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Apple to build campus in Austin and sites in Seattle, San Diego and Culver City
- chrisco255 8y agoWho needs Amazon HQ 2.1 or 2.2? Austin's got Apple!
- rdl 8y agoCurious how much of this is “natural”, how much is forced by stupid CA policies and COL, and how much is “spread out jobs and investment to reduce government risk/gain government support at state and federal-legislative levels.”
- ghaff 8y agoAs companies grow they naturally tend to distribute. As you get to this sort of scale it’s not like employees are co-located in any meaningful sense even if they’re in the same general geo. Distribute risk, get access to an additional pool of workers. Certainly COL (and general congestion) in the Bay Area will inevitably bias most companies against doing any sizable expansion there.
- sargun 8y agoI seriously do not understand anyone in the Bay Area that’s anti development. How can you justify yourself in good conscience to be anti development when CoL is so high?
- QuixoticQuibit 8y agoPeople who have vested interests in keeping it that way: NIMBYers. People who currently own homes and want to see their habitable “retirement plans” grow indefinitely. And god forbid we build apartment complexes greater than 5 stories all over the Bay Area. We wouldn’t want anyone’s glorious viewshed of the surrounding yellow hills to be blocked. Of course, increasing housing density highlights other problems: terrible traffic and poor public transportation. We’d need to make large investments in both housing and transportation infrastructure if we’re ever going to make headway in the CoL problem.
- ghaff 8y agoYes. People can be generally pro-development and also oppose development that just consists of sticking tall apartment buildings here and there while leaving public transit, auto infrastructure, and other public works as an exercise for the indefinite future.
- thaumasiotes 8y agoThis doesn't make much sense. Transit follows population. You wouldn't build transit before there was a need for it.
- ghaff 8y agoIn fact, population has historically often grown up around rail and transit lines. It's one argument for light rail vs. buses; people buying and developing along along a line are far less exposed to the transit moving than in the case of a bus. So, no. It's normally not a great idea to build a bunch of random housing and hope a total transportation mess--which already describes much of the Bay Area--will hopefully be solved someday.
- thaumasiotes 8y agoYes, population centers have historically grown up around trade routes. Population grows around transit that is already in use, in order to provide services along the route. But a route that nobody uses doesn't have any surplus around which a population would grow.
- matthewmacleod 8y agoA robust city development plan should incorporate infrastructure buildout as part of the planning sign-off process. For urban areas in particular, it's important to make sure that things like road and transit access, schools, medical facilities etc. are able to cope with increased demand. This can include requiring developers to make financial contributions towards infrastructure as part of that process. You can't realistically expect to create substantial residential developments without appropriate infrastructure, and just kind of "fill in the gaps" later – transit infrastructure in particular has long lead times that make that impractical. In reality, planning of residential development and infrastructure changes need to be part of an integrated planning strategy ad the government level.
- jseliger 8y agoHow can you justify yourself in good conscience to be anti development when CoL is so high? Bear in mind too that a fair number of people either can't or won't understand basic economics. I can't tell you how many times I've had or heard conversations that go like this: Person A: We should kick out all the greedy developers who are raising the price of housing. Person B: Housing costs are set by supply and demand; if the supply does not increase, prices will rise further. A: That's not true! When new housing gets built, it's more expensive than existing housing. B: That might be true of a particular unit, but that's because most people prefer new housing to old housing, and it's extremely hard to construct anything. A: Just look at that new development: it's more expensive. We need to ban new housing. Plus, I don't want my neighborhood to look like Manhattan. B: Missing Middle housing will not turn your neighborhood into Manhattan: http://missingmiddlehousing.com/ http://missingmiddlehousing.com/ A: I've lived here for five years and I still don't want to see the neighborhood change. You can go on for a long time in this vein, with more or less invective.
- AlexTWithBeard 8y agoPerson A: we should make greedy developers to build cheaper houses Person B: (points out the cost of unionized workforce) Person A throws a tantrum.
- simongr3dal 8y agoIf you compare the bubble map of new jobs with the heatmap of existing jobs it looks like they are expanding proportionally to the amount of people they are already employing in the different areas. To me that seems like it might just be a natural expansion.
