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Amazon HQ2: Advanced talks about second headquarters in Northern Virginia
- headShrinker 8y agoJust a stones throw away from Washington DC, imagine that. I’m sure it’s no coincidence that Amazon is in talks to do billions of dollars worth of work with the DOD and that the location choice of the second headquarters might have a lot to do with that.
- theDoug 8y agoYeah, congratulations to everyone who called it ages ago or pointed out that a CEO is going to put HQ2 near an already established home. Good work on 6+ months of press and making cities embarrass themselves for what seemed obvious from the start. https://www.townandcountrymag.com/leisure/real-estate/news/a9234/jeff-bezos-house-washington-dc/ https://www.townandcountrymag.com/leisure/real-estate/news/a...
- Deimorz 8y agoScott Galloway was pretty confident that it was always intended to be in Washington, partially because of Jeff Bezos already owning a house there: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HyiY_m_YxI&t=542 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HyiY_m_YxI&t=542 I recommend watching the actual talk, but there are a few sections of it summarized (including some about Amazon HQ2) in this article: https://www.recode.net/2018/9/19/17878766/scott-galloway-predictions-amazon-hq2-apple-retail-code-commerce https://www.recode.net/2018/9/19/17878766/scott-galloway-pre...
- BurningFrog 8y agoThe richest man on Earth can buy any number of houses wherever Amazon builds an office.
- lberk 8y agoIt's got nothing to do with whether or not Bezos can buy a house in a given location. It has to do with examining the existing incentives that led Bezos to buy a home there in the first place, and applying that logic to the requirements of HQ2.
- Spooky23 8y agoThey got a ton of value — in my area they used the dopey package that the local economic development dopes put together to quickly extract concessions for a distribution center.
- lgregg 8y agoJB has had a home there which he’s been renovating to host large Gatsby-esk parties. It wouldn’t be surprising to see HQ2 there. I also foresee a strong potential he’ll turn into a Koch-esk political operative for his political positions; or, He might just make a run for the Presidency in several election cycles from now.
- siruncledrew 8y agoIt seemed like the leader after 3/20 location choices were in the DC area (Montgomery County, DC, Northern Virginia). DC and Montgomery were kinda thrown in there to make it look like they could be contenders, but logistically Northern Virginia makes the most sense. It’s near metros, near IAD and Reagan airports, has land available for a large campus, has a lot of offices of other businesses doing work for the government, is a fairly rich suburban commuter area.
- dhcgbgjb 8y agoAlso, Bezos’s interests in Blue Origin and the Washington Post. Oh, and he has a mansion in DC: https://www.washingtonian.com/2018/04/22/inside-jeff-bezos-dc-life/ https://www.washingtonian.com/2018/04/22/inside-jeff-bezos-d...
- officialchicken 8y agoOr it could be that AWS contract for the Pentagon... literally across the street (highway) from Crystal City (Pentagon City).
- qntmfred 8y agoOR...Bezos’s interests in Blue Origin and the Washington Post
- hn_throwaway_99 8y agoCrystal City really has so much going for it: 1. As you point out, right next to Pentagon and federal government. 2. Good transportation: right on the Metro and literally across the street from National Airport. 3. If you're going to have 2 headquarters, having them be on opposite coasts makes sense. 4. And I think another one that is pretty unique to Crystal City is that Amazon and their employees definitely want to be in a downtown, urban environment. However, most of the other cities on the list were either extremely crowded downtown, available sites were actually more out in the 'burbs, or the cities were far down in what a lot of people would consider "2nd tier" (or 3rd tier) cities. Crystal City is basically an urban suburb of DC that you could easily see having a great "vibe" for an HQ2, but still has room for Amazon to build out.
- tomohawk 8y ago> 2. Good transportation Surely, you jest. Yeah, it's on a metro line, but hardly anyone lives near a metro line. That area is consistently rated as the #1 or #2 worst traffic in the country for years.
- CalRobert 8y agoSounds like good transportation with terrible urban planning.
- CamperBob2 8y agoYes, it's always inconvenient and disillusioning when people refuse to live where "urban planners" think they should live.
- mikeash 8y agoDemand for Metro-convenient housing is enormous. Builders are having trouble keeping up.
