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Cities’ Offers for Amazon Base Are Secrets Even to Many City Leaders
- rayiner 8y agoDC should just let Amazon run the city government as Amazon sees fit. I wouldn’t mind living in an Amazon company town, I bet they’d shape things up around here.
- CryoLogic 8y agoYeah, high-ish salaries. Everyone works until 10pm. Get off work and get drunk. Complain about how Amazon took away your life and cost you your marriage, but hey they offer free marriage counseling now as a result (true story). Rinse and repeat. That's what I see around SLU. Amazon is incredibly efficient, and that's good. But please don't let them take over a city with their work life culture.
- xenihn 8y agoSounds like Hong Kong.
- oneshot908 8y agoHong Kong IMO is 100x more fun than Seattle. Better food, better transit system, better shopping, better everything but air quality IMO.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- knuththetruth 8y ago>Yeah, high-ish salaries Judging from the conditions in their warehouses, I doubt this would be true for all the other labor needed to run the city...
- randomamazondev 8y ago> That's what I see around SLU. To be fair that is Amazon US. Amazon where I work is so far divorced from all the famous crazy US practices that it seems like a different company.
- tjr225 8y agoIf anyone wants Amazon to take over any sort of public space they should come experience the local vitriol towards all things Amazon here in Seattle. I was interviewing at AWS just last year and one of the interviewers(in a Virginia/remote work setup) went so far as to admit he doesn't wear any amazon branded shirts or swag when he is in town.
- oneshot908 8y agoThat's not Amazon's fault. That's the rage of the incompetent lashing out at the most convenient target rather than focusing on bettering their own situation. And yeah, Amholes are a thing, just stay away from the Amholes (hell I once punched one after he intentionally shoved me and the way he backed down when he realized I was ready to beat him to a pulp was priceless), but I don't personally buy into the current agenda of punishing nerds for being nerds that seems to be in vogue these days.
- oneshot908 8y agoIn this age, if a spouse dumps you for overworking to secure the future in these increasingly uncertain times, they probably weren't a keeper anyway. There's a lot of magical thinking going around, and I'm not defending Amazon's culture here, but having gone through a divorce for exactly the above reasons, yeah, we were both better off in the long run instead of trying to reconcile our divergent belief systems (and these days we're friends).
- khuey 8y agoCongress doesn't even let DC run itself as it sees fit.
- maxxxxx 8y agoPut under-performers on an improvement plan and then lay them off from the town?
- internet_user 8y agoprobably a private prison for those that took one too many bio breaks.
- rajacombinator 8y agoIf it’s between DC cultural malaise vs amazon quasi efficiency, I’m taking DC all day.
- tomjakubowski 8y agoI guess there must have been at least a couple people who thought living in and working for Pullman was just great.
- refurb 8y agoWhy is Amazon negotiating/receiving offers from outside the gov't? Seems odd. They could pick a specific city and the city council could say "hell no" or just be unable to pass legislation to deliver on it.
- gervase 8y agoMy cynical side says that this is a feature, not a bug - a litmus test to see whether or not the selected city will be politically pliable under Amazon's significant financial leverage. Any city that can't pass (or force through) favorable legislation isn't one that Amazon would want to choose long-term anyway, especially viewed in the context of their relationships with local governments in Seattle [0]. The key point here is that this is a descriptive feature that's hard to ask about, but easy to test for. 0: https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogervaldez/2018/07/31/good-news-or-bad-trying-to-understand-the-repeal-of-seattles-head-tax/#709534ce7f2f https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogervaldez/2018/07/31/good-new...
- fipple 8y agoYeah, my guess is that the principal function of HQ2 is to increase negotiating leverage with Seattle.
- kevin_thibedeau 8y agoThis whole charade is to increase the negotiating leverage with the city they selected long ago.
