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Location: That star on your map in the middle of the East Coast, DMV
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Quote:
Originally Posted by thedirtypirate
In your previous post, you linked to an article that had excerpts from a recently released book that literally stated Philadelphia, Raleigh, and Chicago were the search committees picks and Bezos and Jassy said they would rather just be in NYC and DC. Look it up. There’s plenty of news articles. The snide tone in your last sentence makes you look foolish.
I never posted any link as such in this thread before. But even that one summarizes the same point from the Washingtonian article. It appears Philly along with a few other cities from the top 20 were on some broad wish list that the team they created wanted to give the city a real shot, but that never came to fruition once comparisons made it down to the micro level:
"The S-Team pored over it, and ultimately came away with its own preferences, according to the book. And that didn’t bode well for Raleigh.
Chicago’s government was often in conflict and credit agencies rated it financially unstable. Philadelphia was not home to enough engineering talent.
And Raleigh, while it “was business-friendly, had a low cost of living and little traffic,” the book reports, was considered too small for Amazon.
Instead, Stone writes, these cities made the S-team’s list of finalists: Dallas, Los Angeles, New York City, Northern Virginia and Nashville."
So the real actual HQ2 finalists were the three that were chosen, plus Dallas and LA.
Location: That star on your map in the middle of the East Coast, DMV
8,134 posts, read 7,586,619 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by LiveFrom215
Yeah, I'm also getting a little tired of this: "Philly lacks talent" city-data mantra.
That's the issue though, it's not really a city-data mantra at all. It's coming from either media, or the specific business execs listed in the article.
If anything people on city-data would be your first allies to step in and say, they know there's more than meets the eye, being that the average c-d poster knows a bit more about cities than the average person walking down the street.
theresident09, I really could care less about this but you seem intent to mischaracterize this story. There was a search committee at Amazon. They generated all this buzz putting out a RFP. That committee put out a list of 20 finalists. They further narrowed it down to 3, before "Bezo's personal S-team" decided to go a different way.
Quote:
The personal preferences of founder Jeff Bezos and other top Amazon executives may have sunk Philadelphia and other recommended finalists for Amazon's HQ2 project, according to a new book.
Location: That star on your map in the middle of the East Coast, DMV
8,134 posts, read 7,586,619 times
Reputation: 5796
Quote:
Originally Posted by thedirtypirate
theresident09, I really could care less about this but you seem intent to mischaracterize this story. There was a search committee at Amazon. They generated all this buzz putting out a RFP. That committee put out a list of 20 finalists. They further narrowed it down to 3, before "Bezo's personal S-team" decided to go a different way.
My quotes are from your links posted, and were replies to your post about an article in which the article implied Philly was specifically not chosen due to the city's perceived image (one notable example being Eagles fans). I think we all remember how long the selection process took, it was a very brief moment that both Philly and Raleigh were seriously considered, because the execs were spending ample time in places like Northern Va and even Miami well before the HQ2 selection months and months earlier that year. Philadelphia, once the actual narrowing down of a list took place (the entire second half of 2018), was not in the top 5 finalist cities. Not sure what angle you are coming from, as the HQ2 cities have been determined for a few years now. This doesn't take away from the city on any level, as mentioned it will thrive without the headquarters.
Last edited by the resident09; 05-21-2021 at 05:53 AM..
That's the issue though, it's not really a city-data mantra at all. It's coming from either media, or the specific business execs listed in the article.
If anything people on city-data would be your first allies to step in and say, they know there's more than meets the eye, being that the average c-d poster knows a bit more about cities than the average person walking down the street.
It’s not C-D. Philly really does lack the deep talent pool of the top cities. You can’t staff a large tech organization with top local talent. There just isn’t enough of it. You have to import it and that’s a tough nut to solve. For example, Comcast had to put their Crown Jewels RDK-B project, the software in their cable modems, in Silicon Valley paying Bay Area wages. Same for the parallel video set top box project. They’ve always had a strategy of stuffing their office tower with Infosys contractors from India. That’s fine for repetitive task jobs but you can’t use that strategy to create intellectual property. Nobody sitting in the top tech cities is going to want to take a Philly job. Once they’re out of their housing market, they’re shut out forever. It’s a huge scaling problem.
My quotes are from your links posted and replies to your post about an
article which implied Philly was specifically not chosen due to the city's perceived image (one notable example being Eagles fans). Philadelphia once the actual narrowing down of a list took place was not in the top 5 finalist cities. Not sure what angle you are coming from, as the HQ2 cities have been determined for a few years now.
So you just won't acknowledge that the executives just decided on where they wanted to be and not the search committee that created the circus? I think we have came to an impasse.
Location: That star on your map in the middle of the East Coast, DMV
8,134 posts, read 7,586,619 times
Reputation: 5796
Quote:
Originally Posted by thedirtypirate
So you just won't acknowledge that the executives just decided on where they wanted to be and not the search committee that created the circus? I think we have came to an impasse.
Philly was one of three (recommended) cities to look seriously into, it was not named a top three finalist. The S-team was created to specifically dive deeper into things, and at this point executives weighed their decisions. When finalists were actually named it wasn't until late 2018. I think that's the disconnect here.
It’s not C-D. Philly really does lack the deep talent pool of the top cities. You can’t staff a large tech organization with top local talent. There just isn’t enough of it. You have to import it and that’s a tough nut to solve. For example, Comcast had to put their Crown Jewels RDK-B project, the software in their cable modems, in Silicon Valley paying Bay Area wages. Same for the parallel video set top box project. They’ve always had a strategy of stuffing their office tower with Infosys contractors from India. That’s fine for repetitive task jobs but you can’t use that strategy to create intellectual property. Nobody sitting in the top tech cities is going to want to take a Philly job. Once they’re out of their housing market, they’re shut out forever. It’s a huge scaling problem.
Philly isn't a great tech city, but it could be. Philly produces tons of graduates every year that fill entry level tech jobs all across the country. The goal of the local ecosystem is simply retain more people locally.
I mean you can find stories every week of companies choosing Philadelphia.
It's funny, a good positive story about Philadelphia being in the final consideration for the HQ2, and the city-data faithful respond by saying "well they didn't win, they obviously do not have what Amazon is looking for".
Last edited by thedirtypirate; 05-21-2021 at 07:00 AM..
Reason: wrong link
If I was an Amazon employee, I'd be much more excited about moving to/living in Philly than DC/Norther Virginia.
Philly is a much bigger and more dynamic city, and has a better price point. With all of the high caliber universities in the area, it is well positioned to attract talent; and there are overall a better collection of universities in Philly than in DC (DC doesn't have an Ivy like UPenn).
I can understand losing out to NYC; and I would even understand Philly losing out to SF or Boston; but I don't understand how Northern Virginia/DC beat out Philly.
but I don't understand how Northern Virginia/DC beat out Philly.
Jeff Bezos seems the likely answer to that.
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