- CalRobert 8y agoThat would make sense if urban planners were the ones telling people not to live near transit stations, but it's generally existing residents opposing new housing. Though, perhaps to your point, I also am not a fan of almost all planning. The nicest places to live, walk, etc. tend to be ones that arose before planning was widespread. Of course, they existed before the car, too.
- buboard 8y agoBezos for president 2020? Running mate Zuckerberg?
- alistproducer2 8y agoNo thanks.
- repsilat 8y agoBezos obviously knows how to run a company, but the only "brand" he has is (I think unfairly) "exploitative capitalism". If Bloomberg can't be president Bezos probably can't either. And probably wouldn't want to, to be honest. Zuckerberg might want to, but he's universally despised on both sides of American politics, so no chance there. (Not to mention that VP picks are normally used to broaden the ticket's appeal, not double down on it...)
- meddlepal 8y agoI don't really see "exploitative capitalism" as being a problem for Bezos. As our current president has pointed out, it's just smart business. In our current political climate that will probably be lapped up by someone.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- AdmiralAsshat 8y agoBeen looking to buy a house in the Northern Virginia area for about five years now, but the prices have climbed almost linearly, and never slowed down. If Amazon does settle here, I'll probably continue renting until I can GTFO. Microsoft also bought a large plot of land around Loudon county, on which they plan to build a campus. If this area is to become the next Seattle, I have no interest in being here.
- aviv 8y agoYou're looking at it the wrong way. Instead of looking for a house to buy to live in, look at how you and others can get in on an apartment complex purchase.
- rayiner 8y agoNorthern VA sucks. Come east to MD its a million times better.
- CPLX 8y agoWell that’s the first time I’ve ever heard someone describe going from VA to Maryland as going east.
- jaggederest 8y agoI find the logic in the article pretty funny. > [T]he best way to make it is you collect as much data as you can, you immerse yourself in that data, but then [throw all that data away and decide based on personal whim]
- sudhirj 8y agoThat’s sounds worse than it is. I think a better phrasing would be “read as much information as you can, and then sleep on it and go with the first option your subconscious tells you to go with”. Or gut, or instinct or ‘feel’. Informed intuition is a wonderful thing.
- jaggederest 8y agoI think that's exactly backwards. I think you review data to use your intuition to form the hypothesis or question, and then look for empirical data to try to falsify it. Putting intuition at the end of the decision making process is a pretty solid way to screw the entire thing up.
- sudhirj 8y agoFalsification is part of the data review - the first step is always to eliminate solutions that obviously ie provably won’t work. The decision making process, both for Amazon HQ is inherently subjective / has too many dimensions to make an objective decision. i.e. the process is for selecting out of the final 20, that have been fully vetted and feasibility established. Or for deciding among three finalist engineers who’ve passed all interviews and tests and you can only hire one. Or schools or colleges or whatever.
- jaggederest 8y agoThat's how you end up making unconsconably biased decisions though. Oops, accidently hired the candidate who looks the most like me AGAIN, darn the luck
- 8y ago
- Twirrim 8y agoThat's going to drive up house prices nicely, in an already expensive area to live.
- 7174n6 8y agoThe traffic and congestion is already horrible. The cost of living is excessive. I don't understand why these companies - that can locate anywhere - want to lessen the quality of life for their employees.
- hak8or 8y agoWhy would they want their hq out in the boonies? And amazon (and many other tech companies) adjust their salary to cost of life in the area. The closer they are to a big city, the better, because they can attract more talent from the people already living close by.
- jayess 8y agoAs though it's a binary choice. Washington DC metro, or the boonies.
- snowwrestler 8y agoI'd love to know which major U.S. city does not have terrible traffic near its downtown.
- bytematic 8y agoI don't know what you consider major but I've never had issues in Milwaukee
- kevindong 8y agoI didn't think Seattle traffic was very bad.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- withinrafael 8y agoMight consider a revisit. Seattle traffic is now in the top 10 (9th) of horrible. [1] [1] https://www.geekwire.com/2018/seattle-traffic-congestion-ninth-worst-u-s-eight-cities-top-10-vying-amazons-hq2/ https://www.geekwire.com/2018/seattle-traffic-congestion-nin...
- tacomonstrous 8y agoHow's the public transit there? I was under the impression that this was a major piece of the puzzle for HQ2.
