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So five years after cities collectively lost their minds trying to get Bezos to like them [1], Amazon is backtracking. The original search was for just one Seco

So five years after cities collectively lost their minds trying to get Bezos to like them [1], Amazon is backtracking. The original search was for just one Second HQ, then they selected two: Virginia and New York. But when New York complained about the new altered deal, Amazon backtracked from that. I suspect this is a move to extract new concessions from Virginia government. Corporations can't be trusted, and shouldn't be trusted, this is why contracts exist. Amazon would never sign a contract that allowed another corporation to do this to them, why should Virginia allow Amazon to abuse the Second HQ selection process? [1] https://money.cnn.com/2017/10/04/technology/amazon-second-headquarters-city-proposals/index.html https://money.cnn.com/2017/10/04/technology/amazon-second-he...

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
georgeburdell 4y ago
As someone who has worked for an Amazon supplier (as in, Amazon uses our components for their data centers), they are well known to be extremely cheap and capricious. They are the worst of the big tech companies to work with
- IntelMiner 4y ago
  Their "leadership principles" note "Frugality" as a core trait. It's possible that may be related
  - fsociety 4y ago
    But you get a door as a desk! How cool is that.
    - hotpotamus 4y ago
      It seemed cuter when Bezos was driving one of those as opposed to a half billion dollar yacht or a penis rocket.
- deanCommie 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - Benjammer 4y ago
    How is the HQ selection process and surrounding drama related to customer obsession?
  - i_love_cookies 4y ago
    [dead]
  - jjtheblunt 4y ago
    Customer obsession my ass: counterexample is turning a blind eye to the pervasive listing of fake versions of legit products. disclaimer: I say this as someone who worked in one inner sanctum of Apple engineering for several years, where we never talked outwardly about customer obsession, but it arose as an emergent phenomenon of obsessive engineering. I also worked for Amazon engineering and it was a joke, the lip service paid to cleaning up customer experience with fakes etc.
    - rnk 4y ago
      Yeah, they are money obsessed. They lost any ability to claim customer obsession with their horrible current situation with dups and fake posts and fake ads. Almost any search finds multiple of them. There's some Steve Ballmer type inside the company who says I don't care if the company is drifting and some people are whining about fake ads. We make more money over time, we have more customers, our new aws capabilities are better, etc. This feels so much like Ballmer's time at Microsoft where the company was drifting, they became much more focused on extracting more revenue from stupid enterprise contracts, and the technical side of the company decayed.
      - JumpinJack_Cash 4y ago
        > > There's some Steve Ballmer type inside the company who says I don't care if the company is drifting and some people are whining about fake ads. We make more money over time, we have more customers, our new aws capabilities are better Windows and Excel piracy exploded under Biden what are you on? That was a good outcome for the common citizen , unlike what is happening at Amazon with fakes.
- conductr 4y ago
  Another company with that reputation is Walmart. Further evidence Amazon is not really a tech company, they just like those multiples so dabble in enough tech to get them. It seems like the longest running con to me that people even see them as a tech company.
  - PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago
    What sector would you say that AWS operates in?
    - conductr 4y ago
      I’d say their reputation as a tech company predated AWS and AWS/Kindle/Alexa were pushes to create the multiple expansion across their retail revenue which is enormous. The fake hype around drone delivery was another push to display they were innovative which they really just made a commercial. The fact AWS ultimately was successful particularly at driving profit was luck. The core of their business and culture is still retail. Their retail strategy and scale on the internet meant they needed technical expertise the same as how a traditional retail company needs real estate, construction, and merchandising expertise. It doesn’t make them a tech company because they utilized tech in a large scale and had the physical assets and data center expertise to launch a product like AWSes.
      - PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago
        At the time that amzn started, they were absolutely a tech company, doing things with tech that nobody else was, in the retail realm. I would absolutely agree that it doesn't make much sense to talk about the retail arm as a tech company any more, although it's not 100% clear cut since the company's apparent strong interest in aggressive automation may undercut that argument. However, AWS appeared before the retail division even made a profit, and it continues to be the real revenue generator, and in this sense, regardless of the state of the retail division, it still seems fairly useful to categorize the company as a tech company.
      - up2isomorphism 4y ago
- someotherperson 4y ago
  Apple isn't much better. I spoke to a person in China responsible for supplying components for MacBooks and they had the same experience. Although I did learn a lot of interesting trivia about the choice of plastics and colors, one thing that did stand out is not only how cheap but also how abusive the Apple reps are. I imagine this is standard across the board.
  - hammock 4y ago
    I have never met anyone who worked harder than people in supply chain at Apple. The leadership is very demanding of them, and it clearly trickles down
    - q7xvh97o2pDhNrh 4y ago
      The CEO comes from the world of supply chain management, and a large part of Apple's success as a company comes from their ridiculously-well-managed supply chain. Unsurprising that it's a stressful job — but I'm sure it's also the best training in the world for how to manage a supply chain.
