Amazon looking for new headquarters...listen up because Chicago is a top contender. (Des Plaines: crime rate, attorney)

[ParkerP]

Originally Posted by chet everett

This Crain's article says HQ to remain in McLean -- http://www.chicagobusiness.com/artic...-hq-in-chicago

The vaqueness about the number of jobs is never a good sign; it is often code for "we are really laying off a whole bunch of people who are now redundant because we've realized that the same people who were allegedly planning out how to sell gum are now going to do the same for candy too..."

Your link is taking me to an article from 2016. Here is the story I read from last month Mars Food moves North American HQ to Goose Island - Chicago Tribune
Unless they changed their minds that quickly, then yeah I am sure.

[chet everett]

While the "profile" of a company like Mars, with its many well known products, is impressive, the significance of this in the context of the potential for Amazon to be adding HUGE amounts of space and staff is rather stark --

From the above link:
Mars Food, a business unit of Mars Inc.
...75 jobs...


Talk about lean -- Mars Incorporated: A pretty sweet place to work | Fortune

When you step back and really think about what this represents one is forced to ask: What EXACTLY would 50,000 people actually do while on Amazon's payroll?

[OyCrumbler]

Originally Posted by chet everett

While the "profile" of a company like Mars, with its many well known products, is impressive, the significance of this in the context of the potential for Amazon to be adding HUGE amounts of space and staff is rather stark --

From the above link:
Mars Food, a business unit of Mars Inc.
...75 jobs...


Talk about lean -- Mars Incorporated: A pretty sweet place to work | Fortune

When you step back and really think about what this represents one is forced to ask: What EXACTLY would 50,000 people actually do while on Amazon's payroll?

Yes, but you can also add to that that the other poster was right even though its significance is pretty scant.

As for the 50,000 people at Amazon--yea, I'm a bit perplexed by that as well. Amazon is a behemoth which employs over 300,000 people, but unlike other tech companies, Amazon employs a lot of blue collar work because they move physical goods. Since this secondary headquarters is supposedly not just a massive distribution center, then that means a lot of tech and administrative jobs. However, 50K of those jobs is pretty crazy to add on. Unless there's some massive secret project and/or Bezos is planning on folding several other companies he owns into Amazon, then I'm a bit perplexed by how this gets to 50K jobs.

[damba]

Originally Posted by chet everett

While the "profile" of a company like Mars, with its many well known products, is impressive, the significance of this in the context of the potential for Amazon to be adding HUGE amounts of space and staff is rather stark --

From the above link:
Mars Food, a business unit of Mars Inc.
...75 jobs...


Talk about lean -- Mars Incorporated: A pretty sweet place to work | Fortune

When you step back and really think about what this represents one is forced to ask: What EXACTLY would 50,000 people actually do while on Amazon's payroll?

Use your imagination a little, Chet. You have stated outright here ad nauseum that you 'know a few people'.
Ask a couple of seasoned MBAs to assist.

Hint: Amazon just moved into the grocery store space and likely will be entering healthcare/supplies/etc.

[chet everett]

Look, all I'm saying is that it makes sense to question whether this "HQ2" thing has maybe a bit more fudge factor...

Crain's Chicago Business - The incredible shrinking headquarters

Even Boeing, the largest company to come to Chicago from out of state, brought just 400 employees here in 2001, compared with the 1,000 it employed at its headquarters in Seattle. Fifteen years later, its Chicago headcount is up to roughly 560. ... More recently, about 350 United Airlines executives came in 2007 when the company moved its headquarters downtown ...number swelled to 4,300 in Chicago, including 1,300 jobs when United opened an operations center in Willis Tower.

http://www.chicagobusiness.com/asset...hicagoData.jpg

[damba]

Originally Posted by chet everett

Look, all I'm saying is that it makes sense to question whether this "HQ2" thing has maybe a bit more fudge factor...

Crain's Chicago Business - The incredible shrinking headquarters

http://www.chicagobusiness.com/asset...hicagoData.jpg

Are you naive enough to think all ~50K jobs will be instantaneous? They have a long game, amigo. The fact that you equate them to Mars or Boeing is comical.

[chet everett]

Originally Posted by damba

Are you naive enough to think all ~50K jobs will be instantaneous? They have a long game, amigo. The fact that you equate them to Mars or Boeing is comical.

You know what the revenue of Boeing is? Revenue, EPS, & Dividend - Boeing Company (The) (BA) - NASDAQ.com You know they have a highly skilled global workforce that includes not just the obvious well paid people who build things like passenger aircraft that have to survive millions of miles of travel but also a literal armory of military weapons systems, satellites, and rockets. Toss in a hugely talented layer of engineers that design all that gear, all the wizards of logistics that keep the various parts stores stocks, an enormous number of project professionals that take each of these things, break down into individual tasks and deliver... Add in not just the standard sorts of legal counsel to sign off on contracts but also folks that are literal ambassadors to foreign entities, a global lobby arm that pushes for regulatory controls that try to balance competition against expansion, untold internal security and competitive intelligence groups, enough ex-Pentagon types to know the tricks of procurement and strategy, R&D that ranges from making plushies seating for commercial jets to top secret planetary defense ... What’s the totals? 150,000 across the whole solar system!
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_(company)


