4 ms·

Actually the scale is larger than that. Amazon got over 100 cities to bid on the project. Entered into deeper negotiations with at least 20 of those. Got many c

Actually the scale is larger than that. Amazon got over 100 cities to bid on the project. Entered into deeper negotiations with at least 20 of those. Got many cities to spend hundreds (or thousands) of hours putting proposals together, pitching teams, crunching numbers, offering deeper tax incentives than anyone else can get. In the end, they chose the location they were going to choose anyways. So it was a colossal waste of time for 5,000+ people across North America. Burnt a lot of goodwill. Many cities learned a valuable lesson on dealing with these big multi-nationals as a result of it. So it won't likely happen like this again.

nik_0_0 7y ago
Genuinely curious - I thought it was strange when it first started - but surely every company must do this? Wouldn't making the investment of a large presence likely involve seeking concessions from each location as part of the scouting process? What did Amazon do different here? Instead of in back rooms, it was all out in the open. Curious of there are other examples of this.
- privateSFacct 7y ago
  The posters here are misusing malfeasance terribly. Other examples are federal grant programs - they are required to publicize them and lots of folks / nonprofits spend lots of time applying but reality is most will renew to existing partners etc