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> Many people do not realize that Amazon leaving doesn't mean +$3B in their pocket it means $0 and even less than zero in the long term. I don't think that log

by geofft 8y ago

> Many people do not realize that Amazon leaving doesn't mean +$3B in their pocket it means $0 and even less than zero in the long term. I don't think that logic makes sense. The absence of Amazon doesn't mean that the land is razed and the earth salted. It means other companies, without the $3B in concessions, can grow there instead. They could be other giant tech companies, they could be small businesses, they could be anything, but someone is likely to move forward with the land. It may or may not be $3B, but it certainly will be more than zero in the short term and the long term.

Wowfunhappy 8y ago
And, this is particularly relevant in New York City, where there's not much land and a lot of demand for what's there. If this was rural Nevada, we'd be having a different discussion.
ardy42 8y ago
It might even be better for us in the long run. Instead of Amazon sucking up more talent in the NYC area, that talent is available to some other company (or companies) that can compete (nationally) with Amazon for it. The land isn't either barren or occupied by Amazon crabgrass. Different things can grow there.
- autokad 8y ago
  I'm a data scientist in Seattle and there was a very strong possibility I was going to go over to NYC. now thats not going to happen. Instead, (for example NYU data science grads) are going to be moving to the west coast, being much more unavailable to other companies in the NY area.
  - Wowfunhappy 8y ago
    You're acting like there's a dearth of job opportunities in New York without Amazon. This just isn't the case, even compared to the west coast. I work at a small graphic/web design agency. My bosses moved from Los Angeles (where they grew up) to New York in order to start the business, because they believed there would be more opportunities here. Now, this was a decade ago, and maybe had they tried they would have done fine in California, but it's not nearly as clear cut as you're making it out to be.
  - geofft 8y ago
    I'm not sure I follow - is your claim that you were going to go to NYC because of the Amazon job market, or because you're currently employed by Amazon and your job was going to move? There's a pretty healthy market for data scientists in NYC. I work at a well-paying (probably better-paying than Amazon, honestly) NYC tech/finance company that hires tons of data science people, and we're certainly not the only one. I don't think that the existence of some Amazon data science jobs in Seattle (or Nashville) instead of in NYC is going to meaningfully hurt the data science job market here.
    - autokad 8y ago
      the latter. > "There's a pretty healthy market for data scientists in NYC." NYC does have a good data science sector, although as a data scientist, you have to admit the prospects are no where near as good as west coast. the finance sector is awful to apply to because they are those companies that force you to sign up for websites, repeat everything you put in your resume, etc, but that's off topic. My point above was that there were many talented people that would have been coming to NYC from Amazon, that would have been much more available, the complete opposite of a 'talent suck'. As we have already seen time and time again from cities like pittsburgh, jobs get more jobs. more specifically, when you increase the number of available jobs of a job category by a single company, there are even more of those type of jobs created by other companies.
      - geofft 8y ago
        > the finance sector is awful to apply to because they are those companies that force you to sign up for websites, repeat everything you put in your resume, etc, but that's off topic. This isn't true in my experience btw - we use Greenhouse for hiring same as basically any other tech company. (And my manager^3 is ex-Amazon, as it happens.) If you want to write off the entire finance sector, that's your choice, but it is and will continue to be a significant part of the labor market in NYC so I think you're relatively non-representative in doing so. We do attract lots of non-NYC people to move to NYC to work for us.
- nerfhammer 8y ago
  Reducing the number of employers is better for existing employers, yes. Less competition for labor. They will be able to get better talent and pay them less. That would be great, for them.
  - pooya13 8y ago
    Amazon opening shop in NY will lead to having less employers and less competition in the long run, not more. Furthermore having less competition is not always better for the existing employers. It is much easier to complete with 10 local coffee shops than with a giant cooperation like Starbucks. Specially if the giant corporation is getting a massive tax break, has collective power of capital, but does not have to respond to collective power of labor (no unions).
    - nerfhammer 8y ago
      we're saying here that less competition is bad and more competition is also bad
      - ardy42 8y ago
        > we're saying here that less competition is bad and more competition is also bad I think you're thinking too short term. If all the most lucrative markets are dominated by the same few tech employers, then maybe they'll end up with another moat around themselves. That moat might be one that might actually be good for both the employers and the employees, but bad for everyone else. The market position of the competitors matters.
      - pooya13 8y ago
        That’s not what I am saying. What I mean is that it has more to do with the circumstances than the number of competitors. In general more competition is better for consumers and less is better for business owners. But in this case it’s lose lose (with the only winner being Amazon) as it will reduce the number of local businesses long term while also making it harder for the remaining businesses to compete with Amazon due to the unfair handouts they were expecting to receive from the government.
- smokeyj 8y ago
  What you lack in economic fundamentals you make up with optimism. How are there so many of you?
- TulliusCicero 8y ago
  > Instead of Amazon sucking up more talent in the NYC area, that talent is available to some other company (or companies) that can compete (nationally) with Amazon for it. Right, and truly the best off cities for companies that need programmers are places like Tulsa or Phoenix, that have virtually zero tech companies of renown competing. ...OR, that's actually the opposite of the case, and network/ecosystem effects mean that the more talent you have, the easier it is to attract yet more talent.
rubyfan 8y ago
The $3B in incentives from the state and local governments is nothing. 25K jobs X $150K per year and all of the spending that goes with it, housing, restaurants, transportation, fitness, entertainment probably adds up to something like a $100B loss over the next decade.
- samfisher83 8y ago
  NYC has about a 1.5 trillion dollar economy. So 25k*150k - 3.75 billion or .25%. Its not like they need amazon there. There are 1000s of other companies out there. Its like giving subsidies to sports stadiums. You are revitalizing the area around the sports stadium, but what you are doing is taking money that might have been spent in some other area of the city.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

by geofft 8y ago

Wowfunhappy 8y ago

And, this is particularly relevant in New York City, where there's not much land and a lot of demand for what's there. If this was rural Nevada, we'd be having a different discussion.

