work from the high rent, pro union Seattle area. Only, they saw how much negative press Boeing received after making their true intentions known for moving work to southern states. Amazon is being sneakier. If all works out, long term I imagine much of their high end development work may move from Seattle.

I don't think they would gain much negative press if they said they were moving jobs out of Seattle. The people who care about union jobs generally see software engineers as gentrifiers and would prefer that they left and stopped driving rent up.

From memory the reason Amazon was based in Seattle was that it was close to book publisher warehouses, that is no longer a good reason to remain there.

Are unions affecting Amazon?

To me, this screams Philadelphia.

45 minutes to NYC, 2 hours to DC, two of the biggest talent pools in the country, in a city of 2 million that has been making significant steps forward in the last 10 years.

It is cheap, offers all the urban amenities one could desire, it's close to the beach, I would absolutely move back if I got a good job offer.

If Bezos is into politics, Philadelphia is in a purple state. He will have a massive influence there.

I used to live in Philadelphia, I really loved my time there. It is a hugely underrated city IMO, and probably the most urban feeling in the country behind NYC and Chicago.

Philly is as multicultural as you can get, try taking a walk in Center City and you'll see what I mean.

Comcast has made a home in the city, and I know that they have made an excellent deal with the city government considering the massive investments they are making in Center City.

I know there are other options, I really don't see anything more fitting that Philadelphia though besides maybe Denver or Twin Cities.

-Current DC resident dreaming of moving back to Philadelphia

RFPs are due by Oct 19. My first reaction was "there's no way city and state governments can work together to produce incentive packages that quickly".

On second thought, it makes me wonder if they're shopping for local governments which can be that responsive with an eye on getting stuff done efficiently in the future (permitting, zoning).

I actually hope this is a city where housing affordability is made more sustainable up front. Something to avoid the way New York and San Francisco have evolved into landlords and rent seekers drowning the wealth generation of incumbents

Something tells me housing will suddenly become a little less affordable after Amazon comes to town.

If Amazon decides to build housing and includes below market rate housing for low income people this could work, but given the focus on subsidies and tax breaks in the RFP, I highly doubt this will happen. My guess is that this will only increase strain on whichever housing market receives the HQ.

Manhattan has been expensive for a very long time in spite of growing housing significantly.

The challenge is that they can go to places where housing is cheap and there's a lot of capacity. Detroit, Las Vegas... But they'd probably still have trouble attracting a lot of tech workers to those areas. [ADDED: Although Michigan is better than people in the Web tech bubble think in this regard.]

counterpoint: How many developers will move to Ohio to work for Amazon?

Chicago: Plenty of tech talent, cheap, nice city, convenient transportation, easy to fly all over. For employees with kids, top notch schools in the area, both private and public.

I'm not from the US, but as an outsider it would probably be a good idea for this second headquarter to not be on the West Coast. A little diversity wouldn't hurt :)

That, and somewhere that doesn't have volcanoes and earthquakes.

Seriously, they should look in New Jersey. Lots of tech talent from NYC that doesn't want the commute or insane prices of the city.

They probably won't. NJ's corperate tax rate is higher than california's. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_tax_in_the_United_St...

selfishly, i agree completely. But where could all this fit, and cost of doing business here is painfully expensive.

Amazon is planning to hire another 20,000 people in Seattle within 3 years, on top of the 40,000 they currently have there. Then another 50,000 HQ office workers at HQ2, so overall HQ staff is expected double within 5-10 years. (Even if some of the Seattle headcount shifts to HQ2, it'll still be close to a doubling.)

It's mind boggling to me that they foresee their HQ staff doubling; I lack the imagination to guess what all those people are going to be doing. Aside from physical retail, what markets might they be eyeing?

Transportation, including logistics and deliveries of course, but also innovative infrastructure to move people.

Also, vertical farming.

Bezos: Alexa, buy me a city, we need new headquarters. Alexa: City acquired.

It's so crazy to see a company make cities apply for hosting them, instead of them applying for space in a city. But I guess that given the size of Amazon, it's actually worth more than most cities in the world anyway...