- smacktoward 8y agoMetro used to be very good. Today it’s..... ehhhhhhhh, not so much.
- hn_throwaway_99 8y agoStill, there is literally a metro stop right in Crystal City that's on 2 lines, and with all the underground corridors between buildings you can get tons of places without even going above ground. If I was an Amazon employee moving out there, damn straight I'd be finding some place right on a metro stop.
- totablebanjo 8y agoThe metro is trying to improve the safety of the system after some fatal accidents a few years ago. The work force is unmotivated and maintainence reports are falsified. The wait times for the weekend suck and the system shuts down pretty early leading to fans at sports stadiums chanting, “metro sucks.” Even with all that it’s one of the better transit systems in the US. Not as good as Chicago or NY, but for the size of city it’s good.
- snowwrestler 8y agoThere is one Metro stop directly in Crystal City, an express bus with dedicated lanes from another close station, and Metro is in the final planning stages to build a new station between those. The VRE, a Virginia light rail system that uses Amtrak tracks, has a stop in Crystal City. There are bus routes too, and bike lanes. And Reagan National Airport is directly adjacent. Public transit to Crystal City is about as good as it gets. Which is good, because the road traffic sucks.
- rhino369 8y agoNot great, but could be a lot worse. Crystal city is on two of the main subway lines. And has a Virigina regional rail and Amtrak stop. There is a pretty major bus depot there too. The downside is one of the subway lines only runs every 13 minutes during rush hour. And that cannot be increased without decreasing runs on other lines (because they share a tunnel). Maybe Amazon will convince the governments to run more on that line (and take it away from the other lines). edit: Forgot to mention that airport access is probably the best place in the entire country. You could basically walk to national airport.
- moron4hire 8y agoNoooooooooooo, this is going to completely destroy an already broken transit system.
- edraferi 8y agoGrowth is coming to the region, regardless of what Amazon does. HQ2 is just an accelerant. Embrace growth or resign your community to irrelevance.
- moron4hire 8y agoI highly doubt the bedroom of the capital of the country is ever going to be irrelevant. Let's go ask Seattlites what they think about Amazon.
- lj3 8y ago> Embrace growth or resign your community to irrelevance. Growth has killed plenty of communities, or made them not worth living in anymore. Just ask San Francisco.
- tanilama 8y agoMaybe increased tax sources can help address some of the transportation issue?
- rayiner 8y agoWMATA is swimming in money. The problem is the WMATA union. But maybe Amazon can help with that too.
- sj4nz 8y agoI have heard that the HQ2 is supposed to be a kind of "domed city." If it is Crystal City, Amazon HQ2 has started a infrastructure formation using a subscription with a DCaaS.
- smacktoward 8y agoIf “domed city” is the atmosphere they’re looking for, Crystal City is definitely the right choice — the existing buildings there are all connected together by a warren of underground tunnels, which includes an underground shopping mall. Combine that with the Brutalist ‘60s architecture and you get a neighborhood straight out of a bad sci-fi movie.
- empath75 8y agoMy dad worked at the Safeway there for years and people go shopping in pj’s there all the time.
- clircle 8y agoHow long will it take them to set up shop? My wife and I want to buy a house in the area in a couple years.
- ENOTTY 8y agoArticle says they want to open by 2019. We're all boned
- tomohawk 8y agoSeems like an admission that they have nothing new to do so they are seeking growth through federal contracts. Northern VA is the poster child of what happens when you have tons of growth over decades, but absolutely no planning, or worse, lots of nimby preventing infrastructure.
- hn_throwaway_99 8y ago<Basically any popular urban center in the US in the past 50 years> is the poster child of what happens when you have tons of growth over decades, but absolutely no planning, or worse, lots of nimby preventing infrastructure. Could easily say that about SF, LA, Austin, etc.
- samstave 8y agoSeriously. I'm of the opinion that every urban planner from the last fifty years in the US should be stripped of their degrees and titles their lands taken and their crops burned. The US transportation infrastructure even for how good it is compared to some other places is still a joke.
