9 ms·

How Virginia Won Amazon's HQ2

41 points by howard941 7y ago

projektfu 7y ago
I'm not sure I believe any after-the-fact reporting on this. Amazon has a lot of incentive to make it seem like there was ever a genuine competition.
- commandlinefan 7y ago
  I actually have the opposite take - I've seen "the Amazon HQ is definitely at <place>" reported so many times, with different places, that I won't believe that they're actually putting it there until the electricity is on, people are commuting to it, and they have a contract with a landscaping firm.
  - mwilcox 7y ago
    I think "HQ" is an intentionally overloaded term, and what will eventually happen is that Amazon will build something in most of these locations, constantly fighting against ballooning budgets typical with massive infrastructure projects
kevin_b_er 7y ago
The locations were pre-selected, and Amazon was just testing the waters to know how much free corporate welfare various government institutions were willing to give the 18th largest company in America.
- AimForTheBushes 7y ago
  I think this was absolutely the case. All the cities that bid got played.
- rayiner 7y ago
  Except the whole article is about how Virginia won despite offering less "corporate welfare" than other places. > All told, Virginia offered Amazon only $550 million in tax breaks and $195 million in transportation improvements. But it pledged to plow $1.1 billion into tech schooling. According to Moret, it was the only place in the nation that made education the centerpiece of its pitch. More than 2/3's of Virginia's investment into Amazon was in education and transit, which benefits everyone. Philly, by contrast, offered $4.6 billion in subsidies, just $100 million for transit, and nothing for education: https://slate.com/technology/2018/11/amazon-hq2-incredible-incentives-losing-cities-offered.html https://slate.com/technology/2018/11/amazon-hq2-incredible-i.... Chicago offered $1.3 billion in tax breaks and $450 million for transit.
  - ceejayoz 7y ago
    That's missing the point, though. "We're moving to Virginia. Let's see if we can get other cities to bid and see if that improves Virginia's offered incentives." (Plus free business intelligence hand delivered to them, and leverage if they want to put a distribution hub in one of the cities that didn't win. "You were willing to part with billions, you can't spare a couple dozen million in incentives for this warehouse?")
    - legitster 7y ago
      It didn't really seem like that's the case though. Maybe it made Virginia dump more into infrastructure and education? Is that a bad thing?
      - ceejayoz 7y ago
        It doesn't have to work for it to be worth trying. Worst case you're at the cost you expected anyways.
        legitster 7y ago
        I mean, fair. I guess I don't see the harm though. They made 20 cities seem very attractive to other companies. It was a bit showy, but it was nice to see the process in the open as opposed to the normal backrooms these deals happen in.
- dang 7y ago
  Please don't post unsubstantive comments like this to HN. Two better options are: (a) make it a good comment by substantiating the accusation, or (b) don't post. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - anth_anm 7y ago
    Unsubstantive == dang don't like it. Worst moderator I've ever seen. Seriously, you are just atrocious.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - Ill_ban_myself 7y ago
    I'm genuinely curious, "Pure politics: conflicts around party, ideology, nation, race, gender, class, and religion that get people hot and turn into flamewars on the internet. We’re not so concerned about stories on other things that happen to have political aspects—like, say, software patents." The comment above seems to be speculation that backroom deals played a part in a major tech news story. Speculation based on expert opinion often seems welcome, but speculation colored by negative experiences with the political jockeying that tech firms often do to accomplish their goals is not welcome. Suppose the user above is a tech CEO with expert experience negotiating land deals with city government. Suppose they're a clerk in city government who often are privy to these deals. I feel like you may be making some broad assumptions of your own about what rises to the level of expert opinion and that's got a noxious effect on conversation here as well.
    - dang 7y ago
      I'm not sure what your point is. If the commenter is an expert on the subject, or has some inside knowledge, making those things clear would be one way of making the comment more substantive. As it stands, it reads as if it has just been made up. I'm assuming that by "the locations were pre-selected" the comment means that the outcome of the process was predetermined. That's a huge claim. Obviously a comment making a wild accusation without providing any basis for it is unsubstantive. It lowers discussion quality noticeably when people sling such charges around. I realize it's a fun thing to do on the internet, but there are other places for it.
