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If you ever watch interviews with Bezos, the most striking defining philosophy is optimization. He gets excited about maximization and how things are packaged, stored, and delivered, etc. I could imagine the decision coming down to what geographic location expands reach, personnel, presence and future growth the most. For instance, having a Canadian, Mexican or East-coast red-state presence would give them a footprint in cultures and climates decidedly different and a broader geographic spread. Atlanta or Toronto would not surprise me.
That's why I picked Boston in the poll and am still rooting for Newark (you might as well consider Jersey City in the graphic below the same as Newark for this purpose, as it's the same transportation system/PATH train)
Quote:
Originally Posted by vulfpeck
Pretty sure if mass transit is important, no Southern city will make the cut. Just not how we do it.
By and large, that's exactly what Amazon would do. In a scenario whereby Amazon were to pick Raleigh for HQ2, most of the 50K hires would be transplants moving into this area and while they may not be paid quite as much as they're paid on the West Coast, they'll be paid a heck of a lot more than most people here currently make (>2x the average Raleigh salary).
May I ask where you get this info?
Amazon employs about 40K at their SEA HQ. Most of their employment growth has been through fulfillment centers/distribution warehouses.
They're looking for available tech employees, and universities that are generating them.
Since fulfillment is such an important component to the company mission, I wonder if the 2nd HQ will be a hybrid with a fulfillment component to test out new delivery technologies. If so, you'd think convergence of major highways, ports, airports and train stations might be important.
"Employment: The Project is expected to create as many as fifty thousand (50,000) new full-time jobs
with an average annual compensation exceeding one hundred thousand dollars ($100,000) per
employee."
It also says:
"Please note that the actual average wage rate may vary from the projected wage rate depending upon prevailing rates at the final location."
IMO, they will pay whatever they need to in order to hire those they want to hire. I doubt that will be twice the average wage in the selected metro.
"Employment: The Project is expected to create as many as fifty thousand (50,000) new full-time jobs
with an average annual compensation exceeding one hundred thousand dollars ($100,000) per
employee."
It also says:
"Please note that the actual average wage rate may vary from the projected wage rate depending upon prevailing rates at the final location."
IMO, they will pay whatever they need to in order to hire those they want to hire. I doubt that will be twice the average wage in the selected metro.
My 2x number was simply based on the RFP number of $100K and the average annual salary of Raleigh being about $54K. You're right that they may not pay 2x the average wage of the selected metro, but who knows. It will all depend on what those 50K jobs are...if they're mostly in tech then they very well could pay 2x the average annual Raleigh salary because that's what they'll need to pay them to attract them on a national level.
I know it's a one-off example and has limited relevance to Amazon's HQ2, but the average salary for the small company I work for (biotech) is surely >2x the average Raleigh salary. Looking at each of our 30 employees, I guessed that 24 definitely made >2x the average Raleigh salary, 4 definitely did not make >2x the average Raleigh salary, and 2 I couldn't guess one way or the other (meaning they're probably close to 2x). All that to say that the average salary Amazon pays is partially related to the metro it's located in but partially related to the national salary for the jobs they're hiring for. Most of my coworkers could go work in any biotech hub in America (or anywhere in the world for that matter); they don't have to live in Raleigh.
My 2x number was simply based on the RFP number of $100K and the average annual salary of Raleigh being about $54K. You're right that they may not pay 2x the average wage of the selected metro, but who knows. It will all depend on what those 50K jobs are...if they're mostly in tech then they very well could pay 2x the average annual Raleigh salary because that's what they'll need to pay them to attract them on a national level.
I know it's a one-off example and has limited relevance to Amazon's HQ2, but the average salary for the small company I work for (biotech) is surely >2x the average Raleigh salary. Looking at each of our 30 employees, I guessed that 24 definitely made >2x the average Raleigh salary, 4 definitely did not make >2x the average Raleigh salary, and 2 I couldn't guess one way or the other (meaning they're probably close to 2x). All that to say that the average salary Amazon pays is partially related to the metro it's located in but partially related to the national salary for the jobs they're hiring for. Most of my coworkers could go work in any biotech hub in America (or anywhere in the world for that matter); they don't have to live in Raleigh.
How many Amazon employees work from home? I know they have a lot of hardware products, but do those labs need a whole other HQ?
Since fulfillment is such an important component to the company mission, I wonder if the 2nd HQ will be a hybrid with a fulfillment component to test out new delivery technologies. If so, you'd think convergence of major highways, ports, airports and train stations might be important.
I don't think that makes a ton of sense for a HQ2. They already got fulfillment centers all over.
I'd wonder if they want to push more in house engineering. Amazon has an increasing amount of automation in the centers. AWS is also a big part of their future. I think they want to focus on where they can get talent.
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