Amazon is opening a headquarters in a place that’s not Seattle.
There has been a lot of talk, and lots of articles (like this one on Geekwire (https://www.geekwire.com/2017/amazon-wants-fill-jobs-second-hq-data-shows-city-hires-engineering-talent-fastest/) about this.
Thus far, most of the debate is about which city is a good fit in terms of talent and distribution.
At first I thought it was really a revenue hedge – that they already get a disproportionate amount of revenue from the state of Washington because they are based there – therefore if you have an HQ in another city, you not only get the same disproportionate revenue lift from that state – you also hedge against a downtown in that city economy.
But I don’t think that’s what’s going on.
Right now Amazon is in one of the bluest states in the country, politically speaking, at a time when we have one of the reddest presidents ever (still talking about politics). So if the red president wants to punish a blue state, or if any politicization wants to take aim at big blue state corporate America – Amazon is clearly in that camp. But if they add a HQ to a red state – they become much more politically neutral – politically safe from any sort of attack (still getting all of the hedge benefits mentioned above).
Seems like a smart bet to me, and Bezos and Wilke are smart enough that I suspect that’s no small part of their thinking.
What do you think?
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