linuxftw 7y ago
This is a long-winded expose of northern Virginia. I only made it about half-way through, there were some subsidies promised apparently. In any case, I never considered locations other than Northern VA as viable for the HQ2 business, it was 90% going there from the start IMO due to 1) Existing Amazon Offices 2) Existing Amazon Datacenters and major internet exchanges 3) Proximity to DC. So, to present this as to 'How Virginia Won' is a little wishful IMO. Virginia did nothing other than happen to be the place where other companies are doing business.
- currymj 7y ago
  don't forget proximity to the Bezos residence; Crystal City is about a 15 minute drive away.
- jcranmer 7y ago
  Virginia won because it scored well on everything but cost of living. I think it's quite likely that the criteria was essentially selected with NoVA in mind.
  - linuxftw 7y ago
    Yeah, I think the criteria was "We're building in NoVA unless someone gives us a deal we literally can't refuse." NYC tried that, but there was citizen outrage (apparently).
    - ceejayoz 7y ago
      Well, and they're still expanding in NYC anyways.
  - sonnyblarney 7y ago
    The #1 criteria is DC. The government is 25% of the economy, and it's just starting in the cloud. The amount of money the US Gov. is going to spend on AWS will be jaw dropping. It will trickle down into states, cities, and other governments like Canada. And of course the deeply entrenched lobbying power.
ppcdeveloper 7y ago
Scott Galloway called it along time ago on L2inc (YouTube).
- crsv 7y ago
  And a really straightforward call at that. IIRC it was something like "Bezos has a 25 million dollar house already in DC, he's obviously putting HQ2 there". All the tax stuff, economic fit, etc etc just seems like it could really be fluff to occlude the simple fact that Bezos is most comfortable with HQ2 coming to area he's already well suited to operate out of.
sremani 7y ago
There was an hacker news item, where some one analysed stackoverflow metrics and Amazon requirements (of sort) and predicted NOVA is going to be the location of HQ2 months if not a year ahead. I disagree that VA was pre-decided, the way I see it is, they kind of knew what the front horses are but wanted what others can surprise them and/or improve their negotiation position. * Austin had something given Whole Foods * Dallas is said to finish #3 for HQ2 (probable rumour) until a tell all from some one in search committee.
tekkk 7y ago
So i dont know should i feel happy for Virginia for succeeding attracting a tax-evading megacorporation to its area. "Close to regulators", yey. Now Amazon employees can just drive down to their office and negoatiate campaign money directly.
- mtberatwork 7y ago
  > Now Amazon employees can just drive down to their office and negoatiate campaign money directly. Well, at least the gridlock around 395 should keep them at bay for a little while until Bezos figures out how to bore a private tunnel under the Potomac.
  - chrshawkes 7y ago
    Gridlock all the way from Frederick MD south to DC. DC south to Fredericksburg VA or any other direction out of the city. Gridlock all over DC, our traffic is the absolute worst.
  - ihuman 7y ago
    At some point there was talk of allowing Amazon to build a helipad. I'd image that's easier than building a tunnel, due to how close HQ2 is to the Pentagon.
    - tssva 7y ago
      Approval of a helipad, which would not normally be a given because of the close distance to a major airport, was part of the deal.
      - ihuman 7y ago
        Not only is it a no-fly zone because of the airport, its also in the special no-fly zone around DC.
        sokoloff 7y ago
rayiner 7y ago
> One local figure spoke to Metro general manager Paul Wiedefeld and urged him to make sure Amazon got to ride on one of its newest, 7000-Series trains. Wiedefeld, who says he can’t recall whether the official was from Virginia, Maryland, or the District, responded by explaining that public transportation doesn’t work that way. Wiedefeld, incidentally, is a total bad-ass. He was hired at the end of 2015. In 2017, the first year they started measuring end-to-end travel time, on-time performance was a dismal 66%. In Q2 of 2019, it was 87%. In 2016, he shut down the entire system for days, and entire lines for weeks at a time, for emergency repairs. He's steam-rolled over NIMBYs, dramatically shutting down entire stations all summer so crumbling platforms can