      - CommieBobDole 4y ago
        > I'm sure it's also the best training in the world for how to manage a supply chain. I wonder if it is, though - as noted, Apple is almost unique in that their size allows them to demand vast concessions from their suppliers. I wonder how much of what you'd learn still applies when you're working for a regular company and suppliers can just say no and drop you as a customer if you get to be too much of a pain?
        red-iron-pine 4y ago
        Is true with other large orgs, e.g. Walmart and Rubbermaid.
  - georgeburdell 4y ago
    No, Amazon is the standout worst. Even Apple will fund R&D efforts if needed. Amazon tells us to do something, makes no commitments, changes their mind, then 6mo later asks us why we don’t have it ready
- hammock 4y ago
  They are competing with Walmart, who is similarly draconian with their suppliers. It's a tough business
- up2isomorphism 4y ago
  Then just don’t sell them your stuff, there are bunch of Chinese suppliers I bet waiting on the line. And probably that is also part of the reason you did not see Apple as the same thing.
retinaros 4y ago
[flagged]
- chucksmash 4y ago
  People were not "all for it," some were for it, and some were against it. If there weren't people in opposition to it, it wouldn't make for a very good thing to build one's image on.
- gWPVhyxPHqvk 4y ago
  You could either make up right-wing talking points about what she said, or you could take it from her that the deal stunk: https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1631708752737861665 https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1631708752737861665
- wnevets 4y ago
  I think you need to take a break from social media and the news.
nebula8804 4y ago
The first thought that came into my head was that AOC should be taking a victory lap over this. I clearly remember all the hate she got not only from the collective of right wing people but also her own party. Sure enough after this news, she has brought it up: "When I opposed this Amazon project coming to New York bc it was a scam of public funds, the whole power establishment came after us. Billboards went up in Times Sq denouncing me. Powerful pols promised revenge. Op-Eds & CEOs insulted my intelligence. In the end, we were right." "I know I’ll never get an apology for that time, but it was worth it. We protected NYers from a scam deal to drain public dollars from schools & infrastructure in exchange for empty promises of “Amazon jobs” w/ 0 guarantees or guardrails. Sadly, cities who took it are suffering." [1]:https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1631706682597179405 https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1631706682597179405 [2]:https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1631708752737861665 https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1631708752737861665
- amateuring 4y ago
  which cities who "took it" are suffering exactly?
  - nebula8804 4y ago
    Did you read the article? We are only talking about two locations.
    - 0xffff2 4y ago
      I can't read the article without turning off my ad blocker, but based on other comments in this thread, Virginia doesn't actually seem to be suffering because they didn't offer anything beyond standard development incentives they would offer to anyone. Those incentives are performance based, so they aren't paid if Amazon doesn't follow through.
      - nebula8804 4y ago
        The whole reason activists in NY made a stink about this is because these "jobs" Amazon promised were all hypothetical white collar jobs that would not benefit the existing residents at all and instead serve as a forcing function to push them out of their communities through price increases. Imagine you are a representative of the people currently living there. If you actually wanted to benefit your constituents you'd attracts jobs that your voters are actually qualified for(Maybe an Amazon warehouse which they already have). There was a massive surge in real estate purchasing and speculation in the weeks leading up the Amazon decision in NY. All AOC and the activists really did was request Amazon answer some additional questions and that was enough for them to totally flip the table and announce they are leaving. What followed what the shit show that AOC described in her tweet. In the end those white collar jobs didn't even materialize in Virgina but they got all the downsides that NY avoided.
jcranmer 4y ago
It's worth noting that Virginia was unusual in that it didn't really offer any specific concessions to Amazon. Most jurisdictions have some sort of standard incentive program for business investment (https://www.vedp.org/incentives https://www.vedp.org/incentives is I believe the relevant stuff here), and compared to other cities, the Arlington bid was extremely stingy (note that it's not one of the examples in your article). My belief is that the VA site was preselected before the HQ2 process begin, and the process was primarily an attempt to extract as much concessions as possible by creating a very public competition.
- PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago
  You're saying that the process failed, then?
  - jcranmer 4y ago
    Yes, that is my belief.
- TheCoelacanth 4y ago
  They did get some small non-standard incentives from Arlington County in the form of giving Amazon 15% of hotel taxes that the county collected above the baseline amount that was projected without HQ2. That was projected to be $23 million (the standard state incentives were projected to be $750 million), but they will most likely never receive a dime because hotel stays have dropped significantly below the baseline set when the deal was made.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

georgeburdell 4y ago

As someone who has worked for an Amazon supplier (as in, Amazon uses our components for their data centers), they are well known to be extremely cheap and capricious. They are the worst of the big tech companies to work with