It's all about tax breaks. This is a blatant attempt by Amazon to get years of taxes abated in order to provide the increased regional economic benefit of... doing exactly what they'd do anyways if they didn't get the break. US city and state then competes against other US cities and states in a battle to provide the larger tax break.

It's an odious practice in my opinion, and I wish lawmakers would do something to curb it. But being able to tell your constituents "Hey, look at me, I got Amazon to come here!" makes for great campaigning.

Let's say I'm the mayor of Detroit, and I want this. What incentives are in my power to offer, if I team up with the Guv'nor? Can I just gift them the land?

Click through into the RFP and there's a section touching on this:

  Incentives 
  –
  Identify incentive programs available for the Project at the state/province and local 
  levels. Ou tline the type of incentive (i.e. land, site preparation, tax credits/exemptions, relocation 
  grants, workforce grants, utility incentives/grants, permitting, and fee reductions) and the amount. 
  The initial cost and ongoing cost of doing business are critic
  al decision drivers.

You wouldn't be able to gift them the land, but you would probably be able to waive property tax on said land. I know Detroit has a city income tax, so the mayor may be able to waive that for all Amazon employees if they committed to moving their headquarters within city limits.

St. Louis recently offered up this footprint to the NGA to keep them in the city:

https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/stltoday.com/co...

That area has lost so many buildings over the last 30 years that it's practically an urban prairie, but they did use eminent domain to get the few remaining residents out.

In short, yes, land is on the table.

cost of land is probably the least of amazon's considerations in building a second HQ

edit: to elaborate, what they care much more about, i'm sure, is ability to attract and retain talent in the area. which I'm not sure detroit could do much about. even if you could make it more desirable to live there there's so little talent in the area you'd have to spend a crazy amount of time and money relocating people

tax incentives are most common. (i worked in the business development office of a state government for a very short duration)

I'd imagine it would be along the same lines of what movies / studios get to shoot in certain cities -- relief from various tax types, priority in various permits, etc

What city would you move to so you can work at HQ2?

I'm already in Austin. I'd stay here. Though realistically they'd open an office way north and I wouldn't want to commute up there.

Chicago because that's where I grew up and most of my friends and family are still there.

Atlanta

Research Triangle Park, NC

Denver

Austin

Pittsburgh

Vancouver

Los Angeles

DC Area

Cleveland

Buffalo

Salt Lake City

Indianapolis

Columbus, OH

Memphis

Phoenix

Las Vegas

San Francisco without a doubt.

While I think it's true that this is at least partially motivated by potential tax-incentives, it's also a smart diversification move by Amazon. Right now they're at the mercy of the Seattle voter, which is a dangerous place to be for a large corporation. Diversifying headquarters creates competition and gives them leverage.

Amazon making corporate welfare so sexy. Make those cities beg for it Jeff. Make 'em fight each other for it Jeff. Jeff, they want you and that hot HQ2 so bad.

sigh

You are not the city you live in.

Austin seems like a strong candidate, since it's a major high tech hub and Whole Foods is already headquartered there.

Everybody (except Amazon) will probably end up worse off. See Thaler's famous paper on the "Winner's Curse." http://econweb.ucsd.edu/~jandreon/Econ264/papers/Thaler%20JE...

I'm not sure what to make of this overall. The Federal Government should probably regulate this kind of behavior or at least sweeten the payoff of state cooperation. Our anti-trust regulators are really asleep at the wheel.

Canada... 'nough said. If we don't do what we can to bring Amazon North then I have absolutely zero faith in our ability to ever take tech seriously beyond the wall. I don't care where the HQ ends up so long as it's on this side of the boarder. #YYZ (Toronto) #YVR (Vancouver) or, the most likely spot, #YGK (Kingston/Waterloo) are all great options. Talent could once again stay here instead of the decade(plus)-long brain-drain to the South.

#YOW (Ottawa) should be considered a strong contender.