be completely rebuilt: https://ggwash.org/view/72561/metro-reasons-loud-yellow-and-blue-line-construction-is-bothering-residents https://ggwash.org/view/72561/metro-reasons-loud-yellow-and-.... (Accomplishing in three months what took years of delays and disruptions during prior, partial shut-downs.) He's brought the hammer down on the WMATA union, controlling costs and resisting calls to overtax the system by extending service: https://wamu.org/story/17/04/27/transit-union-turns-back-metro-leadership-stages-walkout; https://wamu.org/story/17/04/27/transit-union-turns-back-met... https://www.bizjournals.com/washington/news/2018/09/18/metro-will-outsource-operation-of-silver-lines.html; https://www.bizjournals.com/washington/news/2018/09/18/metro... https://wamu.org/story/16/11/03/wmata_board_struggles_to_reach_consensus_on_fare_hikes_late_night_trains https://wamu.org/story/16/11/03/wmata_board_struggles_to_rea.... Not all heroes wear capes.
- massysett 7y ago
  He did not shut down the entire system for days. That was a single day.
  - mushufasa 7y ago
    tell that to anyone on the red line
- polygotdomain 7y ago
  I'm not trying to crap on Wiedefeld, but all he's doing is what every one knew/knows needs to be done, it's just that no one else before him would actually do it because it's a very tough pill to swallow. Turns out fixing things improves reliability, but he's had to inconvenience a lot of riders to get it. Some have switched from public transit completely. The reality is that Metro still has a lot of work in front of it and still has to crawl back form decades of neglect and poor planning. Metro could operate at 100% reliability, but it still wouldn't offer sufficient travel options for a large majority of the area because it doesn't fit the commuting patterns of the area. Short of extending lines and adding new ones, there's only so much the metro in it's current incarnation can do.
notyourloops 7y ago
What happened to New York?
- ticviking 7y ago
  Massive protests, many headlined by Rep. Ocasio Cortez. https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/08/politics/amazon-backlash-alexandria-ocasio-cortez/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/08/politics/amazon-backlash-alex...
  - colinyoung 7y ago
    Backlash was certainly loud, but Amazon could have made things work even without all of the subsidies they received. This is entirely me speculating, but I wonder if Amazon feared that NYC workers might eventually organize or be organized, given the political rhetoric and the framing of the backlash. Amazon has a legendary fear of unionization.
    - vageli 7y ago
      > Backlash was certainly loud, but Amazon could have made things work even without all of the subsidies they received. This is entirely me speculating, but I wonder if Amazon feared that NYC workers might eventually organize or be organized, given the political rhetoric and the framing of the backlash. Amazon has a legendary fear of unionization. Aren't the workers primarily knowledge workers? In a place like New York where developer jobs grow out of the concrete I don't think there could be legitimate fear of unionization.
- ihuman 7y ago
  They canceled it due to the backlash. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/14/nyregion/amazon-hq2-queens.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/14/nyregion/amazon-hq2-queen...
- mandevil 7y ago
  Not really mentioned in the article. As someone who moved from NoVA to New York during the HQ2 search, these are my thoughts: New York's plan was more direct subsidies and tax breaks, less infrastructure and schools. Much more unpopular with the locals (who wouldn't benefit as much). And the locals let them know. Because Amazon made everyone operate under NDA they had no chance to build the public support that would be necessary to support such largesse.
legitster 7y ago
There's something to Friedman's point - that technology can let us work from anywhere. But far from distributing talent, it has concentrated it. If you can work from anywhere, why not just move to the nice coastal cities? I think people are missing the forest for the trees - Amazon could have saved billions of dollars a year founding it anywhere else. But we cannot seem to break out this viscous cycle where the good jobs of the future go to tiny, expensive areas. And the primary benefit of these areas is they are already full of successful, well paid people. Instead of paying 3 people in Tallahassee a decent $80,000, we are choosing to pay 1 person in San Fransisco $240,000.
- marvin 7y ago
