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Amazon is looking for a 2nd headquarter city, a 'full equal to Seattle'

PeteEU said:
Naw the wise choice should be outside the US... Asia or Europe.
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My geography is almost as bad as most Americans, but I'm pretty sure Asia and Europe are not in North America, which is where Amazon wants the new HQ....;)
 
reinoe said:
I doubt Amazon wants their employees getting gunned down at random by out of control police and out of control gangs. Las Vegas would be a genuinely nice choice. If they're looking for something more "CENTRAL USA" they could go for just about anywhere in Missouri. Omaha would be a good choice. I haven't got any ideas for the East Coast.
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Tech companies move to where they can attract sufficient IT talent. A company the size of Amazon would have a hard time convincing enough IT people to move from the coasts to Omaha. I would think that if they did open a second headquarters in the Midwest, Minneapolis would probably make the most sense.
 
Carjosse said:
Toronto seems to be pretty enthusiastic about it and will probably stop at nothing to see that it does. Montreal would also make sense as the data and tech hub for Eastern Canada with good connections to both Europe and the US as well as dirt cheap electricity and sever hosting. And both offer corporate tax savings.
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Ah, man, that's all we need, more centralization of employment in Toronto to drive up the cost of houses even more ... If I had to pick between the two, I'd rather see Montreal get it, but let's start decentralizing jobs so that people can afford houses again...
 
OlNate said:
Ah, man, that's all we need, more centralization of employment in Toronto to drive up the cost of houses even more ... If I had to pick between the two, I'd rather see Montreal get it, but let's start decentralizing jobs so that people can afford houses again...
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Do you think they would build it downtown? I imagine they would probably build it more outside the city where there is still land available.
 
SouthernDemocrat said:
Tech companies move to where they can attract sufficient IT talent. A company the size of Amazon would have a hard time convincing enough IT people to move from the coasts to Omaha. I would think that if they did open a second headquarters in the Midwest, Minneapolis would probably make the most sense.
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I dont think I would classify Amazon as a "tech company" anymore as most of their business relies on delivering physical items to a physical place and logistics is probably a much bigger division of the company than the website
 
Crovax said:
I dont think I would classify Amazon as a "tech company" anymore as most of their business relies on delivering physical items to a physical place and logistics is probably a much bigger division of the company than the website
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They are the world's largest e-commerce site, they have the largest cloud (AWS) on earth. If Amazon isn't a tech company, I don't know who is. Granted, logistics is huge with them, but attracting warehouse workers is not their problem, it's attracting the worlds best IT talent that is their chief concern.
 
SouthernDemocrat said:
They are the world's largest e-commerce site, they have the largest cloud (AWS) on earth. If Amazon isn't a tech company, I don't know who is. Granted, logistics is huge with them, but attracting warehouse workers is not their problem, it's attracting the worlds best IT talent that is their chief concern.
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The amount of people and it take to run e-commerce is small as well as the technical expertise to run it. If amazon is expanding its to take up market share held by companies like Walmart. OGP/D is blowing up right now, the tech to run it is simple but the logistics are a nightmare
 
Carjosse said:
Do you think they would build it downtown? I imagine they would probably build it more outside the city where there is still land available.
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You've got to go a loooong way outside of Toronto to get reasonable housing...and there are high unemployment rates outside of those areas. I get that in order to attract the best talent, you need to be where they want to go, but working for a company like Amazon would be enough of a draw on it's own to get the talent out - watch how fast a place like Belleville or Huntsville or Sault Ste Marie would become a new hub for employment if Amazon were the first folks there.

We need to start building high speed internet infrastructure, and incentivizing companies that want to move into these more remote, less popular places, and start making use of the space we have up here. Canada has 9.9 million square km's, yet we're paying a fortune to live on 630 square km's, because that's where the highest concentration of good paying jobs are.

Not sure if the same is true in Quebec, but I can't imagine it's that much different...
 
99percenter said:
There are a lot of tech startups in the city. I think Chicago would be a great choice. But I think they will probably pick a small city. Just a gut feeling.
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my impression was that it is chicago's to lose
 
MaggieD said:
Wonder if they'd have any interest in the old Motorola campus in Schaumburg. Don't know why they'd come to our failing state, though...
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Well, a failing state is more likely to cut some good deals on taxes. So they might.
 
Seattle's anti-big business climate is behind this move by Amazon. I don't think western Washington is ready for a post-Amazon world, but they better start thinking about it.
 
JasperL said:
My geography is almost as bad as most Americans, but I'm pretty sure Asia and Europe are not in North America, which is where Amazon wants the new HQ....;)
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Yea read that after the fact.. question is why have two HQs in one region?
 
OlNate said:
You've got to go a loooong way outside of Toronto to get reasonable housing...and there are high unemployment rates outside of those areas. I get that in order to attract the best talent, you need to be where they want to go, but working for a company like Amazon would be enough of a draw on it's own to get the talent out - watch how fast a place like Belleville or Huntsville or Sault Ste Marie would become a new hub for employment if Amazon were the first folks there.

We need to start building high speed internet infrastructure, and incentivizing companies that want to move into these more remote, less popular places, and start making use of the space we have up here. Canada has 9.9 million square km's, yet we're paying a fortune to live on 630 square km's, because that's where the highest concentration of good paying jobs are.