Should be interesting to see if they decide to go with an east coast presence. Something like Atlanta would make a lot of sense with Georgia Tech there.

Make it in Canada please.

Kitchener-Waterloo?

edit: just thought it would be a suitable talent hub. Not sure why I'm getting downvoted. Maybe Toronto would be more suitable?

> In choosing the location for HQ2, Amazon has a preference for:

> * Metropolitan areas with more than one million people

There are 10 cities in America with one million people:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_b...

> > * Metropolitan areas with more than one million people

> There are 10 cities in America with one million people:

Metropolitan areas are not the same as cities. By one definition (MSAs), there are 53 such areas with a population over 1 million.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Metropolitan_Statist...

Portland, Philadelphia, Atlanta based on what Amazon wants / needs.

I'd also say the research triangle, Salt lake city, Austin, Chicago, the twin cities, Pittsburgh, and Cincinnati

I could definitely envision a Philadelphia location. Comcast is building a new skyscraper as we speak with a ten year tax abatement. The local city government would easily grant them the same deal.

Portland suffers from the same cascade fault as Seattle and Oregon was much later to the party in terms of realizing they had a risk and addressing it.

CEOs always locate headquarters were they want to live.

IIRC, about 80% of the time that a company moves its headquarters, the headquarters move closer to where the CEO lives.

Gates moved Microsoft back to Washington, his childhood home. Does Bezos open an office in Miami?

I will "officially" hope AMZN chooses ATL (as leverage for a bigger raise) but ATL has problems.

1) traffic -- not sure it's possible to get to ATL airport in 45 min during rush hour, without using MARTA rail.

2) transit -- how much "developable" land has a mass transit stop on-site? AMZN would either have to buy a developed site or have a MARTA rail spur built.

3) ATL airport -- a certain airline has way too much power there.

But anyway, I found the perfect spot for AMZN if they can swing it - it meets their core requirements (it's even built over a MARTA rail stop) -- http://www.midtownatl.com/view/atandt-building

"ATL airport -- a certain airline has way too much power there."

And that airline is increasingly big in Seattle as well.

I wonder if this will eventually be the main HQ. Amazon is a mass market company which competes on the lowest costs. Seattle is too expensive now. Most big retail stores are not based in expensive cities Walmart is based in Arkansas, Target in Minnesota etc.

But isn't Seattle expensive because of Amazon being there?

I wish it'd go somewhere in the Deep South. It seems where tech jobs are most lacking.

The RFP says that sustainability is important. I would think Amazon would consider climate change as a factor. Miami and other South East coastal cities would be affected in the future by the increasing risk of flooding and hurricane winds.

Given how important the Dulles corridor is to aws and how big their presence is there already, and how important amazon's interaction with the federal government is getting, it seems like Northern Virginia should be in contention.

Why not in the D.C. area, perhaps near Amazon's own data centers in Ashburn? It's one of the richest, most educated places in the U.S., has huge quantities of technical talent and plenty of high quality nearby schools with strong technical programs and lots of people looking for opportunities outside of the Fed space but don't want to move to the West coast. It also is within the D.C./Baltimore/Philadelphia/NYC mega-city/region.

Ashburn hits pretty much all of their RFP requirements right away with the development of the new metro line as well.

If I had to guess, the D.C area might already be too big? They'd be competing with all the military contractors/consulting groups that exist out here for talent, housing, and transit access. Their best bet is a city that hasn't been "techified" to having exorbitant rents.

Also, any city willing to participate must have the following...

Top of the line medical centers, big ones! Fantastic sports teams, many of them. Amazing universities, state college required. Seasons, a little of everything for everyone. A small traffic problem, so it can get worse. Cheap real-estate, so it can get more expensive. A port, you know, the ones with access to shipping lanes. Land for more suburbs, so you can run out of land.

I'm sure the list is longer for the reasons why Silicon Valley and Seattle are what they are, but that's a start.

The federal government should pay Amazon to open an HQ in either Memphis, or New Orleans.