  Are you sure that's what the market would end up doing? Maybe competition for the people with the most desired combination of ambition and skill set is so intense that the price would end up being >$200,000 anyway. Companies that are based in San Francisco and the Bay Area aren't just recruiting randomly from the people who happened to live there. The most skilled people in the world move there because there's so many companies that can fruitfully utilize their efforts. Or at least that's how it looks to me from across the Atlantic ocean. I'm certain I would be more valuable delivering software for a customer base of 40 million rather than the 400,000 I do in my local market, but I wouldn't accept my current salary for that level of responsibility. Hopefully most others think the same; it's in our interest as developers and professionals/working-class (not capitalist class) to make sure we negotiate the highest salaries we are able to. After all, we are programming magical robots that do the work of millions of menial labor employees. That's an incredibly valuable service we shouldn't trade away cheaply. We've all heard the fable of the 10x engineer. My take is that this is what it looks like in practice.
- pwodhouse 7y ago
  That $240K person is 10x as useful as those $80k people, on average.
  - notfromhere 7y ago
    thats exactly what someone who's trying to justify a monstrous salary would say. In reality, doubtful.
sonnyblarney 7y ago
There's nothing here to indicate which parts were relevant or mattered to Amazon's decision. Big Gov is just starting in the cloud, and Amazon wants the biggest piece of that gadzillion dollars. I can see a private wing of AWS running most of the military, for example.
- mandevil 7y ago
  Virginia tried very hard to make sure that HQ2 is not just more government contracting jobs- the region is already very exposed to government work as it is[1]. The limited tax breaks Amazon gets are directly linked to the new jobs NOT being government related. [1]: From 2010-2015, the Washington DC MSA was basically the only large tech hub that lost tech workers, because of the Sequester and the constant government budget showdowns. Virginia viewed HQ2 as an insurance against that.
  - sonnyblarney 7y ago
    What 'Virginia wants' is almost irrelevant. "Virginia tried very hard to make sure that HQ2 is not just more government contracting jobs" Virginia can think whatever they want, but Amazon will do what it wants to do. The objective is not 'contracting jobs' - that's not Amazon's business. The objective is to deeply entrench AWS services and products into government. The amount of money - and especially the incumbency - provided to the winner of 'gov cloud' will be gigantic. Defence and civie agencies spent $6.5B on cloud services in 2018, up 35% (!) from the year before, that's an incredible growth rate. [1] This is going to grow like wild for some time, and that's Amazon's objective. The lobbying/relationship efforts will be important as well. Virginia is just the local government, they are actually not hugely part of the equation other than the specific incentives as you point out. Even the 'investment in education' is not hugely sweet for businesses, as the majority of workers won't come from Virginia anyhow. The best thing Virginia can do is 'be a good government' - make sure the infrastructure, healthcare, schools etc. are well managed. [1] https://www.nextgov.com/it-modernization/2018/09/federal-cloud-spending-trends-toward-all-time-high/151221/ https://www.nextgov.com/it-modernization/2018/09/federal-clo...
rdiddly 7y ago
It's so obvious in hindsight. Amazon HAS money already. They don't need big subsidies. What they need is people.
thrower123 7y ago
My understanding is that they didn't actively try to lose it and protest against something that would have brought in billions of revenue and lots of high-paying jobs, the way NY City did.
tssva 7y ago
> The development firm JBG Smith plastered the inside of its office-building elevators with life-size images of the interior of Amazon’s Seattle headquarters—“so that when they walked in there,” says CEO Matt Kelly, “it felt like home.” I assume they quickly ripped them down and plastered them with images of Apple Park since they pitched the same space to Apple shortly after.
- anth_anm 7y ago
  Then the AWS engineers came in from the worlds most generic office tower started crying because they thought they would finally be free.
anth_anm 7y ago
By being close to DC and thus having easy access to government. Do people really think Amazon really left it up to chance? Then that chance just somehow worked out to right next to DC and the biggest talent hub on the East Coast. Sure, I'll buy that to go with my new bridge.
- Ill_ban_myself 7y ago
  The, "biggest talent hub" on the East Coast apparently sends most of its Graduates to inferior schools in Massachusetts. More like the biggest military hotel on the east coast