- rhino369 8y agoArlington, VA probably did the best job of any post-WWII high growth city in America. The orange line corridor is actually urbanizing what was once pure suburbia. Crystal City/Pentagon city is built pretty densely and has space for even more high rise buildings. Every other city in America that grew post wwII would have just built strip malls and single-family homes. There are new high rises going up in Crystal city even as rents stagnated. Can't be too much nimby stuff going on. Compared to say, silicon valley, they did a good job. Loudon County did a bad job. Fairfax did a mixed job. They definitely grew in some places--like Tysons, but other parts have just grown without planning.
- jzymbaluk 8y agoThis is true. There are so many high rises being built along the Wilson-Clarendon corridor, and Arlington and Alexandria actually have a big presence of the so-called missing middle of housing development [1]. This location seems like it's pretty well equipped to absorb HQ2 [1] http://missingmiddlehousing.com/ http://missingmiddlehousing.com/
- tinyhouse 8y ago> "The company may be having similar discussions with other finalists." The article sounds very speculative. I don't know anything about this place, but if it's expensive like people here say it is, then I don't see the point of Amazon moving there. I think a place like downtown Chicago would make more sense. (if only the winter was not as cold and better public schools...)
- bradleyjg 8y agoChicago has a lot of "natural" advantages, but the governments of Chicago and Illinois are too dysfunctional to put together a competitive bid.
- tinyhouse 8y agoNot too familiar with that, but from what I read they took it pretty seriously and offered some nice tax benefits. They also offered a location in south loop, which is a really nice area of downtown Chicago and still very affordable. It's also a short ride on the train to Midway airpot (not an international airpot like O'hare but much nicer to travel from and to). It's also very close to 3 universities.
- reaperducer 8y agoChicago's preferred Amazon location is Goose Island, part of the newly expanded downtown skyscraper district.[1] The city recently approved 18 new skyscrapers for downtown, including 12 for the proposed Amazon site, with an included professional soccer stadium.[2] [1] https://www.chicagoarchitecture.org/2018/03/26/river-district-revised-upsized-and-amazon-ized/ https://www.chicagoarchitecture.org/2018/03/26/river-distric... [2] https://www.chicagoarchitecture.org/2018/10/18/you-get-a-skyscraper-and-you-get-a-skyscraper/ https://www.chicagoarchitecture.org/2018/10/18/you-get-a-sky...
- tinyhouse 8y agoInteresting. I see it's near Lincoln Park, also a very nice location with easy access to O'hare via the blue line. Maybe even better than south loop. I assume it's a bit safer (unfortunately crime rates are still very high in many places across Chicago).
- otterley 8y agoSource article: https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/amazon-in-advanced-talks-about-putting-hq2-in-northern-virginia-those-close-to-process-say/2018/11/02/9be831d6-d7c0-11e8-aeb7-ddcad4a0a54e_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/amazon-in-advanced-talk...
- dang 8y agoThanks. We changed to that from https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/03/amazon-reportedly-in-advanced-stages-of-naming-va-as-2nd-headquarters.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/03/amazon-reportedly-in-advance....
- totoglazer 8y agoAlaska Airlines has the only DCA<->SEA nonstop flights I know of. I expect that will become much more popular and expensive...
- jzymbaluk 8y agoI imagine that won't be the case for long I'd the rumors are true
- bronco21016 8y agoDCA is slot controlled so the slot owners are going to have to weigh the revenue of SEA/DCA vs all the other markets they’re currently using those slots for. One business often isn’t going to bring enough revenue to compete with a market like BOS/DCA or NYC/DCA which consumes an enormous amount of the slots.
- snowwrestler 8y agoDCA also has a "perimeter rule" in place, which forbids flights between DCA and airports more than 1,250 miles away, unless a specific exception is made. http://www.flyreagan.com/dca/dca-reagan-national-slot-perimeter-rules http://www.flyreagan.com/dca/dca-reagan-national-slot-perime...
- synaesthesisx 8y agoWhat the purpose of a perimeter rule? Just curious...
- reaperducer 8y agoOriginally, it was to put regional routes in the regional airport, and long-distance routes in the long-distance airport. (As told to me by an urban studies professor I picked up at Dulles when I was a chauffeur in college.) Similar to how in New York, LaGuardia was supposed to be for domestic flights, Kennedy for international flights, and Newark for freight. But that didn't fully work out. (Same source.)