Or let's say any metro area over 30% African American and over 1 million people.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._metropolitan_area...

The major issue is that typically states ignore the needs of critical infrastructure in those cities like Tier One Carnegie Classification Universities.

This could be aimed at a specific powerful senator/congressman that can change policy.

What federal rule hampers Amazon, and if unleashed would cause great profit?

Privatize USPS Internet tax? Transportation (own roadways)

What policies?

> We are looking for a location with ... [a] business-friendly environment

Translation: we want lots of subsidies to move to your city. Because only the little people should pay taxes.

If they're after tax breaks and cheap land they can follow companies like Sprint and Garmin and build open headquarters somewhere in East Kansas.

Small qualified developer pool to draw from and hard to attract outside talent. I grew up in eastern Kansas and left in part because of dismal career prospects.

They'll end up choosing an up-and-coming city (i.e., positive population growth).

Sprint and Garmin have always been in Kansas. They didn't move here from somewhere else.

I'm too late for anyone to see this, but they could probably take the Qualcomm Stadium site in San Diego's Mission Valley. It's right on a trolley line and a very easy drive to the downtown airport, not to mention an easy flight from Seattle. UCSD is a great supplier of young talent and Qualcomm and Viasat offer engineers they can poach.

Wow, $25.7 billion total employee compensation / 50,000 employees is $514,000 per employee.

Err, that's not all in one year, right?

That's in the "Direct" section which has this footnote:

>From 2010 (when Amazon moved its headquarters to downtown Seattle) to 2017.

Some employees earn more than others, such as EVPs and upper management, but this number shouldn't seem surprising - lots of people at $300k and a few at $800k.

If there's a second HQ they can offer lower salaries compared to Seattle, then drive Seattle salaries down by threatening to move the HQ1 jobs to HQ2.

Think the table is listing figures since 2010 for the Direct column.

The research triangle[1] feels like a strong candidate. Excellent schools, close enough for flights to the North East, accommodating southern state government.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Research_Triangle

Newark, NJ.

Audible is already located there. Easy access to NYC and their many distribution centers in New Jersey.

I hope RTP bids for them! It would be great to have 3 of the Big4 in the area.

Texas has the inside track, too.

Wonder what city though... Austin's already too crowded as it is but has a great talent pool. Could be better off somewhere like San Marcos or Georgetown.

My first thoughts on this would be the Frisco area just north of Dallas. I believe it has been touted as one of the fastest growing areas in the country. The local gov't there is giving away the city just to attract business. Toyota just moved there, the Dallas Cowboys just relocated there, there are others that I'm not recalling and more is in the works. They are close to DFW airport (one of the largest) as well as smaller Lovefield (very appealing after the Wright amendment has been lifted). This airports already offer the required direct flights. As for colleges, there are so many to feed into it, that it's not really a concern. Cost of living in North Texas is very cheap, and other than the occasional tornado, environmentally it is very stable.

Why not Houston? It's major city, but it's still inexpensive. I know that Harvey and other storms would scare people away, but it's not as bad as it looks in the news. Houston area is huge and majority of the area are not affected much.

Dallas/North Dallas (Plano/McKinney/etc.)

Haven't seen it listen much but it is probably one of the top contenders. There is a reason Toyota, along with many others, moved their (U.S.) headquarters here.

San Marcos already has the SAT2 fulfillment center, I'm not certain the city would benefit from another big Amazon presence.

I think when all is said and done this will be less about tax credits and more about choosing a city that's easy to work with on core issues like transit, development, and infrastructure. There are only a few cities who can really qualify in terms of having existing talent pools and being an attractive relo destination. This isn't putting an auto plant in bumfk. But working with Seattle's leaders ain't easy for anyone--sure, would be nice to get some tax credits, but ultimately those are just one way a new HQ partner could signal that they're seriously motivated to work well together. We'll see.

My guess is that Amazon will want to effectively "own" whatever city it selects. Not only will they get incentives from government, but they'll want to have primary influence over the business and educational communities. So that when Amazon wants something, the city will go along. This will give them a laboratory for all sorts of experiments, which is both fascinating and scary.