IntelMiner 4y ago
Their "leadership principles" note "Frugality" as a core trait. It's possible that may be related
- fsociety 4y ago
  But you get a door as a desk! How cool is that.
  - hotpotamus 4y ago
    It seemed cuter when Bezos was driving one of those as opposed to a half billion dollar yacht or a penis rocket.
deanCommie 4y ago
[flagged]
- Benjammer 4y ago
  How is the HQ selection process and surrounding drama related to customer obsession?
- i_love_cookies 4y ago
  [dead]
- jjtheblunt 4y ago
  Customer obsession my ass: counterexample is turning a blind eye to the pervasive listing of fake versions of legit products. disclaimer: I say this as someone who worked in one inner sanctum of Apple engineering for several years, where we never talked outwardly about customer obsession, but it arose as an emergent phenomenon of obsessive engineering. I also worked for Amazon engineering and it was a joke, the lip service paid to cleaning up customer experience with fakes etc.
  - rnk 4y ago
    Yeah, they are money obsessed. They lost any ability to claim customer obsession with their horrible current situation with dups and fake posts and fake ads. Almost any search finds multiple of them. There's some Steve Ballmer type inside the company who says I don't care if the company is drifting and some people are whining about fake ads. We make more money over time, we have more customers, our new aws capabilities are better, etc. This feels so much like Ballmer's time at Microsoft where the company was drifting, they became much more focused on extracting more revenue from stupid enterprise contracts, and the technical side of the company decayed.
    - JumpinJack_Cash 4y ago
      > > There's some Steve Ballmer type inside the company who says I don't care if the company is drifting and some people are whining about fake ads. We make more money over time, we have more customers, our new aws capabilities are better Windows and Excel piracy exploded under Biden what are you on? That was a good outcome for the common citizen , unlike what is happening at Amazon with fakes.
conductr 4y ago
Another company with that reputation is Walmart. Further evidence Amazon is not really a tech company, they just like those multiples so dabble in enough tech to get them. It seems like the longest running con to me that people even see them as a tech company.
- PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago
  What sector would you say that AWS operates in?
  - conductr 4y ago
    I’d say their reputation as a tech company predated AWS and AWS/Kindle/Alexa were pushes to create the multiple expansion across their retail revenue which is enormous. The fake hype around drone delivery was another push to display they were innovative which they really just made a commercial. The fact AWS ultimately was successful particularly at driving profit was luck. The core of their business and culture is still retail. Their retail strategy and scale on the internet meant they needed technical expertise the same as how a traditional retail company needs real estate, construction, and merchandising expertise. It doesn’t make them a tech company because they utilized tech in a large scale and had the physical assets and data center expertise to launch a product like AWSes.
    - PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago
      At the time that amzn started, they were absolutely a tech company, doing things with tech that nobody else was, in the retail realm. I would absolutely agree that it doesn't make much sense to talk about the retail arm as a tech company any more, although it's not 100% clear cut since the company's apparent strong interest in aggressive automation may undercut that argument. However, AWS appeared before the retail division even made a profit, and it continues to be the real revenue generator, and in this sense, regardless of the state of the retail division, it still seems fairly useful to categorize the company as a tech company.
    - up2isomorphism 4y ago
someotherperson 4y ago
Apple isn't much better. I spoke to a person in China responsible for supplying components for MacBooks and they had the same experience. Although I did learn a lot of interesting trivia about the choice of plastics and colors, one thing that did stand out is not only how cheap but also how abusive the Apple reps are. I imagine this is standard across the board.
- hammock 4y ago
  I have never met anyone who worked harder than people in supply chain at Apple. The leadership is very demanding of them, and it clearly trickles down
  - q7xvh97o2pDhNrh 4y ago
    The CEO comes from the world of supply chain management, and a large part of Apple's success as a company comes from their ridiculously-well-managed supply chain. Unsurprising that it's a stressful job — but I'm sure it's also the best training in the world for how to manage a supply chain.
    - CommieBobDole 4y ago
      > I'm sure it's also the best training in the world for how to manage a supply chain. I wonder if it is, though - as noted, Apple is almost unique in that their size allows them to demand vast concessions from their suppliers. I wonder how much of what you'd learn still applies when you're working for a regular company and suppliers can just say no and drop you as a customer if you get to be too much of a pain?
      - red-iron-pine 4y ago
        Is true with other large orgs, e.g. Walmart and Rubbermaid.
- georgeburdell 4y ago
  No, Amazon is the standout worst. Even Apple will fund R&D efforts if needed. Amazon tells us to do something, makes no commitments, changes their mind, then 6mo later asks us why we don’t have it ready
hammock 4y ago
They are competing with Walmart, who is similarly draconian with their suppliers. It's a tough business
up2isomorphism 4y ago
Then just don’t sell them your stuff, there are bunch of Chinese suppliers I bet waiting on the line. And probably that is also part of the reason you did not see Apple as the same thing.

