10 ms·
Apple Avoids Amazon’s Beauty Contest, Searches Secretly for New Campus
- bluedino 8y agoA commenter on the article made a snarky reply about Apple choosing China as that's where a lot of the manufacturing is - I wonder why Apple/Amazon don't look internationally for HQ2? Are their international offices 'big enough' for what they need?
- teej 8y agoIsn’t economic espionage a major concern with China, especially if you’re Apple?
- soperj 8y agoNot really when most of the hardware is outsourced.
- kickopotomus 8y agoYes, Apple gets most of the parts for their devices from 3rd parties but they work hard to obfuscate everything. They get their own part numbers for everything and often times even special firmware images for controllers that cause those parts to behave differently.
- melling 8y agoApple is creating R&D offices in China: http://fortune.com/2017/03/17/apple-rd-centers-china/ http://fortune.com/2017/03/17/apple-rd-centers-china/ What does it mean to create HQ2? Tim Cook and Jony Ive will work there part of the year? Probably not.
- jrs95 8y agoYou'd have to be insane to keep any of your sensitive IP in China, honestly. But mostly I assume they stick to the U.S. because that's where the talent is (and that's the government they need to have the closest relationship with, too)
- projectramo 8y agoIsn't all Apple's hardware IP "in" China?
- Cthulhu_ 8y agoPretty much. Hardware is in China, patents and money are in Ireland, software development and hardware / visual design is in the US.
- sigstoat 8y agoas a simple example, not necessarily realistic, consider the circuit boards of the iphone. yes, they've got to ship the gerber files to china so the boardhouses can fab the boards. but those are just images of the copper and mask layers. apple doesn't have to ship the electrical schematics, with tolerances and notes and explanations of why things are done the way they're done, outside of their office building in california. same with their ASICs; the masks and such have got to go to the fabs, but not the HDL describing the logic. so, certainly some of their IP ends up over there, but not necessarily the juiciest bits.
- gowld 8y agoSo, their outsource partners can't invent new things, but can clone every existing thing for a small fraction of the price? That's a good deal for them.
- mkhalil 8y agoIt doesn't really work like that either. You can buy iPhones and take them apart, so you have the logic board. Do you know how to install Ubuntu on it? Without the logic behind why the board was designed that way, it's going to be non-trivial to reverse engineer what's going on. Think of it as a .exe file. Cracking software isn't a trivial task. Cracking hardware is harder.
- watertom 8y agoIn order to do business in China you need to partner with a Chinese company, that Chinese company has another partner, it's the Chinese Government. Everything you share with your partner is automatically shared with the Government and the Government shares all of that data with all of their other companies. So if you want to manufacture a CPU, your partner needs to know all the IP, if you want to make LCD panel, your partner needs to know all your IP, etc. This is the reason it seems China is supercharged, they are forcing companies to share IP in order to get access to their market, and that IP is shared with every other relevant company in China.
- throwaway5752 8y agoAll of them have large Canadian campuses, presumably because the US visa process is such a dumpster fire and the need for specialized advanced academic backgrounds.
- Cthulhu_ 8y agoYou can't just open an office in China; you need to be a Chinese company for that, founded by a Chinese native. Second, any Chinese company above 1000 employees needs to have a communist party shadow management - that is, for every manager above a certain level, a party representative is active at the exact same rank with the same (probably slightly higher) management power. That's for China though, for other countries the reasoning is probably legislative and tax related. Likewise, an European company can't just operate in the US without being incorporated in the US.
- NickBusey 8y agoInteresting. If this is the case, I wonder how many companies there are with 999 employees?
- gowld 8y agoChinese government isn't stupid, and isn't bound by the literal rule of law.
- NickBusey 8y agoOk then, companies that hover around 900 employees. Business owners aren't stupid either, generally.
- heavenlyblue 8y agoCome on. If you’re not making enough money they would probably not even bother with a 1000. If you do however, and the main reason to have a business is to make money as I remember - then they will most certainly come for you anyway. You’re trying to lawyer your way out of an oppressive government. It doesn’t end well generally.
- otterley 8y agoEven in a democratic government, intent matters in a court of law. Judges often don’t look kindly on attempts to flout the spirit of the law.
- hocuspocus 8y agoToronto is in Amazon's shortlist for HQ2, they do look beyond US borders, at least a little :) I think the concept of a second HQ is by definition a bit weird, size is probably not the main concern here.