While a city like my hometown Atlanta makes sense on paper - transportation, great schools, awesome cost of living - there are too many other big players here. I think they want a next-generation "company town."

They can come to St. Louis. Everybody else left. They can have the AT&T tower downtown, it's empty.

Buffalo NY.

Pros: -Dirt cheap, so lots of land for Amazon

-Also means employees can afford their own houses, practically unthinkable for a new hire in Seattle. Bigger perk than foosball tables!!!

-Scores of Upstate/Midwest colleges and universities to recruit talent from

-Proximity to major markets of the East Coast, the Midwest, and Ontario.

Cons:

-Snow

-New York State taxes; abatement not as likely as in other states

-Erie County population not quite 1 million

-Snow

-The Bills always blow it, it's like they're cursed.

-Did I mention snow?

Buffalo might not be the best location for Amazon, but it very well could be a good place to grow a company without spending half of your money on expensive property, and the other half on salaries high enough to afford exorbitant rents.

"A stable and business-friendly environment and tax structure will be high-priority considerations for the Project. Incentives offered by the state/province and local communities to offset initial capital outlay and ongoing operational costs will be significant factors in the decision-making process."

I'm no fan of high taxes, but holding this sort of reverse auction to see who will provide the biggest bungs rubs me the wrong way.

I think they'll end up in Providence. Very close to Boston & NYC, cheap land, reasonably close airport.

Doubtful. Just like Worcester is also doubtful. Amazon's not hurting for money to lease or buy land and TF Green is too small (not enough direct flights) compared to Logan.

The Phoenix area would be a great option.

To add to that, they already have an engineering office in Tempe.

I suspect both Phoenix and Tempe will be strong contenders.

Positives: - Affordable housing - Affordable corporate real estate - Construction boom in both cities - Local governments interested in wooing corporations

Downsides: - No deep CS university pipeline - No strong tech presence, complicating hiring - Will need to offer incentives to get people to move - Public transport is lacking

Mississauga, Ontario, Canada is probably the best place for Amazon to place its HQ.

It has a huge international airport which has tons of undeveloped land, good road networks (HWYs, well-built roads), rail road connections, a harbour (Port Credit) that can be expanded and the land prices aren't surreal. Combine all this with a well educated local populace and a low crime rate.

wow, that only leaves 10 cities with a population over a million: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_b...

Looks like Amazon is looking at metropolitan area instead of city limit.

They got tax breaks with their customer service centers, but that might have been a bad bet for the city http://www.inforum.com/business/3978404-questions-linger-aft...

It should be in NYC, there I saved them a ton of time asking for proposals.

I'm going to make the case for Toronto, for New York, and for SF / SV. The reason I don't make the case for Vancouver is that it's essentially just a Toronto with a smaller talent pool to draw on from Amazon's perspective. It's like buying the non-M version of a BWM when you're a multi-millionaire. I guess you could do it, but why? Also, I don't understand the Texas or DC tech scene but there might be options here too. Lots of NSA programmers running around and they're working on some complicated datasets.

I think the Toronto case is the strongest, but I think any of the three are good choices.

1. Toronto is the most multicultural city in the world. It is in a country with a flexible, predictable, but different, immigration system, and with a fairly robust financial sector and infrastructure. If Amazon can't get a candidate into America, they can try getting that candidate into Canada instead. This is key. America makes up only 5% of the world's population and politics aside, is no longer an ideal place for a large percentage of the world's population due to racism and hostility towards immigrants / immigration. To attract international talent (including from New England, a short flight away which can be critical for taking care of aging parents) Toronto is by far the best choice in North America. It's more expensive than Ottawa, but more fun and has a number of high quality Universities near by (Waterloo, Toronto, Queens, and others) and compared to NYC or SV much, much cheaper. Vancouver wouldn't be a terrible choice, but there's less of a talent pool to draw from and the housing market is worse there. Toronto's current mayor is very friendly to tech companies, and there is growing focus on bike lanes and mass transit which means commuters from all corners of the GTA could make it into work. Most of the cultural elite (influential journalists, actors, etc) in Canada live in Toronto, which has subtle benefits like getting Amazon into TV shows or interviews through personal connections. Playing outside in the winter kinda sucks in Toronto though, Vancouver area has it made here.