- Yhippa 8y agoThis is clearly a DoD play. The federal government as a whole is thirsty for cloud services and having a services provider like Amazon literally at their doorstep is going to win them a lot of work. If they do bring good experts to government work instead of what the typical government contractors in the area provide this will be a good thing for taxpayers.
- eli 8y agoPeople keep saying this and I really don't follow. Why does the DoD care where the headquarters of the parent company of their contractor is located? Are they gonna pop in and ask questions about the Amazon retail site? Sure AWS needs a sales office in the region. And a datacenter. And a lobbying shop too. Pretty sure they got all that covered already.
- ghaff 8y agoPolitically there's probably something to be said for having a strong local economic presence. But you're probably right that it can be overstated as a factor.
- jdavis703 8y agoAs a former government contractor (and employee), I can say having the tech teams nearby is an advantage. Personal relationships should not be underestimated, even when building software for the government. If anything personal relationships are even more important as there’s a high likelihood that non-technical people will be making the decisions on what and how you build the software.
- koboll 8y agoThe thing about sales is that at a certain level of client, the clients want to speak to executives, not salespeople. If you're going to place executives in the area, then their underlings need to be there too, and so on. Putting your HQ where your executives need to be makes sense.
- jacques_chester 8y ago
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- dlbucci 8y agoAs a Pittsburgher living in Seattle for the past few years, hearing this gives me hope. I know NIMBY isn't the best philosophy, but I make an exception for Amazon, who I think has done a number on Seattle and its culture.
- jseliger 8y agoI think you mean that "excessive parking and single-family zoning requirements" have done a number on Seattle: https://oldurbanist.blogspot.com/2015/12/single-family-zoning-in-seattle-and.html https://oldurbanist.blogspot.com/2015/12/single-family-zonin.... There are technologies that exist that allow more than a handful of people to live on a given unit of land.
- Qworg 8y agoI wouldn't knock having enough parking, but Seattle has a ridiculous number of single family residences within spitting distance of downtown. The upzoning regulation is a great first step, but is slow to roll out due to difficulties in permitting teardowns.
- opportune 8y agoyeah it just doesn’t make sense to blame economic growth on Seattle’s problems when most of the issues boil down to: things are crowded and rent is high Some people think that Chinese investment in real estate is also to blame but I’ve never seen any data that actually suggests that. Still, Seattle won’t pass rules to prevent speculation on property because at the end of the day, voters just want their property values to keep going up more than they want to live in a livable city for everyone
- nathankunicki 8y agoThis is no surprise, it was always going to be Virginia, or somewhere else in the east coast tech corridor. The whole "city competition" has been a grand scheme by Amazon to get cities (mostly those in the aforementioned area) to offer incentives to move there. No other states were ever in the running.
- perseusprime11 8y agoThis location will serve the ambition of Bezos to run for President.
- stevespang 8y agoHOORAY, the great evil one has avoided Austin, TX, now we austinites can live without the fear of Amazonites causing all our taxes to go through the roofs - - - and housing availability to go to nothing . . . .
- xbkingx 8y agoI still maintain that not picking Chicago would be a major mistake. I only think this because I want to see them take over most of the Sears Tower and convert it into a delivery drone launch site. A) How bonkers-cool would that look? B) Ideal test site for large scale drone delivery. Less drone power drain, since they would essentially be performing a controlled descent instead of a liftoff and descent. Asymmetric flight paths, like with the drone return around the 2nd-3rd floor, would allow more rapid launches. Grid street layout that makes actual sense, so easier on the AI/ML. Center of the country (ish), so longer distance delivery with solar powered drones might be viable. Okay, I'll admit it. I just REALLY want to see streams of flying killbots emanating from my home town. The Robot Uprising is coming, people, and I'm hoping early allegiance leads to a nicer brain vat in their biocomputer. Seriously, though, I would have thought Atlanta, Chicago, and Boston, in that order, would be better. Bi-coastal or geographic center make logistical sense. ATL and BOS have excellent tech resources, but maybe a bit too much competition for talent in BOS. ATL gives a presence in "The South", so could serve as a political/cultural foothold without any major compromises. ATL proved it can easily support a tech boom during the y2k bubble. BOS serves as a great gateway to Europe. CHI is really hungering for more tech influence and would probably bend over backwards to be accommodating. Plus, the most likely site in CHI is actually a great location for anyone that likes an urban setting, not just millennials. Amazon is one of the few tech companies that I think CHI could embrace because it has a strong influence on financial markets and doesn't feel as 'magical' as many tech companies (where it's hard for everyday people to understand what they do). And Chicagoans can be fiercely loyal, even to companies. Case in point - The Sears Tower. The only time you hear "Willis Tower" is on the news. And there are a couple dozen other cases of locals refusing to rebrand stuff simply because ownership or naming rights changed. Being by DC isn't a BAD location, but it seems like it would be better to have a strong satellite location that can be expanded as needed. I would assume the atmosphere there is more restricted for some of their more ambitious projects involving lots of sensors and physical presence. Every location will have red tape, but it seems like there DC would be ordering it in bulk. I dunno, just rambling.
