Bezos may have already made the decision. This could be just a publicity stunt to maximize tax subsidy.
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wsj says that 5B and 50k job is over 15-16 year frame. In the beginning, it’s going to be much smaller than 50k jobs. Could be $5k jobs each year over 10 years of time from 2023 to 2033, assuming economy will grow over the next 15 years. If location is a small city such as Austin or round rock or Oakalnd, the impact would be huge. For SJ, how much impact can it be?
Amazon will not try 2nd HQ unless it benefits (financially) for them. Most likely, he will move to a place where state corporate tax advantage is there.
https://www.reddit.com/r/investing/comments/6ynu8f/amazon_scouts_for_second_headquarters_with_5/
True, they are looking for tax break and other incentives.
This is the main reason stock spiked today with announcement !
My guess is California (or Bay Area) ruled out based on high state corporate tax.
Forty-four states levy a corporate income tax. Rates range from 3 percent in North Carolina to 12 percent in Iowa.
Six states — Alaska, Connecticut, Iowa, Minnesota, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, and the District of Columbia — levy top marginal corporate income tax rates of 9 percent or higher.
Nevada, Ohio, Texas, and Washington impose gross receipts taxes instead of corporate income taxes. Gross receipts taxes are generally thought to be more economically harmful than corporate income taxes.
Seven states — Arizona, North Carolina, North Dakota, Colorado, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Utah — have top rates at or below 5 percent.
South Dakota and Wyoming are the only states that do not levy a corporate income or gross receipts tax.
May be they may have it in one of the bold highlight states.
Tax is a factor, but not an overriding one. If it were all tech companies would be in North Dakota and nobody will be here in Silicon Valley. SV is expensive on the cost side, but also offers plenty on the benefit side. Places like Mississippi are cheap for a reason.
Here is Amazon’s RFP:
Proposals are due on 10/19, a very aggressive timeline. So cities and states need to work out the packages in little more than a month.
In choosing the location for HQ2, Amazon has a preference for:
- Metropolitan areas with more than one million people
- A stable and business-friendly environment
- Urban or suburban locations with the potential to attract and retain strong technical talent
- Communities that think big and creatively when considering locations and real estate options
HQ2 could be, but does not have to be:
- An urban or downtown campus
- A similar layout to Amazon’s Seattle campus
- A development-prepped site. We want to encourage states/provinces and communities to think
creatively for viable real estate options, while not negatively affecting our preferred timeline
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Bezo’s request for proposals is pretty ingenious in that is gets cities/states to be the agents of change in their areas. Usually we read stories (here) about how “outside” companies are caught in the quagmire of local regulations/issues and community resistance. Seems this way is more efficient in eliminating unforeseen blocks in planning.
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A lot of cities can offer 500,000 sq ft. How many can offer 8,000,000 or enough land meeting those requirements to build it? My guess is not very many, because areas meeting those criteria are already densely occupied. I think Detroit is a sleeper pick with an outside chance. Austin, Raleigh , SLC, Columbus, and Denver are more likely pics.
my money is on denver.
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Denver or Dallas.
I doubt it will be in an expensive area like SFBA. May be Denver, Middle West Columbus, Atlanta…
I shared a bldg. in CU with Amzn development. I have good idea how that company operates. Everyone is short timer and speaks little of the long prospect of the company.
This is may be another Smoke Screen putting a tech center in Atlanta with no aircon to roast his highly paid technocrats out the comp. Another 5B write off with max depreciation applies to its balance sheet.
As expected, Nevada is in…
Brisbane has a large piece of land. What is the Brisbane doing now??!
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I don’t swear much…F*** Brisbane!!! NIMBYs!!!
Another top contender: DC. Bezos just dropped 20M on a house there.
Amazon’s biggest challenge will likely be regulatory. Installing Amazon right in the middle of the political machine makes sense. DC and its suburbs in VA and MD have tons of highly educated workers. I think they even have the highest density of PhD’s in the country.
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Yeah, a lot of climate science PhDs 
AOL was located there. It could be a good spot
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Another take on which cities fit the bill…
That’s pretty lazy. They narrow it down to 26 based on 1-criteria and don’t do much else. People get paid to write that type of stuff?
As I indicated, it is just another take (millions more will be coming before the envelope is read…) on which cities have a shot. You don’t like the % of folks with degrees angle?
It only narrows it to 33 cities. That’s not much of a narrowing down. I do wonder what’s considering a good enough international airport. Seattle’s airport is pretty small and doesn’t offer a huge variety of international flights. I think it’s smaller than SJC which isn’t known as an impressive airport.
But we are at the very, very early stage (no?) so good to cast a wide net still. And again, this is just a guessing game at this point, backed up with hopefully some semi credible good points and reasons to consider. Any city that somewhat “qualifies” would be stupid to not try and enter the lottery…
Unfortunately, the brilliant brain trusts of the Fab 7x7 and Oakland are probably thinking about how much money they should CHARGE Bezos for doing it in their respective city. Unbelievable…