- pault 8y agoNetflix contacted me a few times about coming in for an interview, but I did the math and even at Netflix salary, I would still be taking a relative pay cut by leaving Austin for California. I know I'm not the only one coming to this conclusion.
- buildforrelease 8y agoFor what it's worth, most of those sites already have Apple locations and are being expanded. Austin is Apple's second largest campus. Culver City already has something like 500-700 employees, and even Pittsburgh is where things like iWork are made. So these are all pretty natural. Also keep in mind that several of the sites were in CA, so not likely anything to do with "stupid CA policies and CoL".
- Shihan 8y agoIs this because of policies from D. Trump?
- jacek 8y agoBig corps love to brag about "adding jobs", but don't like to brag about the "tax incentives" they are getting. There are usually huge costs for the whole community. Austin tax incentives for Apple seem to be relatively small [1], but Foxconn factory in Wisconsin is an extreme case. I highly recommend the Replay All podcast episode on this [2][3] [1] https://www.statesman.com/news/20120901/austin-council-oks-86m-in-incentives-for-new-apple-facility https://www.statesman.com/news/20120901/austin-council-oks-8... [2] https://www.gimletmedia.com/reply-all/132-negative-mount-pleasant#episode-player https://www.gimletmedia.com/reply-all/132-negative-mount-ple... [3] https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/6/18128133/foxconn-deal-wisconsin-factory-mount-pleasant-trump-reply-all-sruthi-pinnamaneni https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/6/18128133/foxconn-deal-wis...
- sschueller 8y agoI saw this video about LA a few days ago and it is very sad how these tax incentives are ruining entire states. [1] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWTic9btP38 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWTic9btP38
- christopherwxyz 8y agoIf one state didn't offer a tax break, then another would and win the business. There are 50 states, and most of them compete for businesses with tax incentives fairly competitively.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- synaesthesisx 8y agoDidn't know about the Culver City expansion, neat! There's a tremendous amount of tech talent in LA, I'm surprised they don't already have a major presence here
- perishabledave 8y agoMy guess would be that the office is from the Beats acquisition. A quick job search on their website seems to confirm that as there are a few audio/DSP positions.
- donretag 8y agoI live in LA and I think the level of tech talent is abysmal. At the Java meetup this week, eight people showed up. EIGHT. In the Bay/SF/NYC, there would be over a hundred. I have been to tech gatherings, where I would be the only techie.
- milleramp 8y agoIt’s because we are all over at the python meetup where the real party is!
- jboggan 8y agoI live in Santa Monica and I think the level of tech talent is pretty great. There's simply much more to do here on a weeknight than go to a tech meetup!
- donretag 8y agoI used the wrong wording in my reply. The level of talent is good, it is the tech scene in general that is weak. I get recruiter emails constantly from companies in SF, Seattle, NYC, etc, but rarely from LA. There are simply not enough companies doing challenging work. Many small little startups trying to solve problems that do not need solving.
- mikehollinger 8y agoSo - any idea just where they’ll KUT the expansion? The domain is too far away, right?
- _JamesA_ 8y agoThe local article I read says "It will be less than a mile from existing Apple facilities" [1] which I assume means the Parmer [2] location. [1]: https://spectrumlocalnews.com/tx/austin/news/2018/12/13/apple-announces-plan-to-build--1-billion-campus-in-austin https://spectrumlocalnews.com/tx/austin/news/2018/12/13/appl... [2]: https://www.google.com/maps/search/Corporate+Campus/@30.4347425,-97.7434536,15z/data=!3m1!4b1 https://www.google.com/maps/search/Corporate+Campus/@30.4347...
- TheBolivianNavy 8y agoParmer and Dallas. The land is usually occupied by political signs. Traffic is going to be even more fun on Parmer. See picture in this article: http://www.kut.org/post/apple-says-its-building-new-1-billion-campus-north-austin http://www.kut.org/post/apple-says-its-building-new-1-billio...
- underwater 8y agoThe chart showing the number of employees per state is comically misleading. They have tens of thousands of employees in Cupertino, but make the largest bucket represent "1000+" to make it appear employees are more evenly distributed across the country.
