Amazon looking to spend Apple Park-like $5 billion on 'second headquarters' in US
Following in the footsteps of Apple and Google, Amazon appears ready to start the process to build a massive headquarters in North America -- but for Amazon it will serve as a second base of operations to supplement its existing headquarters in Seattle, Wash.
First spotted by Reuters on Thursday, Amazon made the declaration that it would spend more than $5 billion on a new facility. In a statement, the company announced that it would serve up to 50,000 employees.
Amazon has not declared any locations that it prefers, or has ruled out. The company says that he location it chooses be a "stable and business-friendly environment" and have "communities that think big and creatively when considering locations and real estate options."
Amazon has requested that local and state governments contact the company with proposals. The company notes that Amazon delivered $38 billion to Seattle's economy since 2010.
At present, Amazon occupies part or all of 33 buildings in Seattle, spanning 8.1 million square feet. It has spent $3.7 billion on capital investments in the facilities.
"We expect HQ2 to be a full equal to our Seattle headquarters," said Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. "Amazon HQ2 will bring billions of dollars in up-front and ongoing investments, and tens of thousands of high-paying jobs. We're excited to find a second home."
As of yet, there is no timetable for completion, or a deadline for the proposals from assorted governments.
Amazon's investment in the headquarters appears similar to Apple Park's. While exact figures are not known, Apple Park is said to have taken north of $5 billion to construct -- and has gone over schedule.
First spotted by Reuters on Thursday, Amazon made the declaration that it would spend more than $5 billion on a new facility. In a statement, the company announced that it would serve up to 50,000 employees.
Amazon has not declared any locations that it prefers, or has ruled out. The company says that he location it chooses be a "stable and business-friendly environment" and have "communities that think big and creatively when considering locations and real estate options."
Amazon has requested that local and state governments contact the company with proposals. The company notes that Amazon delivered $38 billion to Seattle's economy since 2010.
At present, Amazon occupies part or all of 33 buildings in Seattle, spanning 8.1 million square feet. It has spent $3.7 billion on capital investments in the facilities.
"We expect HQ2 to be a full equal to our Seattle headquarters," said Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. "Amazon HQ2 will bring billions of dollars in up-front and ongoing investments, and tens of thousands of high-paying jobs. We're excited to find a second home."
As of yet, there is no timetable for completion, or a deadline for the proposals from assorted governments.
Amazon's investment in the headquarters appears similar to Apple Park's. While exact figures are not known, Apple Park is said to have taken north of $5 billion to construct -- and has gone over schedule.
Comments
Pundits: "Apple is foolishly wasting money because they're out of ideas! Sell! Sell! Sell!"
Amazon: "We're lucky to break even in a given quarter and we're going to spend $5 billion on a new HQ."
Pundits: "Amazon is investing in their future. Buy! Buy! Buy!"
Now they're basically getting city's to fight over them building in their City which I'm going to assume be Tax breaks and what not to get them to come to them. I think what little money they actually have should go into paying debt or at least something better them a big fancy office space. Apple's UFO was like pocket change to Apple. If they wanted to, they could build them all over the U.S. That would be silly, but they could do it and still not go into debt.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonmarkman/2017/05/23/the-amazon-era-no-profits-no-problem/2/#31a6e95f437a
2) Amazon isn't a "break even" company because they can't figure out how to make their business successful, they just plan really well—really fucking well—with reinvesting their profits into growth. This is actually a good thing.
Apple obviously invests in their future, but they've been more conservative about it; and why wouldn't they be when they almost went under. Now they kinda* have more money than they know what to do with and have dramatically increased R&D, marketing, lobbying, and a new HQ, so of which were long overdue and others that are still a fraction of what other companies do compared to their revenue and profits—and, yet they are still very conservative when you look at them as a whole. You just have to look at what Apple has paid for acquiring companies to see how they're still not very loose with their money. Or, look at all the companies that forum members here wish Apple bough many years ago. Zuckerberg bought Instagram for $1 billion overnight without even getting board approval, as I recall.
* I say kinda, because of how funds are held in other countries and why it still behooves them to borrow money at low interest rates over being heavily taxed or lose a higher interest rate to use funds held in certain accounts.
THAT is why Facebook does not have 200B dollar pile of cash and has A LOT of fake accounts to prop up stats on users, while Apple does have the moneyz, and no need to inflate their results that are already good enough.
What you call conservative, should have been called wise and smart.
$5 billion for 50,000 employees? That's $100K per employee. It had better be really nice. At a 10% net margin (and Amazon's is much lower), they'd have to sell $50 billion to pay for the place.
And yes, I bet they'll be asking for huge tax breaks and the idiot politicians will give it to them because then they can run a campaign that says, "I created jobs." Which would be fine if the State wasn't in essence, paying the salaries via the tax breaks.
50,000 employees? That's far more than Apple Park is going to hold. This is basically building a new town, which would also mean it would need new roads, housing, schools and other services, which localities just might not want to provide, even if it did put 50,000 taxpayers in the community. But maybe they should build it in some devastated part of Texas to help the rebuilding process.
serve up to 50,000 <b>ROBOTS</b>
By 2022, amazon will just be Bezos, an AI and a gazillion Robots and Drones none of whom will pay a penny in any sort of Tax anywhere on the planet.
* NeXT was the next largest at only $404 million and inarguably more important for Apple's survival.
