
Google announces major expansion in New York City - richardboegli
https://arstechnica.com/?p=1429233
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projectramo
Tired of the expense of the Bay Area, companies are now uncovering small,
cheap gems that no one knew about like NYC.

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whoisjuan
I know you're being sarcastic, but as someone who lived in NYC and California
there is not even a comparison on how better is NYC when it comes to the
amount of options you get to flexibly spend your money and smartly extend your
paycheck. All this while still living in one of the boroughs.

I lived for a year in Manhattan with a $50K salary. I wasn't living like a
king at all and definitely not saving money, but still managed to have a
lifestyle that I would consider comfortable and healthy. This was 2015.

Now, compare that to San Francisco. $50K it's basically one level above
homelessness.

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Touche
The average Manhanttan apartment is ~3.5k a month. I'd say you likely got
lucky if you lived comfortable on a 50k salary.

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NikolaeVarius
I never know why people trot these prices out. Literally nobody I know
actually pays 3.5k a month for rent, and a majority of my friends are in the
software field in one way or another.

The most that anyone pays is like 1.8k

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ericd
If you want to live without roommates (you have a family, or you just like
living alone), you're probably paying more than 1,800/mo.

~~~
NikolaeVarius
Well yes, if you don't want to make basic concessions, you have to pay more
money.

I find generally fiscal rationality trumps not having a roommate.

~~~
closeparen
Middle class professionals can normally afford their own places with ~30
minute commutes.

If I need a roommate to make things work financially, I’m in the wrong job or
the wrong city.

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remarkEon
I can't be the only one concluding that we're near the end of a nice run for
tech, with all these expensive real estate moves. I don't know, maybe we've
been there for a while now.

What better way to spend piles of cash you have no idea what to do with than
extort local governments for billions in tax breaks and park that money in a
some commercial real estate you can depreciate? I'm not judging these
companies for doing this per se (Amazon, Apple, and Google have all recently
done this as far as I can tell - haven't noticed anything from Microsoft), but
I do consider it a bit ominous that they've all picked expensive places that
certainly _seem_ like good picks.

It really does seem like these companies have no idea what to do with their
money. Buying up land and taking the next 3-5 years to build billion dollar
campuses seems so boring to me.

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iso1337
Google hasn't extorted local governments for tax breaks in their recent San
Jose deal.

[https://www.citylab.com/life/2018/12/san-jose-deal-google-
ca...](https://www.citylab.com/life/2018/12/san-jose-deal-google-campus-
diridon-station-vs-hq2-incentive/576310/)

>Liccardo says, the city didn’t offer the company any tax incentives in
exchange for its business. “More importantly,” he added in a Medium post,
“Google never asked for a dime.”

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casefields
>While Google won’t get outright public subsidies, as Liccardo noted, the
company will benefit as much as the community from Diridon Station, which will
cost taxpayers $10 billion.

Why are you holding the bag for Google?

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JeremyBanks
A company choosing to expand in New York without billions in incentives? Could
it be? The municipal government didn't think it was possible...

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CobrastanJorji
On the contrary, the municipal government very loudly believed that it would
have been possible. Unfortunately it appears that, for some reason I don't
understand, New York City's Council doesn't have any input into those sort of
incentive programs.

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bilbo0s
Yep. The State officials can run roughshod over you whenever they like.

We just need a nation wide system where politicians can make these Foxconn
type deals, but the deals would be null and void until voters actually
signaled approval in some kind of referendum.

