Philly, Chicago, Raleigh - The (Actual) Finalists for Amazon HQ2

[Londonee]

According to a new book profiling Bezos and Amazon called "Amazon Unbound."

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/13/b...rad-stone.html

On a far larger scale, Stone solves some of the mystery behind Amazon’s HQ2 debacle, in which the company announced plans to build a giant new office complex in Queens, then pulled out in the face of local opposition. That New York City was even a possibility was the result of a decision by Bezos to throw out months of careful study — which had narrowed the choices down to Chicago, Philadelphia and Raleigh — and go instead with his gut.

https://www.inquirer.com/news/amazon...-20210515.html

This Inquirer article goes in slightly deeper (and arguably more eye-lollingly off-the-rails) talking about how the CEO of AWS Andy Jassy (and soon to be CEO of Amazon) intervened at the 11th hour saying he couldn't convince his people to relocate to Philly in part b/c of how much he hated Philly sports teams, especially the Eagles....

So, effectively, a multi-year search process - conducted by a dedicated team, with years of research and effort - was thrown out the window in a instant based on "gut" decisions and the fact that the New York Football Giants are a dog-sh#t team.

[JManc]

Daaaamn...even Amazon hates the Eagles.

[iheartthed]

Those places make a lot more sense based on their stated criteria. Especially Chicago and Philadelphia. Queens never made sense based on what Amazon claimed was important, and choosing it just made the entire thing seem like a way to extort local governments for tax incentives.

[Londonee]

Originally Posted by JManc

Daaaamn...even Amazon hates the Eagles.

lol, yep.

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Those places make a lot more sense based on their stated criteria. Especially Chicago and Philadelphia. Queens never made sense based on what Amazon claimed was important, and choosing it just made the entire thing seem like a way to extort local governments for tax incentives.

Yep.

[thoughtcriminal]

Originally Posted by JManc

Daaaamn...even Amazon hates the Eagles.

they can hate the eagles all they want. but is that a solid reason not to base HQ2 here?
I. Think. Not.
certainly not after all the corporate welfare the city and state were willing to throw at them.

[Steely Dan]

looking back on it, the whole "HQ2 Hullabaloo" was a farce from the beginning.

and many of us here fell for it.

stupid memories.

[Centropolis]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

looking back on it, the whole "HQ2 Hullabaloo" was a farce from the beginning.

and many of us here fell for it.

stupid memories.

i may be hallucinating but I recall an east st. louis proposal...

[Crawford]

So HQ2 was really supposed to be in East Rutherford, NJ?

And then what explains Arlington, VA? Giants fans dislike the Skins at least as much as the Eagles. Sounds like a silly theory, based on what was obviously an offhand joke.

[Londonee]

Originally Posted by Crawford

So HQ2 was really supposed to be in East Rutherford, NJ?

And then what explains Arlington, VA? Giants fans dislike the Skins at least as much as the Eagles. Sounds like a silly theory, based on what was obviously an offhand joke.

I mean, I'm just spit-balling here - but of the two men in charge: Bezos and Jassy - Bezos owned the Post, has a house there, spends a ton of time hob-knobbing the DC political scene throughout the year...and Jassy is a New Yorker, based in NYC, living there...

[SFBruin]

I totally was wondering why London wasn't considered for HQ2.

It clearly has shown that it can support large companies, being the headquarters of Unilever and probably countless others. It speaks English. And, of course, it has great transit.

I guess they only wanted to consider North America.

[Centropolis]

Originally Posted by SFBruin

I totally was wondering why London wasn't considered for HQ2.

It clearly has shown that it can support large companies, being the headquarters of Unilever and probably countless others. It speaks English. And, of course, it has great transit.

I guess they only wanted to consider North America.

i’ve worked for a london based company for a long time and training/communication can be annoying without all of that duplicated over here, especially when your project teams span the east to west coast of north america. amazon seems heavily north america centered but i don’t know.

[mhays]

HQ1b continues to grow far more than HQ2a or mini-3. Amazon is building millions of square feet in Downtown Bellevue, and will hit the 25,000-worker juncture in short order.

PS, what makes people think that a decision that doesn't match the spreadsheet or committee choices doesn't have its own validity, or isn't analytical also? Or that the real spreadsheet is the same as the original? Staffers are selling what they know, of course.

[SFBruin]

Originally Posted by Centropolis

i’ve worked for a london based company for a long time and training/communication can be annoying without all of that duplicated over here, especially when your project teams span the east to west coast of north america. amazon seems heavily north america centered but i don’t know.

Ah, gotcha. That makes sense.

I don't know how big Amazon is in other continents, but in NA, it is considered one of the "Big Four" (I refuse to count Microsoft) tech companies, along with Apple, Google and Instagram.

