I tell everyone the same thing: I don't know any specific details more than anyone else. But what I do know is how Amazon operates and makes decisions: via data

I tell everyone the same thing: I don't know any specific details more than anyone else. But what I do know is how Amazon operates and makes decisions: via data, not feelings. My guess is that there are two teams. One has spent the last few years (long before the HQ2 announcement) building an incredible formula that estimates the expected return over the next 25 years for opening HQ2 in a given city, given these 100+ variables. The second team is collecting those 100+ variables for each city, maybe making analyses on cities to make better estimates on what those numbers look like. The decision will then boil down to the city with the highest number popping out of the formula. That's what I would expect from Amazon at least. I have no actual knowledge of what the process really is. Then again, after the Fire Phone fiasco it's clear not all of Amazon's decisions are made this way.