

Amazon's growth is a systemic risk to Seattle - crabasa
http://www.geekwire.com/2015/commentary-amazons-unprecedented-growth-is-too-risky-for-seattle/

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ethanbond
Interesting, and I think Seattle is at least vaguely aware of this. It's worth
noting that in recent years tons of other companies have been setting up shop
in the area.

I know Facebook's second largest office is here, Palantir just opened an
office, and it seems every week or so I hear of another SV company opening a
satellite. That's not to say this isn't a real problem, but Amazon's success
(and how frickin' awesome Seattle is) is attracting other people to cushion
the blow.

An important note here is that the revenue sources and the markets for these
are very diverse. The 5-10 notable companies with notable presence have
probably 5-10 mostly discrete markets driving their growth.

Silicon Valley, on the other hand, has hundreds of companies but 90%+ are
entirely dependent on ads (or the ad bubble, depending on which side of that
fence you're on).

Any thoughts on how this plays into the risk calculus?

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stephengillie
Amazon has 24,000 workers in Seattle and is building office space for 70,000
more. Why?

    
    
      * Are they relocating 70,000 workers from other areas?
    

What areas? Why would they relocate these workers?

    
    
      * Are they adding 70,000 new jobs? 
    

It's possible that Amazon is planning to expand. I have no idea.

    
    
      * Are they building office space without intending on using it? 
    

Amazon would have to have a very good reason for doing this. Maybe they plan
on starting up a lot of business units and doing a lot of churn-y startup-y
things? Maybe they plan on renting it out? Maybe they're just sinking money
into Real Estate to retain their no-profit image?

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lothlorien
This brings up an interesting question: how should city planners make
decisions about long term infrastructure if their populations are unstable?

Will the trend of working for many companies for shorter periods of time, and
therefore perhaps moving more often, make certain city populations less stable
than others?