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Kalium
As someone living in California, my advice is to be _very_ cautious about how
much direct democracy you ask for. It can very easily go very badly.

~~~
ericd
This doesn't deserve downvotes. Some of the products of the referendums (prop
13, for example) have had disastrous long term consequences.

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FreakyT
And let's not forget everyone's favorite:

> _This [literally any object imaginable] contains materials known to the
> State of California to cause cancer._

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ericd
Oh yeah, that one's great. My two favorite uses of this sign - first, on the
jetway, when you're stuck in line, and second, in the baby food aisle at our
local grocery store. I guess you could think of it like a memento mori,
though: "Everything is killing you, slowly".

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synaesthesisx
Cities like NYC and Los Angeles are seeing an explosion in tech jobs lately as
the Bay Area is bleeding out.

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dmode
There is no bleeding out. Google is actually expanding massively in the Bay
Area with a huge purchase in San Jose, Sunnyvale, Mountain View, and SF. They
are adding space for 50k more employees in the Bay, far more than in NY.
Facebook is building out its Menlo Park campus and also signed the largest
lease in SF history. Tesla has basically taken over every bit of office space
in Fremont. Apple recently opened their $5bn campus.Bay Area can only
accommodate 8mn people and with housing push perhaps 10mn at max. So obviously
the biggest companies in the world needs to expand somewhere else as well

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almost_usual
Amazing. Driving through the Penninsula is already a total nightmare. Took me
90 minutes to get from San Bruno to San Jose last week. The drive back to the
city took 35 minutes in the late evening.

How people ride these shuttles, drive, and deal with these commutes blows my
mind. It’s only going to get way worse. Most expensive traffic jam in the
country. No thanks.

~~~
solatic
> Most expensive traffic jam in the country.

Not sure if this was your point, but when we can make such a big deal about
how a meeting with ten people costs the company ten man-hours and therefore
meetings are _sooo expensive_ yet everyone _at the entire company_ goes and
sits in traffic _twice a day_. The macroeconomic cost must be _astronomical_.

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jamestimmins
Does anyone know why Google, Amazon, and Apple have all announced large
incentive programs recently? Is there something about it being the end of the
fiscal year? Or are there other possible reasons?

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kyrra
I think the tax bill from last year helped some with this[0]. Apple announced
that they would be bringing back billions of $ from overseas holdings due to
changes in the laws, and investing it in the US.

Google has been expanding in NYC for a while. Back in February, they bought
their existing building for $2 billion[1].

[0] [https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/17/technology/apple-tax-
bill...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/17/technology/apple-tax-bill-
repatriate-cash.html)

[1] [https://nypost.com/2018/02/06/google-to-buy-chelsea-
market-b...](https://nypost.com/2018/02/06/google-to-buy-chelsea-market-
building-for-2b/)

~~~
paul9290
So this is Trump's doing?

Did he really help add about 100k high paying tech jobs and within the biggest
tech companies on earth?

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hbosch
Mitch McConnell stated that the tax cuts increased employment. Politifact
rates that statement as Half True[0]. In reality, it's fair to say tax cuts
created an environment that was conducive to hiring, but also, the levels of
hiring have been pretty steady since 2010.

That being said, there's even less evidence that this is even Half True in the
tech industry.

0\. [https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-
meter/statements/2018/jun...](https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-
meter/statements/2018/jun/05/mitch-mcconnell/how-strong-have-job-gains-been-
tax-bill-passed/)

___

edit: Also, I assume you're being downvoted because your question was phrased
as bait whether you meant it to or not.

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burtonator2011
Thank god for NYC... Poor tiny NYC I'm sure could use the tax revenue.

Why can't they pick some place that could actually use the growth? Boulder?

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Apocryphon
One day Pittsburgh will get its big hockey-stick shaped break.

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freehunter
Pittsburgh and Madison are both low COL cities with great engineering schools
where only a small handful of companies are soaking up all the talent.
Definitely underrated.

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what_ever
Madison has one good school. How many CS graduates are there that still want
to live in Madison after they graduate?

Pittsburgh I can somewhat agree.

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bilbo0s
To be honest, both suck compared to NYC and SF. There's just no comparison.
NYC and SF have high numbers of PhD level tech talent, neither Pittsburgh nor
Madison have anywhere near the number of the MIT-Stanford-Caltech PhD crowd.
NYC and SF have higher density. And NYC, for example, has far more jobs in
industries unrelated to tech. Not only more jobs in other industries, but way
more other industries in general. Which is always attractive for the
significant other.

The name of the game is to get high end tech talent. So sure, the University
of Wisconsin can crank out code monkees for you. That's fine if that's all you
need. But all the PhDs from the elite tech schools will sit down with their
spouses or significant others to think about where to live and Madison and
Pittsburgh just won't be terribly high on those lists. It's not all about the
PhD that Google wants to hire, you have to have something for his or her
spouse too. It's a lot easier to do that in NYC or SF. Just kind of the
reality right now.

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Apocryphon
We’re not trying to find the next SF/Seattle/NYC here. We’re talking about the
next Austin/Portland.