retinaros 4y ago

[flagged]

chucksmash 4y ago
People were not "all for it," some were for it, and some were against it. If there weren't people in opposition to it, it wouldn't make for a very good thing to build one's image on.
gWPVhyxPHqvk 4y ago
You could either make up right-wing talking points about what she said, or you could take it from her that the deal stunk: https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1631708752737861665 https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1631708752737861665
wnevets 4y ago
I think you need to take a break from social media and the news.

nebula8804 4y ago

The first thought that came into my head was that AOC should be taking a victory lap over this. I clearly remember all the hate she got not only from the collective of right wing people but also her own party. Sure enough after this news, she has brought it up: "When I opposed this Amazon project coming to New York bc it was a scam of public funds, the whole power establishment came after us. Billboards went up in Times Sq denouncing me. Powerful pols promised revenge. Op-Eds & CEOs insulted my intelligence. In the end, we were right." "I know I’ll never get an apology for that time, but it was worth it. We protected NYers from a scam deal to drain public dollars from schools & infrastructure in exchange for empty promises of “Amazon jobs” w/ 0 guarantees or guardrails. Sadly, cities who took it are suffering." [1]:https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1631706682597179405 https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1631706682597179405 [2]:https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1631708752737861665 https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1631708752737861665

amateuring 4y ago
which cities who "took it" are suffering exactly?
- nebula8804 4y ago
  Did you read the article? We are only talking about two locations.
  - 0xffff2 4y ago
    I can't read the article without turning off my ad blocker, but based on other comments in this thread, Virginia doesn't actually seem to be suffering because they didn't offer anything beyond standard development incentives they would offer to anyone. Those incentives are performance based, so they aren't paid if Amazon doesn't follow through.
    - nebula8804 4y ago
      The whole reason activists in NY made a stink about this is because these "jobs" Amazon promised were all hypothetical white collar jobs that would not benefit the existing residents at all and instead serve as a forcing function to push them out of their communities through price increases. Imagine you are a representative of the people currently living there. If you actually wanted to benefit your constituents you'd attracts jobs that your voters are actually qualified for(Maybe an Amazon warehouse which they already have). There was a massive surge in real estate purchasing and speculation in the weeks leading up the Amazon decision in NY. All AOC and the activists really did was request Amazon answer some additional questions and that was enough for them to totally flip the table and announce they are leaving. What followed what the shit show that AOC described in her tweet. In the end those white collar jobs didn't even materialize in Virgina but they got all the downsides that NY avoided.

jcranmer 4y ago

It's worth noting that Virginia was unusual in that it didn't really offer any specific concessions to Amazon. Most jurisdictions have some sort of standard incentive program for business investment (https://www.vedp.org/incentives https://www.vedp.org/incentives is I believe the relevant stuff here), and compared to other cities, the Arlington bid was extremely stingy (note that it's not one of the examples in your article). My belief is that the VA site was preselected before the HQ2 process begin, and the process was primarily an attempt to extract as much concessions as possible by creating a very public competition.

PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago
You're saying that the process failed, then?
- jcranmer 4y ago
  Yes, that is my belief.
TheCoelacanth 4y ago
They did get some small non-standard incentives from Arlington County in the form of giving Amazon 15% of hotel taxes that the county collected above the baseline amount that was projected without HQ2. That was projected to be $23 million (the standard state incentives were projected to be $750 million), but they will most likely never receive a dime because hotel stays have dropped significantly below the baseline set when the deal was made.