Not sure if the same is true in Quebec, but I can't imagine it's that much different...
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Those places will never have the infrastructure or talent Amazon requires, they are too remote. As someone who used to live North of Toronto trust me, it sucks and the infrastructure is beyond crap. They require quick and easy access to their infrastructure, a lot of that infrastructure is in Montreal. Montreal has everything Amazon requires: good talent pool, good talent attraction, lower corporate rates versus the US, very well connected to the US and Europe through direct fiber lines to NYC and Boston and submarine cables, and things like electricity are dirt cheap and eco-friendly. Believe it or not Toronto is not the data hub for Eastern Canada, Montreal is.
 
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PeteEU said:
Yea read that after the fact.. question is why have two HQs in one region?
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Real estate in Seattle is probably getting too expensive to expand further.
 
Carjosse said:
Those places will never have the infrastructure or talent Amazon requires, they are too remote. As someone who used to live North of Toronto trust me, it sucks and the infrastructure is beyond crap. They require quick and easy access to their infrastructure, a lot of that infrastructure is in Montreal. Montreal has everything Amazon requires: good talent pool, good talent attraction, lower corporate rates versus the US, very well connected to the US and Europe through direct fiber lines to NYC and Boston and submarine cables, and things like electricity are dirt cheap and eco-friendly. Believe it or not Toronto is not the data hub for Eastern Canada, Montreal is.
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Ya, I think Montreal would be great, Quebec could use the jobs, like anyone else. But Belleville is right along the 401 between Toronto and Montreal, so there at least (or any of the other towns along that stretch, for that matter, Kingston would be good too) there is infrastructure that could be developed with little to no effort. And, depending on whether it would be a warehouse or an administrative facility, it may not even need good highway infrastructure, only good Internet. The idea is to develop the geography we have so that we don't create these insane housing markets that so many people are financially crippled by. Hell, I'd love to see telecommuting be supported by government, unless your job requires you to physically interact with something, there's no reason not to.
 
OlNate said:
Ya, I think Montreal would be great, Quebec could use the jobs, like anyone else. But Belleville is right along the 401 between Toronto and Montreal, so there at least (or any of the other towns along that stretch, for that matter, Kingston would be good too) there is infrastructure that could be developed with little to no effort. And, depending on whether it would be a warehouse or an administrative facility, it may not even need good highway infrastructure, only good Internet. The idea is to develop the geography we have so that we don't create these insane housing markets that so many people are financially crippled by. Hell, I'd love to see telecommuting be supported by government, unless your job requires you to physically interact with something, there's no reason not to.
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It is an administrative facility (2nd HQ) and Amazon Web Services is Amazon's bread and butter, they need the data infrastructure. And that data infrastructure is in Montreal. And no one wants to live in Belleville or Kingston and there is no native talent pool.
 
Carjosse said:
It is an administrative facility (2nd HQ) and Amazon Web Services is Amazon's bread and butter, they need the data infrastructure. And that data infrastructure is in Montreal. And no one wants to live in Belleville or Kingston and there is no native talent pool.
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That's kinda the point, though. Bringing in employers like Amazon will draw people to those areas. Who really wants to live in Mississauga? No one...but it has a high concentration of jobs, so people spend 3 times as much on a house as they would outside of the GTA to live in that dump of a city. Chances are they are not going to come to Canada at all, so this is just academic...but I think it would be cool if they picked a less saturated area to drive development, vs. centralize in an area already over saturated.
 
OlNate said:
Ya, I think Montreal would be great, Quebec could use the jobs, like anyone else. But Belleville is right along the 401 between Toronto and Montreal, so there at least (or any of the other towns along that stretch, for that matter, Kingston would be good too) there is infrastructure that could be developed with little to no effort. And, depending on whether it would be a warehouse or an administrative facility, it may not even need good highway infrastructure, only good Internet. The idea is to develop the geography we have so that we don't create these insane housing markets that so many people are financially crippled by. Hell, I'd love to see telecommuting be supported by government, unless your job requires you to physically interact with something, there's no reason not to.
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Amazon is an American company and should stay in America, not Canada for goodness sakes.
 
Bucky said:
Amazon is an American company and should stay in America, not Canada for goodness sakes.
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lol...those days are long gone, man, c'mon, you know that. ;) Canada has so many American jobs - we're cheaper North Americans, after all. I don't think I've ever had a job that hasn't reported into an American head office somewhere....at least, not in my post-college career.
 
Fenton said:
Chicago ? Good luck. Companies have been moving away from areas that are known for their high tax burdens and that includes States like California, New York and Illinois

Im betting they may be looking towards North Texas or even Austin
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I realize you like to cling to that fantasy, but Chicago has been attracting a lot of tech firms lately, and others as well. McDonalds is moving their corporate offices to the West Loop next year, for example.

Tech talent doesn't want to live in North Texas.
 
PeteEU said:
Yea read that after the fact.. question is why have two HQs in one region?
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Can't figure that one out either. "HQ" implies ONE location by definition.... Might be a kind of marketing. We're already going to see cities rush to see how much money they can funnel to Amazon with a CEO one of the richest on the planet to pay for the privilege of hosting their "HQ" and maybe labeling it "HQ" increases the bids.

Sort of off topic, but if king for a week or so, this would make the list of stuff to fix. I don't mind cities offering incentives, but if Amazon gets a tax break/incentive package of $50k/employee or whatever sweet deal they'll negotiate, give that to all the existing businesses in that city. Otherwise, I don't see why the government should have the ability to cut deals with a single private company and use taxpayer money to do it. It's straight up bribery, and the other way, Amazon paying a Mayor a bonus of $500k for some favor, someone at Amazon is going to jail. But if the city pays Amazon $1 billion as a bribe, that's fine???
 
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