4 ms·

There are more people that don't want to live in NYC than do. What's your point? At no point was there an HQ2 requirement of "be as cool as NYC"

jacques_chester 8y ago
My point is that Amazon's making some place "a somewhere" is never going to be on the scale of NYC. They want to attract talent and the way to do that is to go where the talent is or wants to be. The bay area is such a place. Seattle is such a place. New York is such a place. But they couldn't turn Mt Tinroof Springs into a world centre no matter what they did.
- ghaff 8y ago
  I actually wonder a bit about NYC in that regard. It's a distinctive place that definitely isn't for everyone. Obviously a lot of people want to live there. I know folks who could never imagine living someplace else. But NYC has improved (if you have money). So maybe it is a place it's easy to attract people to live in.
  - jacques_chester 8y ago
    My view is you should live in places that create strong feelings. Living in a place that feels like the aftermath of a cosmic shrug isn't good for the soul. I grew up in Darwin and I still love it. I live in NYC and I love it. I've also lived in Perth and felt ... nothing.
    - pbarnes_1 8y ago
      You grew up in Darwin? Awesome. You felt nothing in Perth because Perth is just... there. :)
      - wyclif 8y ago
        For some strange reason, Perth feels much more isolated than Darwin. Even though they are both outposts, Perth is so far away from any other city or culture.
      - jacques_chester 8y ago
        It was a different life.
- briandear 8y ago
  How does Exxon attract talent to Houston? How about FedEx attracting talent to Memphis? Weird how only software engineers seem to only be attracted to NYC or Silicon Valley (to hear us talk about it.) A desirable company can attract talent no matter where they are. Startups have to leach from the existing community because they don’t have the clout to attract talent to Amarillo, Texas. But Google or Apple certainly could. A Silicon Valley salary in a cheaper place: half of the Valley would jump on that chance. I live inMountain View and I certainly don’t see a huge value to being here outside of work. It’s basically one continuous traffic jam. Los Angeles is a heck of a lot more fun. I came here because my company is in the area. I certainly wouldn’t have picked this place as a first choice: more restaurants per capita in Houston, better weather in Los Angeles, better mountains in Colorado, lower taxes and cheaper gas almost everywhere else. Visiting San Francisco occasionally is certainly fun, but then again so is Miami, Austin, New Orleans. The only thing uniquely special about SV is the proximity of VC money — something that has no relevance to the Amazons of the world.
  - dunpeal 8y ago
    > How does Exxon attract talent to Houston? How about FedEx attracting talent to Memphis? Two big differences: 1. The talent crunch for Exxon and FedEx isn't nearly as bad as the crunch for engineering talent that Amazon is facing. Simply put, engineers that can get offers from Amazon have many options, and moving to Buttfuck, Nowhere won't be the best of them. 2. Exxon and FedEx employees, especially the senior, harder-to-secure talent, tend to be older folks with families. The talent Amazon would typically go after is much younger, often recent graduates.
    - vonmoltke 8y ago
      > The talent crunch for Exxon and FedEx isn't nearly as bad as the crunch for engineering talent that Amazon is facing. Not accurate (IMO). 1. ExxonMobil is now, and has been for years, hurting for petroleum engineers. It's a discipline that isn't taught at many universities, so the supply is rather constrained. In recent years new grad petroleum and chemical engineers have been pulling in offers that rival FANG offers. 2. If Amazon, or any other FANG, was really hurting for talent they would do something about their false negative problem in interviews. That they aren't indicates to me that they are either passing enough people or just being choosing beggars.

jacques_chester 8y ago

My point is that Amazon's making some place "a somewhere" is never going to be on the scale of NYC. They want to attract talent and the way to do that is to go where the talent is or wants to be. The bay area is such a place. Seattle is such a place. New York is such a place. But they couldn't turn Mt Tinroof Springs into a world centre no matter what they did.

ghaff 8y ago
I actually wonder a bit about NYC in that regard. It's a distinctive place that definitely isn't for everyone. Obviously a lot of people want to live there. I know folks who could never imagine living someplace else. But NYC has improved (if you have money). So maybe it is a place it's easy to attract people to live in.
- jacques_chester 8y ago
  My view is you should live in places that create strong feelings. Living in a place that feels like the aftermath of a cosmic shrug isn't good for the soul. I grew up in Darwin and I still love it. I live in NYC and I love it. I've also lived in Perth and felt ... nothing.
  - pbarnes_1 8y ago
    You grew up in Darwin? Awesome. You felt nothing in Perth because Perth is just... there. :)
    - wyclif 8y ago
      For some strange reason, Perth feels much more isolated than Darwin. Even though they are both outposts, Perth is so far away from any other city or culture.
    - jacques_chester 8y ago
      It was a different life.
briandear 8y ago
How does Exxon attract talent to Houston? How about FedEx attracting talent to Memphis? Weird how only software engineers seem to only be attracted to NYC or Silicon Valley (to hear us talk about it.) A desirable company can attract talent no matter where they are. Startups have to leach from the existing community because they don’t have the clout to attract talent to Amarillo, Texas. But Google or Apple certainly could. A Silicon Valley salary in a cheaper place: half of the Valley would jump on that chance. I live inMountain View and I certainly don’t see a huge value to being here outside of work. It’s basically one continuous traffic jam. Los Angeles is a heck of a lot more fun. I came here because my company is in the area. I certainly wouldn’t have picked this place as a first choice: more restaurants per capita in Houston, better weather in Los Angeles, better mountains in Colorado, lower taxes and cheaper gas almost everywhere else. Visiting San Francisco occasionally is certainly fun, but then again so is Miami, Austin, New Orleans. The only thing uniquely special about SV is the proximity of VC money — something that has no relevance to the Amazons of the world.
- dunpeal 8y ago
  > How does Exxon attract talent to Houston? How about FedEx attracting talent to Memphis? Two big differences: 1. The talent crunch for Exxon and FedEx isn't nearly as bad as the crunch for engineering talent that Amazon is facing. Simply put, engineers that can get offers from Amazon have many options, and moving to Buttfuck, Nowhere won't be the best of them. 2. Exxon and FedEx employees, especially the senior, harder-to-secure talent, tend to be older folks with families. The talent Amazon would typically go after is much younger, often recent graduates.
  - vonmoltke 8y ago
    > The talent crunch for Exxon and FedEx isn't nearly as bad as the crunch for engineering talent that Amazon is facing. Not accurate (IMO). 1. ExxonMobil is now, and has been for years, hurting for petroleum engineers. It's a discipline that isn't taught at many universities, so the supply is rather constrained. In recent years new grad petroleum and chemical engineers have been pulling in offers that rival FANG offers. 2. If Amazon, or any other FANG, was really hurting for talent they would do something about their false negative problem in interviews. That they aren't indicates to me that they are either passing enough people or just being choosing beggars.