ardy42 8y ago

It might even be better for us in the long run. Instead of Amazon sucking up more talent in the NYC area, that talent is available to some other company (or companies) that can compete (nationally) with Amazon for it. The land isn't either barren or occupied by Amazon crabgrass. Different things can grow there.

autokad 8y ago
I'm a data scientist in Seattle and there was a very strong possibility I was going to go over to NYC. now thats not going to happen. Instead, (for example NYU data science grads) are going to be moving to the west coast, being much more unavailable to other companies in the NY area.
- Wowfunhappy 8y ago
  You're acting like there's a dearth of job opportunities in New York without Amazon. This just isn't the case, even compared to the west coast. I work at a small graphic/web design agency. My bosses moved from Los Angeles (where they grew up) to New York in order to start the business, because they believed there would be more opportunities here. Now, this was a decade ago, and maybe had they tried they would have done fine in California, but it's not nearly as clear cut as you're making it out to be.
- geofft 8y ago
  I'm not sure I follow - is your claim that you were going to go to NYC because of the Amazon job market, or because you're currently employed by Amazon and your job was going to move? There's a pretty healthy market for data scientists in NYC. I work at a well-paying (probably better-paying than Amazon, honestly) NYC tech/finance company that hires tons of data science people, and we're certainly not the only one. I don't think that the existence of some Amazon data science jobs in Seattle (or Nashville) instead of in NYC is going to meaningfully hurt the data science job market here.
  - autokad 8y ago
    the latter. > "There's a pretty healthy market for data scientists in NYC." NYC does have a good data science sector, although as a data scientist, you have to admit the prospects are no where near as good as west coast. the finance sector is awful to apply to because they are those companies that force you to sign up for websites, repeat everything you put in your resume, etc, but that's off topic. My point above was that there were many talented people that would have been coming to NYC from Amazon, that would have been much more available, the complete opposite of a 'talent suck'. As we have already seen time and time again from cities like pittsburgh, jobs get more jobs. more specifically, when you increase the number of available jobs of a job category by a single company, there are even more of those type of jobs created by other companies.
    - geofft 8y ago
      > the finance sector is awful to apply to because they are those companies that force you to sign up for websites, repeat everything you put in your resume, etc, but that's off topic. This isn't true in my experience btw - we use Greenhouse for hiring same as basically any other tech company. (And my manager^3 is ex-Amazon, as it happens.) If you want to write off the entire finance sector, that's your choice, but it is and will continue to be a significant part of the labor market in NYC so I think you're relatively non-representative in doing so. We do attract lots of non-NYC people to move to NYC to work for us.
nerfhammer 8y ago
Reducing the number of employers is better for existing employers, yes. Less competition for labor. They will be able to get better talent and pay them less. That would be great, for them.
- pooya13 8y ago
  Amazon opening shop in NY will lead to having less employers and less competition in the long run, not more. Furthermore having less competition is not always better for the existing employers. It is much easier to complete with 10 local coffee shops than with a giant cooperation like Starbucks. Specially if the giant corporation is getting a massive tax break, has collective power of capital, but does not have to respond to collective power of labor (no unions).
  - nerfhammer 8y ago
    we're saying here that less competition is bad and more competition is also bad
    - ardy42 8y ago
      > we're saying here that less competition is bad and more competition is also bad I think you're thinking too short term. If all the most lucrative markets are dominated by the same few tech employers, then maybe they'll end up with another moat around themselves. That moat might be one that might actually be good for both the employers and the employees, but bad for everyone else. The market position of the competitors matters.
    - pooya13 8y ago
      That’s not what I am saying. What I mean is that it has more to do with the circumstances than the number of competitors. In general more competition is better for consumers and less is better for business owners. But in this case it’s lose lose (with the only winner being Amazon) as it will reduce the number of local businesses long term while also making it harder for the remaining businesses to compete with Amazon due to the unfair handouts they were expecting to receive from the government.
smokeyj 8y ago
What you lack in economic fundamentals you make up with optimism. How are there so many of you?
TulliusCicero 8y ago
> Instead of Amazon sucking up more talent in the NYC area, that talent is available to some other company (or companies) that can compete (nationally) with Amazon for it. Right, and truly the best off cities for companies that need programmers are places like Tulsa or Phoenix, that have virtually zero tech companies of renown competing. ...OR, that's actually the opposite of the case, and network/ecosystem effects mean that the more talent you have, the easier it is to attract yet more talent.

rubyfan 8y ago

The $3B in incentives from the state and local governments is nothing. 25K jobs X $150K per year and all of the spending that goes with it, housing, restaurants, transportation, fitness, entertainment probably adds up to something like a $100B loss over the next decade.

samfisher83 8y ago
NYC has about a 1.5 trillion dollar economy. So 25k*150k - 3.75 billion or .25%. Its not like they need amazon there. There are 1000s of other companies out there. Its like giving subsidies to sports stadiums. You are revitalizing the area around the sports stadium, but what you are doing is taking money that might have been spent in some other area of the city.

deleted 8y ago

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