- seibelj 8y agoNot much of a secret when it’s on the front page of the WSJ. But at least they aren’t doing a huge public bake off
- woobar 8y agoNot just WSJ. It was in the news last week: https://www.wral.com/north-carolina-apple-negotiating-deal-on-triangle-campus-second-site-in-cary/17558985/ https://www.wral.com/north-carolina-apple-negotiating-deal-o...
- Reason077 8y agoWow: "We are a local media company based in Raleigh, North Carolina, USA. We have detected that you are in one of the member countries of the European Union, which is now subject to the General Data Protection Regulation. ... Until we are able to ensure our full compliance with the rigorous GDPR requirements, we are blocking access from EU countries to our websites, which include wral.com, wralsportsfan.com, highschoolot.com and wraltechwire.com. We take the GDPR seriously."
- hyperbovine 8y agoI think that's great.
- freeone3000 8y agoIsn't it great that they're taking it seriously, and ensuring that your privacy is protected?
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- kizer 8y agoReap what you sow, Europer. Seriously though, is GDPR compliance that difficult? What does a news site have to do to comply?
- tambourine_man 8y agoPaywall. Alternative link?
- assblaster 8y agoJust add "full" before wsj.com in the URL, and you'll go directly to the free article via Facebook affiliate link.
- AckSyn 8y agoI'm a fan of screenshots myself: http://i.imgs.fyi/img/3d52.png http://i.imgs.fyi/img/3d52.png
- bsparker 8y agohttp://archive.is/QXUkq http://archive.is/QXUkq
- tambourine_man 8y agoWhy downvotes?
- IkmoIkmo 8y agoIt's pretty clear it hasn't done Amazon's reputation any favours. And there's no reason to think government officials won't go above and beyond in offering incentives behind closed doors.
- plandis 8y agoWhy do you think that? I think Amazon will get what they want - mainly a city to capitulate to their demands. I’ve talked to people in Pittsburgh and Atlanta and the majority wanted Amazon. I don’t think most people realize outside of tech circles that Amazon will mostly bring people in rather than hiring locally and how much they have strained the infrastructure in Seattle.
- Chaebixi 8y ago> I don’t think most people realize outside of tech circles that Amazon will mostly bring people in rather than hiring locally Why do you say that? Amazon seems to recruit pretty heavily around me, which is far, far from Seattle and SV.
- felixgallo 8y agoI can only speak from my experience, but as an Amazonian working in a non-Seattle office, we hired essentially completely locally. We have a few transfers, but it's much more of a pain in the ass to get people moved than it is to find talent in the area. Hiring in LA, by the way.
- duxup 8y agoI suspect Apple will get the same results when they finally talk to the locals about a HQ had they made a big public deal about it vs. somewhat quieter search (relative to Amazon).
- kizer 8y agoCan someone copy and paste the whole article into a comment?
- teamhappy 8y agohttp://archive.is/QXUkq http://archive.is/QXUkq
- kizer 8y agoThanks! That page took like 45 seconds to load, haha.
- ericabiz 8y agoIf you're on a desktop/laptop computer and have a FB account, use the "fullwsj" hack: Edit the URL to say "fullwsj.com" instead of "wsj.com", and click on the link from Facebook. If on a mobile device, you can do it, but have to copy the URL and then paste into a private browsing window (at least on Safari/iOS.)
- kizer 8y agoDidn't know about that. Thanks.
- logicallee 8y agoCan confirm on Chrome. There is something interesting though. I tested it after logging out of Facebook (wanted to see what would happen). Basically I wanted to see if you needed to be logged into Facebook or not to use this redirect (would it work from the logged-out Facebook page?), but got something surprising. I performed these steps (Chrome on Desktop, from Windows): 1. I was logged into Facebook in an incognito window. I decided to log out of it. I then removed my fast login button by clicking the X. (Note: I didn't close that incognito window. This does mean any cookies could have been retained, I wasn't being so thorough) 2. After logging out I returned to the main Facebook.com page (to sign in) in the same window. 3. On the blank Facebook login screen , I then manually pasted https://www.fullwsj.com/articles/apple-avoids-amazons-beauty-contest-searches-secretly-for-new-campus-1527067800 https://www.fullwsj.com/articles/apple-avoids-amazons-beauty... into the URL bar in Chrome. 4. After I pressed Enter Facebook actually put up a page "Confirm leaving Facebook" with the URL. This was under the Facebook.com URL. And then I clicked the URL on that page. I got the full article. This is what that window looked like (I reloaded it by clicking the back button in that window, while writing this comment): https://imgur.com/a/X8bIGyX https://imgur.com/a/X8bIGyX It doesn't do this when I put in just any other URL into the URL field. So how did this happen technically? How did Facebook.com get the new URL I put in, and halt my navigating away manually, and instead ask if I really want to go there (but remove the "full" from where 'there' is)? I don't think Chrome gives Facebook access to URL's put into the URL bar by the user...so...? There's no chance I'm misreporting what happened because there's nowhere else I could have pasted the URL other than the URL bar, since I was logged out of Facebook at the time. I'm puzzled how this happens on a technical level.