41 points by howard941 7y ago

I'm not sure I believe any after-the-fact reporting on this. Amazon has a lot of incentive to make it seem like there was ever a genuine competition.

commandlinefan 7y ago
I actually have the opposite take - I've seen "the Amazon HQ is definitely at <place>" reported so many times, with different places, that I won't believe that they're actually putting it there until the electricity is on, people are commuting to it, and they have a contract with a landscaping firm.
- mwilcox 7y ago
  I think "HQ" is an intentionally overloaded term, and what will eventually happen is that Amazon will build something in most of these locations, constantly fighting against ballooning budgets typical with massive infrastructure projects

kevin_b_er 7y ago

The locations were pre-selected, and Amazon was just testing the waters to know how much free corporate welfare various government institutions were willing to give the 18th largest company in America.

AimForTheBushes 7y ago
I think this was absolutely the case. All the cities that bid got played.
rayiner 7y ago
Except the whole article is about how Virginia won despite offering less "corporate welfare" than other places. > All told, Virginia offered Amazon only $550 million in tax breaks and $195 million in transportation improvements. But it pledged to plow $1.1 billion into tech schooling. According to Moret, it was the only place in the nation that made education the centerpiece of its pitch. More than 2/3's of Virginia's investment into Amazon was in education and transit, which benefits everyone. Philly, by contrast, offered $4.6 billion in subsidies, just $100 million for transit, and nothing for education: https://slate.com/technology/2018/11/amazon-hq2-incredible-incentives-losing-cities-offered.html https://slate.com/technology/2018/11/amazon-hq2-incredible-i.... Chicago offered $1.3 billion in tax breaks and $450 million for transit.
- ceejayoz 7y ago
  That's missing the point, though. "We're moving to Virginia. Let's see if we can get other cities to bid and see if that improves Virginia's offered incentives." (Plus free business intelligence hand delivered to them, and leverage if they want to put a distribution hub in one of the cities that didn't win. "You were willing to part with billions, you can't spare a couple dozen million in incentives for this warehouse?")
  - legitster 7y ago
    It didn't really seem like that's the case though. Maybe it made Virginia dump more into infrastructure and education? Is that a bad thing?
    - ceejayoz 7y ago
      It doesn't have to work for it to be worth trying. Worst case you're at the cost you expected anyways.
      - legitster 7y ago
        I mean, fair. I guess I don't see the harm though. They made 20 cities seem very attractive to other companies. It was a bit showy, but it was nice to see the process in the open as opposed to the normal backrooms these deals happen in.
dang 7y ago
Please don't post unsubstantive comments like this to HN. Two better options are: (a) make it a good comment by substantiating the accusation, or (b) don't post. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- anth_anm 7y ago
  Unsubstantive == dang don't like it. Worst moderator I've ever seen. Seriously, you are just atrocious.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- Ill_ban_myself 7y ago
  I'm genuinely curious, "Pure politics: conflicts around party, ideology, nation, race, gender, class, and religion that get people hot and turn into flamewars on the internet. We’re not so concerned about stories on other things that happen to have political aspects—like, say, software patents." The comment above seems to be speculation that backroom deals played a part in a major tech news story. Speculation based on expert opinion often seems welcome, but speculation colored by negative experiences with the political jockeying that tech firms often do to accomplish their goals is not welcome. Suppose the user above is a tech CEO with expert experience negotiating land deals with city government. Suppose they're a clerk in city government who often are privy to these deals. I feel like you may be making some broad assumptions of your own about what rises to the level of expert opinion and that's got a noxious effect on conversation here as well.
  - dang 7y ago
    I'm not sure what your point is. If the commenter is an expert on the subject, or has some inside knowledge, making those things clear would be one way of making the comment more substantive. As it stands, it reads as if it has just been made up. I'm assuming that by "the locations were pre-selected" the comment means that the outcome of the process was predetermined. That's a huge claim. Obviously a comment making a wild accusation without providing any basis for it is unsubstantive. It lowers discussion quality noticeably when people sling such charges around. I realize it's a fun thing to do on the internet, but there are other places for it.