- JJMcJ 8y agoNot unlike Apple bullying Cupertino. They got their huge HQ without much alteration. Speaking of Cupertino, right near there, a huge battle to allow I think 1,000 units replacing a dead shopping mall. All the usual complaints of traffic. So 1000 apartments would have intolerable traffic, but 25,000 people in one building won't, seemed to be the argument.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- stuckinarut 8y agoCapitalism is disgusting. World's richest man is going to rob two cities blind with promises of jobs. Just a massive giveaway to the man who literally has the least need in the world. Guess they don't want the people actually having any say. > pitched the idea of Amazon University, with a customized curriculum developed in partnership with Amazon and local universities Just gonna go full company town I guess. > added $38 billion to Seattle’s economy from 2010 to 2016. and made it impossible to get a modest tax passed. > “They are about ending inequality and creating more inclusive cities,” said Richard Florida, a professor at the School of Cities and the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto. “Now they’re in a game competing with one another to throw money at one of the most powerful companies in the world run by one of the world’s richest men.” Yup, because they want to be able to say they brought amazon in. It fucks over the people who already lives there, increases inequality, and ultimately doesn't really help that many people other than Jeff.
- dang 8y agoThis comment violates the HN guidelines. We don't want ideological battle here (not to mention low-rent rants). That's not because we're capitalist pigs or socialist moochers; it's because it's all repetitive and therefore boring, and it leads directly to flamewar. All scorched earth is the same. You've been posting a lot of this for a long time. We ban accounts that do that, so I've banned this one. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll use the site as intended. In the meantime, would you please not create accounts to break HN's rules with? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- fipple 8y agoExcept for the first line it is a fairly interesting comment.
- dang 8y agoPerhaps I'm missing something, but it reads like a predictable rant to me, the kind of comment that destroys thoughtful discussion rather than supports it. That goes against the kind of website we want HN to be. Of course a good paint-stripping rant can be great fun (or outraging, a variant of the same), and there are other kinds of website for that. Plenty of kinds of critique don't have this effect, and most HN users have no trouble practicing them—it's mostly just a question of wanting to.
- throw2016 8y agoUsually tax deals or tax holidays are offered to entice prospective companies but given Amazon's US tax burden is already nearly zero what else can these cities offer, free land, protection from unions? Amazon seems unlikely to choose a city randomly, its likely to already have decided which city suits it best in terms of logistics, efficiency, cost and available labour pool so this seems to be an elaborate game to squeeze its preferred city.
- greeneggs 8y agoIn 2017 Amazon recorded a $137 million refund for US federal income taxes. However, nationwide it paid $211 million in state corporate income taxes. It also pays property tax and sales tax (on things Amazon itself buys). Reportedly Amazon paid ~$250 million total in taxes to Washington state in 2017. [1] Maryland's "Promoting ext-Raordinary Innovation in Maryland's Economy (PRIME Act)", signed 4/25/2018, provides credits against all these kinds of taxes [2]. [1] https://www.seattletimes.com/business/amazon/amazon-paid-250-million-in-washington-state-and-local-taxes-in-2017-source-says/ https://www.seattletimes.com/business/amazon/amazon-paid-250... [2] http://mgaleg.maryland.gov/webmga/frmMain.aspx?pid=billpage&stab=01&id=sb0877&tab=subject3&ys=2018RS http://mgaleg.maryland.gov/webmga/frmMain.aspx?pid=billpage&...
- sincerely 8y agoI respect Toronto's proposal a lot, in light of this: absolutely no specific incentives offered, just an overview of the benefits of working in Toronto/Ontario/Canada from an employee/employer's perspective. I think it was a strong action both in terms of attracting Amazon (there's no other non-US cities being considered, so they are already hugely differentiated) and in terms of reassuring the constituents that the government will not bend over backwards for corporations (especially considering the Google smart city in development).
- davidw 8y ago> Corporations have choices. They could go about their business, and simply choose the best location, the one that makes the greatest business sense, and invest accordingly. Or they can as Amazon, GE, and dozens of others, go through the ritual of pretending to entertain a wide range of proposals, and use the leverage of competing bids to sweat the best possible deal out of their preferred location http://cityobservatory.org/cash-prizes-for-bad-corporate-citizenship-amazon-edition/ http://cityobservatory.org/cash-prizes-for-bad-corporate-cit... Whoever 'wins', may not come out ahead. https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2017/9/10/what-can-i-do-to-have-you-love-me https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2017/9/10/what-can-i-do-...
