As an outsider (to both Amazon and NYC), I always assumed NYC's motivation was wanting to diversify its industry. Right now it seems heavy in the financial sec

As an outsider (to both Amazon and NYC), I always assumed NYC's motivation was wanting to diversify its industry. Right now it seems heavy in the financial sector to me. Arguably tech is a big part of the economic future, so one view is that it would be smart to have some of that. It's my understanding that while NYC isn't really a tech hub, the startup / tech scene there has grown stronger in recent years. So I pretty much assumed they were trying to capitalize on this momentum and do a big push to achieve something like critical mass. Whether that's a worthy goal is very much for debate, but it seemed like that's what they thought they were getting in exchange for the sweet deal they were offering.