- jcranmer 8y agoAmazon wanted an in-place tech-ready workforce, an environment that could appeal to yuppie urbanites, and a good transportation hub. Empty office space for quick bootstrapping and the ability to wring concessions were also major sweeteners. Bicoastal geography was also strongly suspected to be a major criterion. That pretty much cut out any second-tier city from the running. When Montgomery County, DC, and Northern VA were all announced as finalists, it ought to have been pretty clear that Amazon was focused on the DC area. Crystal City itself is basically the description of what you're looking for in that list I gave. Atlanta doesn't really have anything when you take out the airport (which is lousily situated anyways). I suspect Chicago, NYC, and Toronto all have too much focus on other industries (and, besides, Illinois is basically broke, so a sweetheart tax deal needs to be discounted on the basis that Illinois could need to find the cash quickly).
- gist 8y agoAmazing the amount of people here who takes this as some kind of truth instead of just a story that could have even been leaked for another purpose (perhaps even to gain more leverage with the area that they actually want to go to). This is also the epitome of infotainment something that in the end won't even matter unless it actually happens other than to discuss the 'inside baseball' of the entire event. How sure is anyone of this? Sure enough to go and snap up real estate (say residential) knowing that if it is correct that real estate will inflate in value well over whatever it is right now (already inflated). Also I still am not seeing the advantage to Amazon (as long as everyone is speculating) of going into such a dense and expensive area to begin with. Jeff is all about efficiency and paying as little as possible. What possible advantage does he have but located in such an expensive area that is sure to get even more expensive.
- perpetualcrayon 8y agoI would've been extremely surprised if it ended up being anywhere but Washington D.C. area.
- tvanantwerp 8y agoI live in the DC area and this is entirely expected. Bezos owns the Washington Post and a very expensive DC home. Amazon's got data centers in Northern Virginia. We would've all been shocked if it went somewhere else.
- mabbo 8y agoBut the entire point of the exercise wasn't to make Jeff happier and shorten his commute, it was to find a way to continue to grow without overloading Seattle any more than it already is. HQ2 needs to be somewhere that people want to live, with the room for lots of them. I really was hoping HQ2 would go somewhere more conservative politically. There's plenty of people who would work for Amazon but aren't really excited by Seattle (I'm not one of them, but I know some). Detroit specifically would have been perfect- low cost of living, lots of space to grow, great airport, lots of robotic/mechanical industry leaking from the failing car industry, plus UofM nearby. I don't know how they didn't make the finalists.
- tvanantwerp 8y agoI thought the point of the exercises was to get as many local government concessions as possible before making a decision whose outcome was fairly predictable in advance.
- bilbo0s 8y ago>I really was hoping HQ2 would go somewhere more conservative politically... >Detroit specifically would have been perfect... ??? Detroit? Conservative?
- fierro 8y agoI don't follow this line of reasoning. Jeff Bezos decides where to put Amazon's new HQ based on how quickly he can get home? Demand for his time is probably already spread all over the globe, I'd imagine many of his important meetings happen over phone/conference daily. total guess, I have nothing to back this up
- 8y ago
- amanaplanacanal 8y agoI wonder how much the locals are giving away to make this happen?
- dawhizkid 8y agoGiven how wealthy that area already is I'm guessing not as much as other places would have been willing to give us (i.e. IIRC New Jersey and Chicago were offering some of the bigger tax incentives). It would be more because Bezos wants those gov't contracts badly than anything VA was offering.