I like Prime as much as anybody — heck some days I get same delivery at home just to sort of pinch myself, and at the office not only do we use Amazon for all the crap that we bought from dying Office products firms BUT stuff like AWS has transformed how we spend money on IT. That likely will be a big part of the swelling ranks of Amazon but make no mistake this is not a case where the pie gets bigger — every win that Amazon
has against traditional retailers like Sears, Walgreens, Ultra, and other firms here means heads rolling. Even worse the sorts of ghost town that replaced Att or Motorola office campuses gets repeated a dozen fold as AWS kills not just huge vendors like IBM, HP/EMC, Dell and other giant firms that all have major clients locally but it also hollows those IT, staffs, forces massive rethink of firms like PWC, Accenture, and dozens of lesser known but important consulting firms. There is going to fallout and consolidation for firms like Oracle, SAP, and even earlier versions of “PAAS”. Amazon won’t completely steamroll Microsoft, Google, and the various “open” cloud providers instantly but even if their growth is not dealt with via some kind of anti-monopoly court or regulation the scope of what is proposed needs scrutiny / skepticism

[damba]

Originally Posted by chet everett

You know what the revenue of Boeing is? Revenue, EPS, & Dividend - Boeing Company (The) (BA) - NASDAQ.com You know they have a highly skilled global workforce that includes not just the obvious well paid people who build things like passenger aircraft that have to survive millions of miles of travel but also a literal armory of military weapons systems, satellites, and rockets. Toss in a hugely talented layer of engineers that design all that gear, all the wizards of logistics that keep the various parts stores stocks, an enormous number of project professionals that take each of these things, break down into individual tasks and deliver... Add in not just the standard sorts of legal counsel to sign off on contracts but also folks that are literal ambassadors to foreign entities, a global lobby arm that pushes for regulatory controls that try to balance competition against expansion, untold internal security and competitive intelligence groups, enough ex-Pentagon types to know the tricks of procurement and strategy, R&D that ranges from making plushies seating for commercial jets to top secret planetary defense ... What’s the totals? 150,000 across the whole solar system!
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_(company)


I like Prime as much as anybody — heck some days I get same delivery at home just to sort of pinch myself, and at the office not only do we use Amazon for all the crap that we bought from dying Office products firms BUT stuff like AWS has transformed how we spend money on IT. That likely will be a big part of the swelling ranks of Amazon but make no mistake this is not a case where the pie gets bigger — every win that Amazon
has against traditional retailers like Sears, Walgreens, Ultra, and other firms here means heads rolling. Even worse the sorts of ghost town that replaced Att or Motorola office campuses gets repeated a dozen fold as AWS kills not just huge vendors like IBM, HP/EMC, Dell and other giant firms that all have major clients locally but it also hollows those IT, staffs, forces massive rethink of firms like PWC, Accenture, and dozens of lesser known but important consulting firms. There is going to fallout and consolidation for firms like Oracle, SAP, and even earlier versions of “PAAS”. Amazon won’t completely steamroll Microsoft, Google, and the various “open” cloud providers instantly but even if their growth is not dealt with via some kind of anti-monopoly court or regulation the scope of what is proposed needs scrutiny / skepticism

Has anyone mentioned lately that you tend to ramble incessantly? LOL

We are extremely happy that you finally figured out how to cut/paste and utilize wikipedia. Let me know when you feel intellectual enough to discuss what I hinted at.

[chet everett]

Haha lol rofl et cetera...

I've always had a bias to rely on online sources to counter the too common pie-in-the-sky boosterism that is often baseless.

You want concise? How about the fact that though Chicago has a MASSIVE collection of Federal offices, that include millions of sq ft of centrally located offices AS WELL AS huge amounts of space at O'Hare, Midway, FAA Des Plaines offices, several dedicated VA hospitals and scattered administrative sites, national DOE labs at Fermi and Argonne the totals were under 50k -- http://www.chicagobusiness.com/artic...ng-much-larger Given the further fact that there is tremendous "overhead" of security associated with that employment AND a recognition that much of the modernization that has reduced headcount for private sector employers has NOT really happened with Federal employment as it clings to the people intensive bureaucracies that allow for old fashioned "power through numbers"...

[emathias]

Originally Posted by chet everett

...
When you step back and really think about what this represents one is forced to ask: What EXACTLY would 50,000 people actually do while on Amazon's payroll?

It's a fair question. What exactly do the 380,000 people on IBM's payroll do? What do the 425,000 Accenture employees do? Or the 176,000 HP Enterprise Services employees? Or the 203,000 Deloitte employees? Or the 261,000 Cognizant employees?

Could Amazon move into business spaces that more directly compete against some of those (in addition to their hosted services)? If they did, 50,000 people would be a relatively small entrance. If that is part of their plan, Chicago's central location and strong domestic air connections would certainly serve them well, just as it always has for existing consultancies. If they started doing more research like IBM, that would involve a fraction of 50,000 directly, but could result in spinning up (or spinning off) new businesses from the research. I have no idea what Amazon's actual plans are for the eventual 50,000 employees, but while it is a LOT of people to employ, it's not impossible to think up potential uses for them.

Think about this - if 20% of 50,000 employees traveled at least once a month on business, that's an extra 120,000 outbound and 120,000 inbound travelers for our airports, annually. If all the employees and their families (using a downtown household size average of 1.5 as a multiplier) traveled twice a year for leisure, that's an extra 150,000 outbound and 150,000 inbound passengers. Together, that's a half-million extra travelers for our airports - and that's just direct use by Amazon employees. Add in people traveling *to* Amazon, and travel from Amazon suppliers and providers, and it seems like an extra million passengers per year wouldn't be a crazy estimate, and would amount to approximately a 1% increase in traveler traffic between O'Hare and Midway, and 8-9,000 more flights annually - 25 per day. Might be enough to add a few new destinations for direct flights. Maybe a direct flight to Moscow or Cairo or Athens or Chile or Buenos Aires or Manila or South Africa or Kenya or Chennai or Tel Aviv or Milan or Shenzhen or Chengdu or Chongqing or Kyoto or Indonesia or Sydney. Or Spokane or Oakland or Santa Fe or Salem or Bend or Moscow, ID or Long Island or Wilmington, etc.