Amazon planning second headquarters with 50,000 jobs

[jammies]

Originally Posted by SeeGeeWhy

Maybe I'm paying attention to the wrong people creating change, opportunity, and new things in the world... but when I listen to them, they're always hanging out in places that simply aren't the Calgary-Edmonton corridor.

The irony of your ability to "listen to them" when they're not actually here, yet somehow missing the point that physical location is now almost irrelevant to creative collaboration and learning is astounding.

[dino7c]

Better to be out of it now then continuing to give people false hope. City can move on to more realistic endevours.

No big US company is moving to Canada with Trump vs. JT sorry TO.

Not saying that is the only reason

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by jammies

The irony of your ability to "listen to them" when they're not actually here, yet somehow missing the point that physical location is now almost irrelevant to creative collaboration and learning is astounding.

Is that really true, though? People talked about being able to live in Montana and work in Silicon Valley, but it isn't really happening. The cost of housing in cities with strong economies keeps going up and up. Most companies, including cutting edge tech companies, have more or less given up on telecommuting. While we can sorta manage remote collaboration with the technology we have, the face-to-face kind is preferable by far. I know when my company closed our office in the U.S., there was tremendous relief that we wouldn't have to hold all our meetings and standups using ####ing GoTo Meeting anymore.

[nfotiu]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

Is that really true, though? People talked about being able to live in Montana and work in Silicon Valley, but it isn't really happening. The cost of housing in cities with strong economies keeps going up and up. Most companies, including cutting edge tech companies, have more or less given up on telecommuting. While we can sorta manage remote collaboration with the technology we have, the face-to-face kind is preferable by far. I know when my company closed our office in the U.S., there was tremendous relief that we wouldn't have to hold all our meetings and standups using ####ing GoTo Meeting anymore.

Telecommuting seems to be strong and growing from what I can tell. My organization is quite conservative, and is completely decentralized and more than half of the staff works from home. I report to someone in New York, live in Virginia and have staff in Texas, Kansas City, St Louis, New Jersey, and New York, New York.

Looking around at my cul de sac in the suburbs and more than half the people are working from home and most are working for an out of state company. The jobs in my area are all require very specific IT skills, and there is no chance I could fill positions with people living in my city or willing to move here.

[Azure]

Seems like most companies have the same problem with finding good people, and then on top of that finding good people to work where they are located.

Being able to work remotely probably saves a lot of money/resources even if the headache is a bit bigger.

[Muta]

I'm very happy we pursued this, and made an impact doing so in the process. I would have been way more pissed had we decided to pass on this RFP, so kudos to Calgary Economic Development and the City for identifying opportunities that can benefit our economy and chasing these opportunities with a big league mindset. I want to see much more of this, regularly.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by OldDutch

My friend said a similar thing. That he hopes his kids move away from Calgary as he feels the city has peaked. I see his point, but yours I think is too far.

Your infering that Calgary is bad now and for the next 20 years. Raising your kids now in Calgary is a no brainer. It a top 5 world city on many metrics. Safe, clean, relatively affordable. Heck the company I work for which is not in oil and massive will be here for the long haul.

Maybe just maybe your kids won’t want to stay, but there isn’t much chance of Calgary needing Robocop to patrol any time soon.

Which in its own way is kind of sad...it would be kind of cool.

Originally Posted by Muta

I'm very happy we pursued this, and made an impact doing so in the process. I would have been way more pissed had we decided to pass on this RFP, so kudos to Calgary Economic Development for the City for identifying opportunities that can benefit our city and chasing them with a big league mindset.

Yeah, they took a big league swing. It didnt work out but they tried and were in the conversation.

I'll take trying and failing over not even trying any day.

[rotten42]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

Is that really true, though? People talked about being able to live in Montana and work in Silicon Valley, but it isn't really happening. The cost of housing in cities with strong economies keeps going up and up. Most companies, including cutting edge tech companies, have more or less given up on telecommuting. While we can sorta manage remote collaboration with the technology we have, the face-to-face kind is preferable by far. I know when my company closed our office in the U.S., there was tremendous relief that we wouldn't have to hold all our meetings and standups using ####ing GoTo Meeting anymore.

Well in some sectors it is true. I split my time between Calgary and South Carolina. I work remotely 2 weeks out of each month. In my field it is getting more and more common to have designers work remotely.

[Flamenspiel]

..

[Ozy_Flame]

While we may not have won the HQ2 sweepstakes, I am hearing that Amazon will be opening an Amazon Web Services office in Calgary in the near future.

With this and the upcoming Amazon distribution centre opening soon, I would say Amazon is certainly interested in doing business in Calgary, even without being shortlisted. That is something to certainly be proud of.

[Weitz]

They are opening tonnea of offices all over North America. It doesn’t really make Calgary special.

[Ozy_Flame]

Originally Posted by Weitz

They are opening tonnea of offices all over North America. It doesn’t really make Calgary special.

I love this attitude.

Calgary is getting both a distribution centre and an AWS office.

What more could you want from Amazon without getting HQ2? It's not like they're ignoring business in Calgary.

Cripes, some of you just can't be even be marginally happy.

[Weitz]

Well to be fair Calgary area is a getting a distribution centre. It’s in Balzac.

But I’m not exactly proud that a satellite office is being opened here (haven’t seen anything yet but taking your word) when they are apparently leasing massive amounts of space in Boston right now. When we start hearing things like that in the Calgary area then I’ll start caring about Amazon as a local company.

[Ozy_Flame]

Wow. I honestly don't know what to say.

Just . . . wow.

[Senator Clay Davis]

https://twitter.com/user/status/1062168142749843457

[Snuffleupagus]

Originally Posted by Senator Clay Davis

https://twitter.com/user/status/1062168142749843457

Interesting that they're so close, NYC and Washington are like 200 miles apart. NYC and say Houston/Dallas makes far more sense to look after the interests of the whole demographic USA.

[Senator Clay Davis]

Bezos lives in DC and NYC. This whole thing was basically an attempt to leverage more handouts from the state governments there, and sure enough it appears to have worked.

[Erick Estrada]

Originally Posted by Snuffleupagus

Interesting that they're so close, NYC and Washington are like 200 miles apart. NYC and say Houston/Dallas makes far more sense to look after the interests of the whole demographic USA.

Yeah that doesn't make a lot of sense to me. NYC makes perfect sense when you consider the population base but Texas would have made more sense. Even Atlanta would have made more sense. I really don't see the purpose of two locations so close together. Would be akin to a massive Canadian distributor opening up their two main hubs in Toronto and Brampton.

Just goes to show that Canada was likely never really being seriously considered.

[Ozy_Flame]

Seems like a gigantic waste of time in the end and kind of obnoxious, if you ask me. Amazon would have been better off just quietly selecting a site and calling it a day.

[nfotiu]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

Yeah that doesn't make a lot of sense to me. NYC makes perfect sense when you consider the population base but Texas would have made more sense. Even Atlanta would have made more sense. I really don't see the purpose of two locations so close together. Would be akin to a massive Canadian distributor opening up their two main hubs in Toronto and Brampton.

Just goes to show that Canada was likely never really being seriously considered.

These are headquarters. Nothing related to distributing hubs. I am guessing the idea is 2 headquarters operating as one with easy transportation between the two. The number one goal is access to an educated, tech work force. Northern VA seemed like the favorite all along with splitting to New York being a late development.