linuxftw 7y ago

This is a long-winded expose of northern Virginia. I only made it about half-way through, there were some subsidies promised apparently. In any case, I never considered locations other than Northern VA as viable for the HQ2 business, it was 90% going there from the start IMO due to 1) Existing Amazon Offices 2) Existing Amazon Datacenters and major internet exchanges 3) Proximity to DC. So, to present this as to 'How Virginia Won' is a little wishful IMO. Virginia did nothing other than happen to be the place where other companies are doing business.

currymj 7y ago
don't forget proximity to the Bezos residence; Crystal City is about a 15 minute drive away.
jcranmer 7y ago
Virginia won because it scored well on everything but cost of living. I think it's quite likely that the criteria was essentially selected with NoVA in mind.
- linuxftw 7y ago
  Yeah, I think the criteria was "We're building in NoVA unless someone gives us a deal we literally can't refuse." NYC tried that, but there was citizen outrage (apparently).
  - ceejayoz 7y ago
    Well, and they're still expanding in NYC anyways.
- sonnyblarney 7y ago
  The #1 criteria is DC. The government is 25% of the economy, and it's just starting in the cloud. The amount of money the US Gov. is going to spend on AWS will be jaw dropping. It will trickle down into states, cities, and other governments like Canada. And of course the deeply entrenched lobbying power.

ppcdeveloper 7y ago

Scott Galloway called it along time ago on L2inc (YouTube).

crsv 7y ago
And a really straightforward call at that. IIRC it was something like "Bezos has a 25 million dollar house already in DC, he's obviously putting HQ2 there". All the tax stuff, economic fit, etc etc just seems like it could really be fluff to occlude the simple fact that Bezos is most comfortable with HQ2 coming to area he's already well suited to operate out of.

sremani 7y ago

There was an hacker news item, where some one analysed stackoverflow metrics and Amazon requirements (of sort) and predicted NOVA is going to be the location of HQ2 months if not a year ahead. I disagree that VA was pre-decided, the way I see it is, they kind of knew what the front horses are but wanted what others can surprise them and/or improve their negotiation position. * Austin had something given Whole Foods * Dallas is said to finish #3 for HQ2 (probable rumour) until a tell all from some one in search committee.

tekkk 7y ago

So i dont know should i feel happy for Virginia for succeeding attracting a tax-evading megacorporation to its area. "Close to regulators", yey. Now Amazon employees can just drive down to their office and negoatiate campaign money directly.

mtberatwork 7y ago
> Now Amazon employees can just drive down to their office and negoatiate campaign money directly. Well, at least the gridlock around 395 should keep them at bay for a little while until Bezos figures out how to bore a private tunnel under the Potomac.
- chrshawkes 7y ago
  Gridlock all the way from Frederick MD south to DC. DC south to Fredericksburg VA or any other direction out of the city. Gridlock all over DC, our traffic is the absolute worst.
- ihuman 7y ago
  At some point there was talk of allowing Amazon to build a helipad. I'd image that's easier than building a tunnel, due to how close HQ2 is to the Pentagon.
  - tssva 7y ago
    Approval of a helipad, which would not normally be a given because of the close distance to a major airport, was part of the deal.
    - ihuman 7y ago
      Not only is it a no-fly zone because of the airport, its also in the special no-fly zone around DC.
      - sokoloff 7y ago

