
Due to Seattle’s unrest, billion-dollar investment firm moving to Phoenix - agensaequivocum
https://ktar.com/story/3321032/due-to-seattles-unrest-billion-dolloar-investment-firm-moving-to-phoenix
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totalZero
The headline of the article is a bit sensationalist. Mentioning the order of
magnitude of the assets under management (about $1.5B) gives no indication of
the head count, profitability, revenue, or local/state tax contribution for
this company. For all we know, Smead Capital only employs a dozen people in
the USA.

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filmgirlcw
The fund literally only invests in stocks like Amex, Discovery, Home Depot,
and Target.

It’s by all accounts a very small asset management company that has a few big
whale clients. Good luck attracting the same level of whales in Phoenix as you
would in Seattle, when your potential client base is full of major hire-on
grants at places like Microsoft and Amazon.

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duxup
Just reading the text those quotes seems a bit broken up / strange.

It's not clear from so little text that they just suddenly decided to move to
Phoenix in a matter of... weeks?

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caymanjim
Sounds like they're just trying to make a political statement and do something
they wanted to do already.

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sitkack
Phoenix

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SomaticPirate
The fact this is being reported by KTAR is strange. They are a small,
conservative radio station. Not even a news network picked this up. They will
report just about anything you call in

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alphabettsy
The are not a billion-dollar firm, they manage a billion. Massive, massive
difference and they have like 15 employees. Terrible “reporting”.

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filmgirlcw
Seattle waves goodbye and says nothing of value was lost.

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fred_is_fred
"He found that metro Phoenix offers a better quality of life." I guess if you
like spending all day in air conditioning this is accurate?

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ngngngng
To be fair, that's only 6 months of the year. The other 6 months it's
comfortable outside.

I'd rather go outside when it's cold than hot, so Seattle suits me better, but
that comes down to personal preference.

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spanktheuser
• Firms like this manage a large amount of capital but do so with relatively
few employees. The actual loss to the Seattle economy is small.

• They certainly seem to want to threaten workers - unionize or otherwise show
solidarity and we’ll punish you economically.

• The only sensible thing for employees to do is organize the labor it sells
much as corporations employ managers, incentive and process to organize the
labor they purchase.

• If successful, labor will be eventually be in a position to punish firms and
locales that undermine labor power.

If this comes to pass, it shouldn’t be too difficult to raise Cole Smead’s
costs until the firm isn’t viable. From a game theory perspective, this sort
of tit for tat is the only sensible way to bring about a mutually beneficial
equilibrium.

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todaysAI
Who cares. Firms now want so many tax concessions that cities probably lose
more than they gain with these corporations.

So tired of this emphasis on the economy and job growth. The key is well-
being, and a city that concentrates on well-being will get all the employment
opportunities they want without a single concession. Of course, while
employment opportunities last in the coming automation and robotic world.

~~~
mythrwy
Well-being apparently means different things to different people because that
is one of the stated reasons for moving.

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discocrisco
Well, those experimental communities always fail. Too disorder results in an
beautiful experiment collapsing.

The real problem is that these experimental communities need to have some type
of binding social customs to govern the group. The Native Americans existed
for millienialiums existed by having an agreed-upon binding social customs
that held their society without formal written law.

In this case, these groups do not have take time to really develop these
social customs or beliefs and guess what their experiment blows up. And chaos
and strife breaksout which results in people dead.

IN a society as complex as the US, the rule of law and strong faith in
institutions leads to a stable democratic institutions. These people fail to
grasp that reality and the investment firm decides go to Arizona.

In reality, Seattle is better managed city than the wild west of Phoenix. But
again, we are seeing the devastating effects when leaders do not put in faith
into the institutions that they created and then as a result, chaos results
which is a huge virus spike.

Phoenix is not a place that I would put a business knowing that long-term
effects of climate change. If I want to keep a business for longer than ten
years, I would not put it that town. I would rather put into Seattle than
Phoenix.

