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Comment by lsiq | Hacker News Reader

Wonder why PaddyPower does not have Detroit even on their (long)list: https://www.goo.gl/p55Loa

Seems like they have a flawed understanding of what's going on. Silicon Valley, or even NorCal in general, should be the last place for an HQ2.

That seems an odd list. I would probably have named San Jose as one of the least likely places among the cities submitting bids.

As for Boston, Amazon is admittedly already adding a sizable facility in the Seaport but costs for an HQ2 and cost of living in the city would seem to disqualify.

Personally, I'd put my money on a major city that isn't a current tech hub but could become more of one.

Forget about what the RFP ranks as important criteria, the only thing that really matters is Amazon's ability to hire 50,000 high-end tech industry workers (from new grads to seasoned tech executives). There is only one location in the world that can supply this kind of tech talent without draining the rest of the ecosystem and that's Silicon Valley (not including SF or Oakland here).

Google is already planning it's future growth in downtown San Jose (8 million square foot "Google Village"), Adobe is expanding it's downtown SJ presence with a fourth tower, Apple and Microsoft are planning new campuses in north SJ, and Amazon is already expanding it's South Bay presence significantly. As more companies look to expand to urban, transit oriented sites, Downtown SJ will emerge as a premier location for tech company HQs.

The Bay Area is already incredibly glutted, and is the site of most of Amazon's competitors. They already have a presence there that can be gradually expanded upon. There is no reason to build an entire second headquarters there unless they wanted to bring about even further hatred and rancor on the part of those who detest growing CoL. They would only fan the flames of anti-tech discontent. It also makes the entire HQ2 contest completely pointless, as the mayor of San Jose has already rejected it to begin with: https://www.cnbc.com/video/2017/10/05/san-jose-mayor-no-swee...

Yes, the CoL (housing in particular) is a significant issue for the entire Bay Area but that hasn't stopped the rest of the industry from continued local expansion. I would argue for a strong regional authority to tackle this issue but that's another discussion. Also, San Jose's mayor has not rejected the Amazon HQ2 proposal, only the notion of providing major financial/tax incentives to any corporation as he feels the civic benefit does not outweigh the cost.

Expansion is one thing, bringing in tens of thousands of employees with a whole new headquarters is another. Traffic alone it would be nightmarish. And the contest format would be a terrible charade; why give hope to non-tech hub communities at all if your plan was to flock to Silicon Valley like everyone else?

Yeah, if you've already reached the IMO very misguided conclusion that the only rational place to site a large tech HQ/HQ2 is the Bay area, why on earth would you go through the motions of this whole process? Hope that some Bay Area city is going to be so desperate for you to move in that they'll shower you with incentives? Possible but unlikely. And it's not like some previously unknown pool of engineering and other professional talent is going to suddenly spring up somewhere.

I'm often pretty cynical (and Amazon will certainly be looking for sweetheart deals) but this seems a legitimate effort to find a location that may not be an obvious choice.

I thought with parimutuel betting, the odds change depending upon the gamblers who are placing bets and the house ensuring the house makes money, not the house setting the odds by some insight into the field.

That's correct but this not a parimutuel wager, it's fixed odds; so if you take Atlanta at 3 to 1, you will be paid 3 to 1 for Atlanta winning regardless of what other folks bet. In parimutuel your payout would adjust according to the rest of the money wagered until the betting closed. Horse race bets are often parimutuel, but most proposition bets such as these are not.

The books can be wrong, and the betting markets aren't perfect but they can be useful tool to gather what the rough consensus is at any given time.

Thanks for the clarification, I thought it was parimutuel and the odds were going to change as more people bet on it.

Quite the contrary, they probably have a very good understanding and are happy to take losing wagers on San Jose and the public is willing to oblige.

Who are the people that place PaddyPower bets?

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