rayiner 7y ago

> One local figure spoke to Metro general manager Paul Wiedefeld and urged him to make sure Amazon got to ride on one of its newest, 7000-Series trains. Wiedefeld, who says he can’t recall whether the official was from Virginia, Maryland, or the District, responded by explaining that public transportation doesn’t work that way. Wiedefeld, incidentally, is a total bad-ass. He was hired at the end of 2015. In 2017, the first year they started measuring end-to-end travel time, on-time performance was a dismal 66%. In Q2 of 2019, it was 87%. In 2016, he shut down the entire system for days, and entire lines for weeks at a time, for emergency repairs. He's steam-rolled over NIMBYs, dramatically shutting down entire stations all summer so crumbling platforms can be completely rebuilt: https://ggwash.org/view/72561/metro-reasons-loud-yellow-and-blue-line-construction-is-bothering-residents https://ggwash.org/view/72561/metro-reasons-loud-yellow-and-.... (Accomplishing in three months what took years of delays and disruptions during prior, partial shut-downs.) He's brought the hammer down on the WMATA union, controlling costs and resisting calls to overtax the system by extending service: https://wamu.org/story/17/04/27/transit-union-turns-back-metro-leadership-stages-walkout; https://wamu.org/story/17/04/27/transit-union-turns-back-met... https://www.bizjournals.com/washington/news/2018/09/18/metro-will-outsource-operation-of-silver-lines.html; https://www.bizjournals.com/washington/news/2018/09/18/metro... https://wamu.org/story/16/11/03/wmata_board_struggles_to_reach_consensus_on_fare_hikes_late_night_trains https://wamu.org/story/16/11/03/wmata_board_struggles_to_rea.... Not all heroes wear capes.

massysett 7y ago
He did not shut down the entire system for days. That was a single day.
- mushufasa 7y ago
  tell that to anyone on the red line
polygotdomain 7y ago
I'm not trying to crap on Wiedefeld, but all he's doing is what every one knew/knows needs to be done, it's just that no one else before him would actually do it because it's a very tough pill to swallow. Turns out fixing things improves reliability, but he's had to inconvenience a lot of riders to get it. Some have switched from public transit completely. The reality is that Metro still has a lot of work in front of it and still has to crawl back form decades of neglect and poor planning. Metro could operate at 100% reliability, but it still wouldn't offer sufficient travel options for a large majority of the area because it doesn't fit the commuting patterns of the area. Short of extending lines and adding new ones, there's only so much the metro in it's current incarnation can do.

notyourloops 7y ago

What happened to New York?

ticviking 7y ago
Massive protests, many headlined by Rep. Ocasio Cortez. https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/08/politics/amazon-backlash-alexandria-ocasio-cortez/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/08/politics/amazon-backlash-alex...
- colinyoung 7y ago
  Backlash was certainly loud, but Amazon could have made things work even without all of the subsidies they received. This is entirely me speculating, but I wonder if Amazon feared that NYC workers might eventually organize or be organized, given the political rhetoric and the framing of the backlash. Amazon has a legendary fear of unionization.
  - vageli 7y ago
    > Backlash was certainly loud, but Amazon could have made things work even without all of the subsidies they received. This is entirely me speculating, but I wonder if Amazon feared that NYC workers might eventually organize or be organized, given the political rhetoric and the framing of the backlash. Amazon has a legendary fear of unionization. Aren't the workers primarily knowledge workers? In a place like New York where developer jobs grow out of the concrete I don't think there could be legitimate fear of unionization.
ihuman 7y ago
They canceled it due to the backlash. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/14/nyregion/amazon-hq2-queens.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/14/nyregion/amazon-hq2-queen...
mandevil 7y ago
Not really mentioned in the article. As someone who moved from NoVA to New York during the HQ2 search, these are my thoughts: New York's plan was more direct subsidies and tax breaks, less infrastructure and schools. Much more unpopular with the locals (who wouldn't benefit as much). And the locals let them know. Because Amazon made everyone operate under NDA they had no chance to build the public support that would be necessary to support such largesse.

legitster 7y ago

There's something to Friedman's point - that technology can let us work from anywhere. But far from distributing talent, it has concentrated it. If you can work from anywhere, why not just move to the nice coastal cities? I think people are missing the forest for the trees - Amazon could have saved billions of dollars a year founding it anywhere else. But we cannot seem to break out this viscous cycle where the good jobs of the future go to tiny, expensive areas. And the primary benefit of these areas is they are already full of successful, well paid people. Instead of paying 3 people in Tallahassee a decent $80,000, we are choosing to pay 1 person in San Fransisco $240,000.