- forkandwait 8y agoWhat prevents the elected city officials from voting No on the package once it is accepted by Amazon and revealed? Anything with legal teeth or just public pressure?
- maxxxxx 8y agoIf it works like in Congress they will have only very limited time to understand the package. And more importantly they won't have had any input during negotiations. There is a lot of pressure so it would be much easier to add their concerns during the process instead of saying "No" at the end. They pretty much have to vote with a gun held against their head.
- forkandwait 8y agoSo that gun is... What? Besides losing the next election, of course.
- pasbesoin 8y agoDemocracy: When you can't tell your citizens what you're up to, you already have a problem. It is also a very hypocritical example of, speaking generally of these things, business decrying "the nanny state" while actually engaging and encouraging it, full force. It's just that they want all the nanny's attention and preferential treatment.
- dkarl 8y agoAustin city council member Leslie Pool, pictured and quoted in this article, is a notorious pseudo-progressive NIMBY. When she speaks in generalities, everything that comes out of her mouth aligns with my political ideals and my concerns about growth in Austin, but at the same time, she fights tooth and nail against anything that might help. She talks incessantly about affordable housing while at the same time doing her best to prevent any new housing from being constructed. She wrings her hands over lack of transit (her favorite excuse for opposing density) and supports transit as an idea while always finding an excuse to oppose any specific proposal for improving it. I have fears about Amazon as well (it could be fine, but it also could be horrible, and I know Austin will be fine without it) and they're the same as the ones she articulates, but to me they mean nothing coming out of her mouth when I know her only agenda is protecting her single-family-with-yard-and-three-cars constituents from sharing space with apartment dwellers and public transit users.
- wavefunction 8y agoI can understand some of the fears of her constituents who purchased houses on large lots and have seen houses in those neighborhoods torn down for multi-family dwellings. More density is something Austin requires but that of course involves transforming the nature of neighborhoods and whether that's gentrification of the East Side with yuppie condos replacing traditional black and hispanic neighborhoods or tasteful (imo) multi-family residences in traditionally genteel white suburban neighborhoods, it's something out of everyone's hands. People in Austin and other cities are resistant to change for a host of reasons both legitimate and not. Change is inevitable though. Fortunately I'm not a native and I don't have strong ties to the area so I'm preparing to move back home before the next 1.5 million people move here in the next decade. I'm planning to hold onto my relatively large lot and house and rent it for entirely selfish reasons, though. It's the pace of change that locals can't handle, and part of it is all the outside money transforming the city for its own profit, the city and its neighborhoods and people be-damned.
- JJMcJ 8y ago> gentrification of the East Side Don't know Austin, but they way it works most places is that the well off single family home neighborhoods usually have the means to resist apartment buildings, so there is no choice but to build in poorer neighborhoods.
- empath75 8y agoI’ll be stunned if they end up anywhere other than northern Virginia and if nova gives than much more than token incentives. They have a huge presence there already and if they want to negotiate for big government contracts it helps to be nearby.
- jsoc815 8y agoSame, although I can see some cooperative deal w/ DC and possibly MontCo (MD). However, I heard the Virginia's governor speak about this broad topic, and given what he'd already indicated the state had done to attract tech and defence sector bis, I pretty much consider NoVA to get something. He also mentioned that consultants do much of the footwork to feel out which which locales will provide the be$t offers. He indicated that such consulting is actually a billion dollar industry and that to even be a viable contender in such races, cities/states must offer some incentive(s).
- docker_up 8y agoThe only reason why they would do this is for plausible deniability. If it turns into a disaster, then they can claim they didn't do anything about it. It's pretty disgusting to think we're that stupid, but journalists will just take the lazy way out.