[thoughtcriminal]

Originally Posted by SFBruin

Ah, gotcha. That makes sense.

I don't know how big Amazon is in other continents, but in NA, it is considered one of the "Big Four" (I refuse to count Microsoft) tech companies, along with Apple, Google and Instagram.

and by instagram, you mean facebook, since fb owns instagram.

[pj3000]

Corporate heads, from smaller businesses to fortune 100 companies, do this on the regular. They know exactly where the want to establish/expand/relocate their HQ... yet they go through these BS exercises for free press, PR/political connections and favors, "market research", ego massaging, sociopathic satisfaction, etc... and still, they nearly always locate exactly where they wanted to locate from the beginning.

Amazon was NEVER going to locate in Philadelphia (and certainly not Raleigh ). The local and state officials knew this from the beginning, but they went right along with it for the national spotlight/"street cred"/free national advertising of their "corpporate compensation packages" for future corporate attraction potential that the whole exercise afforded.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by pj3000

Corporate heads, from smaller businesses to fortune 100 companies, do this on the regular. They know exactly where the want to establish/expand/relocate their HQ... yet they go through these BS exercises for free press, PR/political connections and favors, "market research", ego massaging, sociopathic satisfaction, etc... and still, they nearly always locate exactly where they wanted to locate from the beginning.

It's very weird to me that they didn't anticipate the reputational risk of doing this stunt. Then to basically toss all the work out of the window to choose two places that couldn't have really scored that high on their objective measures. That takes a lot of arrogance to be aloof to the potential blowback...

Originally Posted by pj3000

Amazon was NEVER going to locate in Philadelphia (and certainly not Raleigh ). The local and state officials knew this from the beginning, but they went right along with it for the national spotlight/"street cred"/free national advertising of their "corpporate compensation packages" for future corporate attraction potential that the whole exercise afforded.

Raleigh makes sense. It's not much different than Facebook choosing Austin as their de facto #2 office about 5-6 years ago. Raleigh has a pretty substantial tech workforce already, and has higher quality educational institutions in the region than Austin.

[Londonee]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

It's very weird to me that they didn't anticipate the reputational risk of doing this stunt. Then to basically toss all the work out of the window to choose two places that couldn't have really scored that high on their objective measures. That takes a lot of arrogance to be aloof to the potential blowback...

Yes this is pretty much what my initial post was alluding to - the absurdity of a multi-year process - which saw them fly their Amazon teams around the country to dozens and dozens of cities, waste the time of dozens of city government employees and civic associations (those proposals weren’t cheap to put together), presumably have several full time, highly paid Amazon employees oversee the entire project...tens of millions of $$ combined spent both internally and externally for it to all be thrown out at the 11th hour by the 2 guys in charge who just wanted to keep the company in their respective backyards.

Shows how billion-dollar corporations behave exactly like how my family chooses where to go to dinner.... i throw out options to the wife and kids trying to be diplomatic, considerate, and open-minded, but we end up eating wherever i want in the end.

[pj3000]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Raleigh makes sense. It's not much different than Facebook choosing Austin as their de facto #2 office about 5-6 years ago. Raleigh has a pretty substantial tech workforce already, and has higher quality educational institutions in the region than Austin.

Yeah, I wasn't saying that Raleigh doesn't make sense. It's certainly a worthy candidate in my book. Just based on Amazon's/Bezos' national and global aspirations, a smaller metro like Raleigh didn't stand a chance.

[mhays]

All of these theories are based on guesswork. Did anyone REALLY read specifics in the original RFP? Even if that was the final criteria, how would you evaluate it?

[wwmiv]

The southeast is peppered with mid-sized city propers, some of which exist in constellations to form larger multi-polar metropolitan areas:

Triangle (Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill)
Triad (Greensboro, Winston-Salem, High Point)
Hampton Rhodes (Norfolk, Virginia Beach, Newport News, Chesapeake)
Southeast Florida (Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, West Palm Beach)
Tampa Bay (Tampa, St. Petersburg)
Southwest Florida (Bradenton, Sarasota / Cape Coral, Fort Myers)
Upstate (Greenville, Spartanburg, Anderson, plus Asheville in the same media market)
Kingsport, Johnson City, and Bristol



... and some of which don’t:

Charleston
Columbia
Tallahassee
Chattanooga
Wilmington
Myrtle Beach
Richmond
Roanoke
Savannah
Jacksonville
Augusta
Knoxville
Montgomery
Birmingham
Pensacola
Panama City Beach

Only Orlando, Nashville, Charlotte, and Atlanta are indisputably large anchors of their regions and those regions are also indisputably large.

Mid-sized jurisdictions just seem to be the model of urban development throughout this region of the county.