- minikites 8y agoNot that it makes the chart any less misleading but Apple Retail is the biggest division by number and those employees are indeed spread out.
- buboard 8y agoTangentially, has apple moved any kind of foreign earnings to the US after the recent tax cuts? Also, 90000 thats an impressively low number of jobs
- adventured 8y ago90,000 is not an impressively low number of jobs. It makes Apple one of the 40-50 largest employers in the US and one of the five largest US tech employers. Back in January Apple publicly announced their plans for repatriation. While Apple doesn't give routine updates on exactly what it's doing with every dollar of cash it holds, they've stopped accumulating debt and have begun reducing it. Previously, for years, they were aggressively accumulating debt to fund their capital return programs (which require immense sums of capital in the US in one form or another). To fund that they either have to use debt in the US or have the domestic cash holdings to cover it. "Apple Inc. said it will bring hundreds of billions of overseas dollars back to the U.S., pay about $38 billion in taxes on the money and spend tens of billions on domestic jobs, manufacturing and data centers in the coming years." "Apple has the largest offshore cash reserves of any U.S. company, with about $252 billion at the end of September, the most recently reported fiscal quarter. The tax rate indicates that Apple is likely bringing back a majority of its overseas cash back to the U.S., leaving only a small portion for international investments like retail stores." https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-17/apple-expects-38-billion-tax-bill-on-overseas-repatriated-cash https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-17/apple-exp...
- saagarjha 8y agoYou didn’t mention it, but I thought I’d bring it up: the majority of those 90,000 jobs are in retail, not corporate. So they’re not necessarily “tech” jobs.
- rlanday 8y agoAre you sure? Wikipedia says Apple has 271 stores in the US. For your claim to be true, the average Apple store in the US would have to employ at least 45,001/271 = 166.1 people.
- TheBeardKing 8y agoSo glad we didn't have another public circus to select the destination cities. This is how the Amazon process should've gone. And good for Austin, it's a great city with a lot of tech talent, glad to see it grow.
- saagarjha 8y agoApple seems to have picked cities where they already have some presence, so there really wasn’t much for a need for a “circus”.
- stevenkovar 8y agoTim Cook was openly critical about the Amazon circus.
- jkestner 8y agoApple has a lesser known location in southwest Austin, too: https://www.statesman.com/business/20160924/sources-apple-signs-lease-for-office-building-in-southwest-austin https://www.statesman.com/business/20160924/sources-apple-si... Some more details on the incentives and strings attached.
- fouc 8y agoDo any of these large companies build campuses in other countries?
- mtmail 8y agoGoogle's London office hosts 4000 employees and has cost 1 billion (800m million was the plot). It might not look like a campus, that's because central London simply doesn't have the space. https://www.theverge.com/2017/6/1/15723642/google-london-office-pictures-headquarters-kings-cross https://www.theverge.com/2017/6/1/15723642/google-london-off...
- emdowling 8y agoLike Google (mentioned in another comment), Facebook and Amazon also have large campuses in London with similar headcount, as well as large offices in cities like Dublin.
- kod 8y agoTheir campus location is so far north, it's more like south Dallas than Austin.
- pixl97 8y agoUm, what are you talking about? It is near Jollyville which is at the North Austin city limits. Get on 35 and wait in traffic in Temple and you'll figure out how far Dallas is away.
- kod 8y agoIn terms of terrain and culture, once you're in Jollyville / Round Rock, it's not really Austin any more, it's indistinguishable from generic city USA.
- projectramo 8y agoDo you know where it is? I can't find any info on the exact location. I assumed somewhere near Round Rock for the proximity to the old tech workforce but that was just a guess.
- pelagic_sky 8y agoDoes anyone have any more info about the expansion in Seattle? I'm wondering if they are going to get more space in the same building or are looking to move.
- Klonoar 8y agoI believe new space, based on what I know of their current office there. Obviously I'm not Apple and could be wrong, though.
- ENOTTY 8y agoAustin makes a ton of sense given the incredible amount of chip design talent in the area.