- kodablah 8y agoI'm not sure comparing a second headquarters and a tech support site is apt. I'm not sure how loud the search is matters. WSJ is a joke. Look, I can twist words too: "While Amazon is clearer and open about employee counts and candidate locations for HQ2, Apple remains secret and opaque about any details even for small site". Abatements abound regardless, lets not treat the differences in culture between Amazon and Apple, which translate to their way of searching for places to do business, as if one is clearly superior. (I personally don't mind what Amazon is doing in the least)
- projectramo 8y agoGood point. Secrecy and tax deals are two different issues. One's opinion on one should not be conflated with the other.
- bogomipz 8y agoExcept that secrecy is increasing being being used to hide the details of those tax deals. See: http://money.cnn.com/2017/10/19/technology/business/amazon-headquarters/index.html http://money.cnn.com/2017/10/19/technology/business/amazon-h... and https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/pennsylvania-asks-court-to-keep-amazon-incentives-a-secret/ https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/pennsylvania-asks-...
- imgabe 8y agoNot to mention, didn't Apple just build a billion dollar new headquarters building that was the subject of countless fawning articles?
- mandeepj 8y agoThey are looking to build one more.
- getpost 8y ago5 billion. I wish I understood how projects involving that much money are actually managed. https://www.fastcodesign.com/3029477/norman-foster-on-designing-apples-5-billion-spaceship-campus https://www.fastcodesign.com/3029477/norman-foster-on-design...
- mozumder 8y agoI think the reason Amazon had to announce their search publicly is because their HQ2 project is so much bigger than Apple's or any other company's. 60,000 jobs is not something you take up lightly, especially as it relates to transit and housing. It's the equivalent of a small city, and you're going to need to be prepared for it.
- Cthulhu_ 8y agoPlus it's a way for cities to start a bidding war, offering the lowest tax rates and property prices. Effectively Amazon will get their new HQ for free, if not have the cities actively pay for it. Because jobs. Free market, competition, etc, yay.
- ellisv 8y agoJust because Apple has a reputation for being secretive doesn't mean they are in this case. Most companies don't go around advertising plans to open a new office or their CEO's meeting schedule.
- aclsid 8y agoCan we all agree is bad form to share paywall links here? No, I don't want to resort to any hacks since it is stealing but this is literally advertising for the WSJ at this point.
- gowld 8y agoSometimes the discussion is only about the headline, as there is nothing else in the content.
- anothergoogler 8y ago"Sometimes"... the majority of HN comments are replies to a headline.
- grzm 8y agoThis topic is a FAQ: > "Are paywalls ok?" > "It's ok to post stories from sites with paywalls that have workarounds." > "In comments, it's ok to ask how to read an article and to help other users do so. But please don't post complaints about paywalls. Those are off topic." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html
- noarchy 8y agoAfter hearing about Cupertino's possible plan to shakedown companies like Apple for tax money, should we be surprised at their approach to a new campus? Of course even a public search, there would be cities promising tax breaks to Apple, but their approach seems consistent with their usual levels of operational secrecy.
- coss 8y agoSounds like one is trying to make headlines with a smaller support site by punching up at the bigger HQ. Not interested.
- tooltalk 8y agoIs Apple's spaceship campus considered in this article? I can't read anything behind the paywall, but the headline seems to suggest either Apple is frugal or Amazon is out of control.
- s2g 8y agoBut then how will apple extort cities for massive tax breaks?
- cafard 8y agoThe secrecy is subpar--this was in The Washington Post a couple of days ago.