Trust me - This could have been avoided, so that we discuss only about points related to this thread. Why incite someone and then take the thread in a different direction unnecessarily? There was absolutely NO need to put Sog's name there.
2. Apple and Amazon are not competitors in any true sense beyond streaming music (which Amazon entered first), tablets (where Amazon is a minor player), set top boxes (where Apple is a minor player) and media rentals/sales (where Amazon's subscription Prime offerings for TV, movies, music and books and business model is vastly different from Apple's, and unlike Apple's has evolved considerably from originally being very similar to iTunes). If anything Apple and Amazon have a mutually beneficial relationship: Amazon is one of Apple's biggest vendors, Apple products are among their most popular and Apple customers are among the most loyal. This is in contrast with Amazon's far more antagonistic relationship with Google (who as a result is forced to use Best Buy as their primary retail partner ... even though Best Buy similarly makes far more off Apple than Google) similar to the bad blood between Google and Microsoft.
3. This has nothing to do with Apple Park. Apple Park was a new headquarters in an existing city. This will be a second headquarters in a new city that Amazon will leverage for logistics and tech talent. Amazon would be smart to put it in Texas, which has the second highest concentration of tech jobs and workers after California (despite the media's doing their best to make you think that Texas only has oil companies ... and yes it is for political reasons).
4, Pretty much no one criticized Apple for building a new headquarters building - which is something that companies do all the time - other than the very small chorus who criticizes Apple for anything and everything that does. While such people do exist, it is MUCH SMALLER than the people who despise Google, Amazon, Comcast and Facebook - you can't go 30 minutes before a new article demanding that they be fined, taxed, regulated and sued into oblivion for instance - and who hated Microsoft and AT&T back in the day. I really don't get the victimization complex that so many Apple fans are determined to have. Especially considering that others reserve the same right to hate Apple as many of you obviously exercise to hate Samsung, Google, Microsoft, Qualcomm, Nokia, Intel, IBM, Amazon. That is what really bugs me about some corners of the Apple fandom: the hypocrisy. They live for hating and bashing every other real or imagined competitor and enemy but are hair trigger sensitive when Apple is criticized: talk about being willing and able to take it but not dish it out.
5. Even if Apple had been roundly criticized (they weren't) and Amazon isn't it doesn't matter ... the two situations aren't comparable. Apple was replacing their existing headquarters with another facility one mile away. Amazon is building a second headquarters in another city that will be at least half a continent away and possibly on the opposite coast. You can make the case that Apple should have expanded their existing facility rather than building a new one. I don't know who would or why, but you can. But making the case that Amazon, whose business is totally different from Apple and is becoming less like Apple or even less of a pure tech company with each passing year, doesn't need a second headquarters to deal with their mission creep is silly. Lots of conglomerates have multiple headquarters to manage separate divisions of the company. Example: Sony Electronics is headquartered in Tokyo, obviously. But Sony ENTERTAINMENT is headquartered in Culver City - near Hollywood - again obviously, and the two units have entirely different teams and cultures that have nothing to do with each other except at annual board meetings. You can make the argument that Sony Entertainment should be relocated to Tokyo because why not, the world is full of bad arguments. (Such as the ones down the page over how Apple should invest more in becoming a top OLED manufacturer than they would save in buying OLED from Samsung.) If Amazon wants their existing Seattle unit to focus on their original core business of being an online retailer but wants a second campus to focus on the new businesses that they have branched out into the past 5-10 years and will go into in the future, that makes a lot of sense. This isn't to say that Apple's new headquarters also didn't make a lot of sense - I read that it will result in lower tax bills and energy costs that will have the new facility pay for itself within 10 years - but the bottom line is that a person can oppose one and support the other without being a hypocrite ... or at least no more of a hypocrite than is so much of the Apple fandom.
You're absolutely full of it, and this is nothing but revisionist history. You have hundreds upon hundreds of rants demanding Cook's head for one reason, and one reason alone: stock price. There wasn't an "if" in there. You basically fucked up every single thread for a year, by going in to rant and rave about how Cook needs to be fired. And now suddenly, after the stock price shot up (from Cook continuing to do exactly what he was doing) you invented all this bullshit to pretend that Cook suddenly "changed" and met your standards. Horse-shit. Apple was (and still is) undervalued- and instead of trusting Apple instead of Wall street, you shat on Cook at every conceivable opportunity. Glad your portfolio is doing better, but nobody here will forget your small-mindedness and the fact that you'll turn on Apple in a second again when the stock price doesn't suit you, no matter how good the products are. Cook's Apple has made you a fuckload of money, but that didn't stop you from shrieking over and over about how he should be sacked instead of having even a modicum of trust in him and the company.
Again, you're full of shit, and this entire forum knows it. You were wrong, and Cook was right, but you're too much of a coward (as well as sociopath) to admit it.
I've read some articles recently that are saying Apple is as good as dead in 2020 and Amazon will likely pass Apple in market cap by then. It's just freaking unbelievable how Amazon can do no wrong and Apple supposedly can't do anything right. It makes me want to puke. I can't wait until Apple gets its hands on that overseas cash hoard at a fair repatriation tax rate. I hope Apple rams it down all the naysayer's throats. If Amazon wants to spend $5B on a headquarters, good for them. I'm sure Jeff Bezos will be happy in his new tower of power when he passes Bill Gates in wealth.