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- qaq 8y agoYou do realize that like 3 of top 5 counties by avg family income are in NoVA
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- qaq 8y agoDefense, IT (3d after SF and NYC by number of devs)
- markstos 8y agoCan we refer to this Eastern headquarters as us-east-hq-1?
- chrishynes 8y agoHahaha! Way to bring some levity to an otherwise humdrum stream of comments.
- rorygreig 8y agoThere's an irony to this being an article from the Washington Post, maybe they know something we don't
- trentnix 8y agoThey want to be where the big money is. And that means DC.
- bilbo0s 8y agoOr NYC. But NYC is way too crowded. They'll need growing room.
- throwaway713 8y agoAargh, I wish ONE tech company would put a HQ somewhere in the South. I currently live in the Bay Area working at a company I love, but I'll have to move back at some point (my wife wants to be closer to family). Crystal City, VA is still an 8 hour drive from the part of the South I'm from. Atlanta, Raleigh, and Nashville have so much potential... I think if just one of FANG put a HQ there (or even an office), the others would quickly follow.
- fierro 8y agoI feel like the South has a long way to come before the average tech worker would want to live and work there. You couldn't pay me enough (literally since comp is so low out there, but also kind of metaphorically as well) to go work and live in any Southern state. Maybe you need a critical mass? - fellow Bay Area tech worker
- ethagknight 8y agoCan you elaborate why the south has a long way to go before the average tech worker would want to live there?
- octonion 8y agoThe politics and culture (which are intertwined). Even if one area or city is more liberal, you're still dealing with a conservative, and possibly racist, sexist and homophobic, state government.
- hn_throwaway_99 8y agoAgreed. State government in Texas is constantly overturning city ordinances in Austin: the whole bathroom bill BS, requiring local police to hold suspects for ICE, even overturning the plastic bag ban. All of the current political ads are pretty nauseating. Regardless of where you stand on the issue of managing immigration (and IMO there are lots of fair points on both sides that I think unfortunately get drowned out by extremists), the tone of the current set of ads is clearly "Evil brown gang members are coming to sell your kids drugs and murder your family." Makes Willy Horton look quaint.
- DevX101 8y agoI'd be willing to bet Bezos knew with 90% confidence where he'd want HQ2 a year ago and put on this prisoner's dilemma game amongst states to reap the most benefit possible before moving there.
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- dev_dull 8y agoSounds smart and tactical. I guess there’s a reason he’s one of the richest people in history.
- teej 8y agoJeff Bezos owns a $23m house in DC. The entire HQ2 process was a farce to get cities to game theory themselves to death in favor of Amazon. HQ2 was always going to be in NOVA.
- oh_sigh 8y agoHave you made this claim earlier than today?
- teej 8y agoThere was someone who wrote a blog or tweet about it awhile back but I couldn’t find it. Found it - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLtLz4wQtOg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLtLz4wQtOg
- marrone12 8y agoHe also owns the Washington Post, which is based out of DC. It'll create a nice network effect for his companies to share smart people.
- konschubert 8y agoEy, you have to credit Scott Galloway if you cute hi.
- Endama 8y agoWow, this is close to what Scott Galloway has been predicting for the past few months [1] [1]https://youtu.be/wLtLz4wQtOg https://youtu.be/wLtLz4wQtOg
- siggen 8y agoVery unlikely it will be Crystal City. Based on parameters that news lifted on qualifiers for HQ2. 1. There isn't sufficient space for a large campus. 2. DCA is a small airport. Loudoun county has a higher chance than Crystal City based on the above parameters. Of course, the parameters could have been wrong. And I would much prefer Crystal City over Loudoun, too.
- gigatexal 8y agoMakes it easier for Amazon to lobby the feds. Not sure how I feel about this. Also is this how skynet starts: they get some big government contract, it’s some military A.I. thing and then boom T1000s. I joke but still. I agree with the others that Bezos has this place picked all along. I was hoping he put it in Portland Oregon but the local government would have taxed him a ton or insisted on a union and Amazon wouldn’t have liked that.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- viburnum 8y agoThis will make nationalizing Amazon a bit easier.
- sjg007 8y agoClearly they need to be closer to AWS east for performance reasons... :)
- Simulacra 8y agoPlease. Don’t. Housing is terribly expensive here, and a second HQ would spike it grossly. Why not choose a place that needs the jobs and development??