Have Amazon workers unwittingly reveal potential new HQ - Arlington, Virginia?? (Alexandria: how much, DMV)

[Brave New World]

A lot of internal internet traffic with regard to Arlington, Virginia.

Originally Posted by The Telegraph

The location for Amazon's second mega-headquarters may have been revealed after thousands of curious employees flooded a shortlisted city's local news website with traffic.

The technology giant is on the hunt for its second home, where it will create 50,000 “high-paying” jobs and spend $5bn on designing a new building to rival its original post in Seattle.

Amazon has kept details under wraps but on Tuesday a local news website in Arlington, Virginia, hinted that it might be a front-runner after a two-month old news article describing the city's green credentials received an unprecedented amount of traffic from an internal webpage at Amazon.com.

Amazon workers unwittingly reveal potential new HQ - Telegraph

Amazon drops HQ2 hint about Arlington, Virginia - Business Insider

[ersatz]

Originally Posted by Brave New World

A lot of internal internet traffic with regard to Arlington, Virginia.

I remember last month when all the pundits assured us that the HQ2 search was only pro forma and that Amazon corporate had already decided the location would be Boston.

[spencgr]

So, if I read this right, ArlNow.com had a spike in views for a specific article that appears to have come from internal Amazon servers? And they believe this indicates that Amazon employees (approx 6k of them?) are in the know, but no one else is?

Ridiculous.

It appears that neither those at ArlNow.com who reported the spike, nor those in the media who reported it, have any knowledge whatsoever as to how major companies keep these decisions close.

Do they really think that Amazon has told up to 6k of their employees what the intended location is? Not a chance. Not a chance in hell.

My guess is that less than 20 people at Amazon have any knowledge of the shortlist and potential sites, and those people are likely under strict NDAs.

There is a huge negotiation ahead for amazon for land/ development, etc. No way at all they will risk losing the upper hand in negotiating by telling 6k employees who the front runner is.

[skeddy]

lmao .... that information is worth billions. Those guys and gals humping boxes in the warehouse will be the last to know.

[Rudals]

Wow, if Amazon HQ2 moves to the DMV area, just imagine how much worse the traffic will be. I can't wait!

[NOVA_guy]

I hope and still think Montgomery County MD may get it. That way we get the pros but not necessarily all of the cons. Housing and traffic is already a disaster, there are already tons of six-figure paying jobs here, it's not really worth it IMO although diversifying the economy is always a good thing.

That said, according to recent "insiders" Fairfax and Loudoun County have a better chance than Arlington so we'll see.

[noremacww]

I'm here in nearby Alexandria for a temporary duty position and traffic is already such a mess. Now that it has been officially announced, I am glad we will be leaving the area before this all gets put into place!