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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.

Progressive islands in conservative states are almost worse

They just get diced up and have no voice in state or federal government, and you end up with things like the NC and Texas bathroom bills.

Why would a company like Amazon move to a state who's already so wrong on human rights issues? That's just asking for boycotts and mass resignations.

I'd wager it's vastly more likely Whole Foods will move away than Amazon moves in. I wouldn't be surprised if one of the main motivations for HQ2 was to move Whole Foods, and anyone else they acquire, into Amazon proper.

> Progressive islands in conservative states are almost worse

Progressive islands in conservative states is pretty much all there is, with the exception of California and New England.

Chicago is the progressive island that turns conservative Illinois blue on the map. Seattle is the progressive island that turns conservative Washington blue on the map. New York, Rochester, Syracuse, Albany, and a few others are the progressive islands that turn conservative upstate New York blue on the map. Houston, Austin, Dallas as the progressive islands that have not yet turned Texas blue on the map. etc... etc...

> Progressive islands in conservative states is pretty much all there is, with the exception of California and New England.

California is hella conservative the second you get out of the major cities...

I agree with you, but I would argue the opposite. If you wanted to tip over Texas (and make it blue), moving 50,000 progressive jobs is a great way to do it. I'm in Dallas, and we're a lot closer to doing this than you would expect. Dallas, Houston, Austin are already blue.

If you can turn Texas blue, it's game over.

> Progressive islands in conservative states are almost worse. They just get diced up and have no voice in state or federal government

Not always. If it's a small area, sure it may get split apart, except packing is a thing as well and just as big of a deal. But Austin proper has nearly a million people. The metro area is more than two million. You'd need to split it into 6-8 districts even to have a shot at creating solid Republican representation for Austin. There are 4 districts covering the city, and you'd need at least 2 for equal representation.

I'm not saying gerrymandering isn't an issue, I'm just saying that any implication the people of a city like Austin have no voice at the state or federal level is flatly wrong.

Gerrymandering is an issue. Please see https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/map, and zoom in on Austin.

Austin is a part of the following Congressional districts: TX-21, TX-25, TX-31, TX-17, TX-10, & TX-35. Of these districts, only one (TX-35) is Democratic.

On the other hand, Lamar Smith (TX-21) is one of the Representatives for the Bluest city in the state.

> > I'm not saying that gerrymandering isn't an issue

At least two of the districts you mention represent suburbs and not the city proper, which is what I was talking about.

>Why would a company like Amazon move to a state who's already so wrong on human rights issues? That's just asking for boycotts and mass resignations.

Amazon is more concerned with regulatory and tax burdens, labor costs and what kind of deal they can strike with a local government than with "human rights issues." Their labor practices are already infamous, and they have warehouses in Texas already, and no one cares enough about any of it to boycott them.

To this end, Texas is attractive because culturally it's pro-business, anti-regulation and anti-labor (and very much pro-kickback.)

Human rights are things like voting, eating, drinking, and rule of law.

The bathroom bill is an embarrassment, it's discrimination, and it needs repealed. However, it's impact is not on the same level as those other things, or even on the same level as a broad denial of service ala "Whites Only" - in part because it's completely unenforceable.

Furthermore, even under your definition of human rights, what other rights are denied uniquely in the state?

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.