- sigstoat 8y agoomitted from the title, but included in the article, is that they're also expanding in boulder colorado. i know that location has been under construction for at least 6 months now. my business was having some construction done, and we kept getting bottom of the barrel subcontractors, because our contractor also has the apple building, and kept sending their good folks over there. :(
- kyrra 8y agoAre you sure it's not the Google building too? They have had constant construction for the past 2 years.
- sigstoat 8y agoi got a location of the building out of the person i was talking to, and it wasn't where google is. i also know the name of the contractor, and it didn't match any of the signage i saw last time i walked past the google construction site. so... i'm sure. take that for what you will.
- throwaway5752 8y agoBig loss for RTP area in North Carolina which was favored to land it, but got nothing. Guess they pay for the disgraceful performance of the NC General Assembly in the past several years - at least enough that TX tax policies won out.
- JeremyNT 8y agoAs a resident of the Triangle, it sure doesn't feel like a big loss to me. Do we actually benefit by handing out tax breaks to a megacorp just so it can relocate a few thousand jobs to the area? We've got our own problems related to growth already, we surely don't need to grow even faster - especially not by adding companies that effectively contribute nothing back financially to support all the needed infrastructure (after all the tax breaks).
- throwaway5752 8y agoI think so. More jobs, higher salaries, higher overall tax receipts, halo job creation... all of that makes for more money to improve infrastructure. There's a lot that I could say about this more specifically, but I will leave it at, yes, I think this would have been good for the Triangle.
- ralmidani 8y agoI haven't been following the lead-up to this announcement, but it seems to have involved much less fanfare and public drama than Amazon's HQ2 decision did. Bezos insists on squeezing every last drop out of a negotiation (see also: Amazon de-listing hard copies of books while the ebook negotiations are ongoing), so is Apple less malevolent or do they just enjoy more inherent leverage than Amazon does?
- zelon88 8y agoFor every $1m an EDC gives to a fortune 500 company for relocation, $1m should be allocated to a fund for low interest small business lending. Mom and pop shops have to pay taxes but frauds like Curt Schilling and slave drivers like Amazon get hundreds of millions of dollars (that they don't need) to create mediocre jobs with high turnaround. Leveling the field isn't enough. Conglomerates are too big and too many. We need to lower the barriers for entry into markets where fortune 500 companies have made competition impossible.
- ethbro 8y agoTeddy Roosevelt's New Nationalism speech warning of the dangers of combination and attempting to reach a "fair" balance between labor and capital is as relevant today as it was at the turn of the century. And just a damn good speech. Skip through the intro about John Brown (he was speaking in Kansas and playing to the crowd) http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/new-nationalism-speech/ http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/new-nati...
- dmode 8y agoSo blue cities and states continue to become richer and income inequality will continue to grow. Austin, Seattle, San Diego, LA, NYC.. unbelievable Also, kind of disappointing how low the job numbers are. 5000 in Austin over the next several years and hundreds for other areas. In contrast, Amazon announced 20K in VA and NYC. This tells me that Cupertino will continue to grow
- AnthonBerg 8y agoCould it possibly it have more to do with other correlated demographic attributes of those states, such as education level or age or quality of life, rather than the "blueness" or "redness" itself?
- dmode 8y agoI think you hit on a key point that is lost in the "business friendly" discussion that pervades US politics and is singularly focused on tax relief. Whereas anybody who has worked in some kind of relocation strategy knows that tax is only one lever among many to incentivize companies. The biggest lever, in a knowledge economy, is availability of high skilled talent. Simple math suggests that to hire 5000 engineers, you need to interview 50k engineers, which means you need 200-300k at the top of the funnel. Thus, it turns out that the biggest incentive to attract businesses is to make your city attractive for talent. An area with a large talent pool is the most business friendly place, period. And then you have to ask why do such talent concentrate on certain areas of the country and what those areas are doing right.
- kitsunesoba 8y agoIt’s anecdata so take it with a grain of salt, but a lot of red areas like my home town are also extremely resistant to new industries and the changes that they bring on top of being unwelcoming to anybody from out of state and in fact anybody differing significantly from the dominant local culture. All of this is directly counter to what makes a good location for a new campus. I’m sure that there are red areas that aren’t like my hometown, but from what I’ve gathered a lot of them — maybe even a good majority — are.
- 8y ago