2. New York has a huge pool of highly skilled developers with experience at firms where microseconds are critical. Nobody outgrows New York. It's also a place that has international prestige. An immigrant moving to Seattle or Portland is "moving to America" according to their family whilst an immigrant to New York is "moving to New York" Americans might not understand the huge distinction between the two, but to people in Pakistan or even Canada being able to make a living in New York is proving that you're one of the best in the world. It won't completely make up for the Trump presidency, but it would be a meaningful difference. Also, right next to banks and many important regulators and press people. Tons of American cultural elite as well. One downside of going NYC is that Amazon would have less bargaining power. The city is so huge that the injection of cash and talent matters less than in Toronto or Vancouver, so special concessions are harder to come by.

3. SF / SV is the easy, pricey case. The best machine learning developers live here. Machine learning is critical to Amazon's survival. They have success hiring here, but it would be better if they had HQ2 here. Salaries are much, much higher here, however.

I think the Twin cities has a strong chance to get this.

I don't think the city or the state would be too interested in giving the type of incentives that Amazon is looking for, unfortunately.

>We expect to invest over $5 billion in construction and grow our second headquarters location to be a full equal to Amazon’s current campus in Seattle

Is this laying the groundwork for Amazon to pull a Boeing?

If Atlanta gets it I'll eat my shoe polish

SFO Bay Area - You will get everything world class. More importantly, great talent from your competitors!

Who else thinks they might just put the second headquarters in Redmond? It meets all of their criteria.

It's gonna be Denver

Let San Francisco win!

Is there a place that is so appealing it doesn't need to offer a discount?

NYC? Boston?

Probably depends on priorities, the big cities will give you greater access to talent, but would require flexibility on how a campus could be built out and how quickly it would happen.

It's likely possible to build out a campus the way you want in a large urban center. Universities do it, but they do it opportunistically over a long time.

Fun round-up of local city subreddit threads:

- https://www.reddit.com/r/StLouis/comments/6yn4lz/amazon_seek...

- https://www.reddit.com/r/philadelphia/comments/6ymtng/imagin...

- https://www.reddit.com/r/Atlanta/comments/6ymz3i/amazon_in_s...

- https://www.reddit.com/r/washingtondc/comments/6yn1ni/amazon...

- https://www.reddit.com/r/chicago/comments/6ymtgy/what_are_th...

- https://www.reddit.com/r/baltimore/comments/6ymu85/amazon_se...

- https://www.reddit.com/r/kansascity/comments/6ynkoh/amazon_s...

- https://www.reddit.com/r/Austin/comments/6ynba4/amazon_annou...

- https://www.reddit.com/r/cincinnati/comments/6yoew7/could_ci...

- https://www.reddit.com/r/pittsburgh/comments/6ynqbr/amazon_s...

- https://www.reddit.com/r/indianapolis/comments/6yo34a/amazon...

- https://www.reddit.com/r/Cleveland/comments/6yn5p3/amazon_is...

My city (Louisville) would be a prime candidate due to proximity to UPS WorldPort, and Amazon already has a bunch of facilities here.

That said, screw these guys. I'll make sure to have my voice heard if my city tries to offer them tax rebates to come here. Everyone needs to pay taxes, especially gigantic corporations. I hate that companies like this even have the nerve to expect these sorts of breaks.

Everyone needs to pay taxes

Why is this different than New Hampshire competing with other states by having no income tax?

Louisville has a local payroll tax, even if Amazon Corporate gets property or other tax breaks, 50,000 highly paid employees would bring in a lot of local tax revenue.

Doesn't it say population > 1m?

Translation: Whoever gives us the biggest tax incentives gets some of dat amazon internet money

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