marvin 7y ago
Are you sure that's what the market would end up doing? Maybe competition for the people with the most desired combination of ambition and skill set is so intense that the price would end up being >$200,000 anyway. Companies that are based in San Francisco and the Bay Area aren't just recruiting randomly from the people who happened to live there. The most skilled people in the world move there because there's so many companies that can fruitfully utilize their efforts. Or at least that's how it looks to me from across the Atlantic ocean. I'm certain I would be more valuable delivering software for a customer base of 40 million rather than the 400,000 I do in my local market, but I wouldn't accept my current salary for that level of responsibility. Hopefully most others think the same; it's in our interest as developers and professionals/working-class (not capitalist class) to make sure we negotiate the highest salaries we are able to. After all, we are programming magical robots that do the work of millions of menial labor employees. That's an incredibly valuable service we shouldn't trade away cheaply. We've all heard the fable of the 10x engineer. My take is that this is what it looks like in practice.
pwodhouse 7y ago
That $240K person is 10x as useful as those $80k people, on average.
- notfromhere 7y ago
  thats exactly what someone who's trying to justify a monstrous salary would say. In reality, doubtful.

sonnyblarney 7y ago

There's nothing here to indicate which parts were relevant or mattered to Amazon's decision. Big Gov is just starting in the cloud, and Amazon wants the biggest piece of that gadzillion dollars. I can see a private wing of AWS running most of the military, for example.

mandevil 7y ago
Virginia tried very hard to make sure that HQ2 is not just more government contracting jobs- the region is already very exposed to government work as it is[1]. The limited tax breaks Amazon gets are directly linked to the new jobs NOT being government related. [1]: From 2010-2015, the Washington DC MSA was basically the only large tech hub that lost tech workers, because of the Sequester and the constant government budget showdowns. Virginia viewed HQ2 as an insurance against that.
- sonnyblarney 7y ago
  What 'Virginia wants' is almost irrelevant. "Virginia tried very hard to make sure that HQ2 is not just more government contracting jobs" Virginia can think whatever they want, but Amazon will do what it wants to do. The objective is not 'contracting jobs' - that's not Amazon's business. The objective is to deeply entrench AWS services and products into government. The amount of money - and especially the incumbency - provided to the winner of 'gov cloud' will be gigantic. Defence and civie agencies spent $6.5B on cloud services in 2018, up 35% (!) from the year before, that's an incredible growth rate. [1] This is going to grow like wild for some time, and that's Amazon's objective. The lobbying/relationship efforts will be important as well. Virginia is just the local government, they are actually not hugely part of the equation other than the specific incentives as you point out. Even the 'investment in education' is not hugely sweet for businesses, as the majority of workers won't come from Virginia anyhow. The best thing Virginia can do is 'be a good government' - make sure the infrastructure, healthcare, schools etc. are well managed. [1] https://www.nextgov.com/it-modernization/2018/09/federal-cloud-spending-trends-toward-all-time-high/151221/ https://www.nextgov.com/it-modernization/2018/09/federal-clo...

rdiddly 7y ago

It's so obvious in hindsight. Amazon HAS money already. They don't need big subsidies. What they need is people.

thrower123 7y ago

My understanding is that they didn't actively try to lose it and protest against something that would have brought in billions of revenue and lots of high-paying jobs, the way NY City did.

tssva 7y ago

> The development firm JBG Smith plastered the inside of its office-building elevators with life-size images of the interior of Amazon’s Seattle headquarters—“so that when they walked in there,” says CEO Matt Kelly, “it felt like home.” I assume they quickly ripped them down and plastered them with images of Apple Park since they pitched the same space to Apple shortly after.

anth_anm 7y ago
Then the AWS engineers came in from the worlds most generic office tower started crying because they thought they would finally be free.

anth_anm 7y ago

By being close to DC and thus having easy access to government. Do people really think Amazon really left it up to chance? Then that chance just somehow worked out to right next to DC and the biggest talent hub on the East Coast. Sure, I'll buy that to go with my new bridge.

Ill_ban_myself 7y ago
The, "biggest talent hub" on the East Coast apparently sends most of its Graduates to inferior schools in Massachusetts. More like the biggest military hotel on the east coast