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welcome to the 359 I'm Alfred Inge I'm Ben Fox Ruben if you haven't heard Amazon announced today that they are bringing HQ to to Long Island City in Queens New York and Crystal City in Arlington Virginia our amazon reporter Ben Fox and Ruben has all the details on it this is so shocking I can't believe it I'm I think I okay first of all the news had already been leaked a lot last week from multiple sources the other issue that I'm sure a lot of people will want to quibble about is they're calling it three different North America headquarters oh yes like what is a headquarters any the third one would be Nashville Tennessee no no no so the Washington like obviously Seattle is the first one there's also Nashville Tennessee is gonna get 5,000 people the other two the ones that were announced today are gonna head get 25,000 employees each but Seattle is still the biggest with 45,000 if Amazon state what was so appealing about Long Island City or Crystal City and they're so I'm sure they did I I was just like glancing through their statements where they said a bunch of like positive stuff about this the these locations it's pretty obvious like why they wanted to go to both of these places these are two major centers of power in the East Coast the the DC area obviously Amazon has been trying to push a lot more into getting more government contracts more defense contracts in New York there's obviously a lot going on with media and entertainment in New York and Amazon being in Seattle as their primary headquarters as opposed to being in the valley means that they are you know a flight away from that center of power so plunking down 25,000 high-paying employees in those two major areas is it's gonna be pretty significant for the company were there any financial incentives into this yes very much so I know that Andrew Cuomo Governor Cuomo at one point he would change his name to Amazon Cuomo this is like okay first of all like don't expect politicians to act any differently than they normally would because if you're expecting them to not show themselves for 25 thousand jobs or 50,000 jobs which was the initial offer then then you know you're being ridiculous they would I'm sure Nashville is even very very excited about 5,000 jobs the the problem is and the joke of it is is that this was supposed to be an equal like a co-equal to Seattle and instead it's being separated by multiple states so like calling it two different headquarters 25,000 each it's different than what was initially promised and so a lot of people and it's also exactly where a lot of people would have expected them to locate anyway so so what were the financial incentives I know a little bit so New York is offering 1.5 billion dollars in incentives Virginia is offering 575 million dollars in incentives Nashville got away easy with only a hundred million in incentives and that's for creating high-paying jobs yeah I think in the paperwork or than in the terms for an Amazon in New York it was a 48 thousand dollars for every job that they bring that pays more than a hundred and fifty thousand dollars right temporarily obviously you know at some point they are not going to get that incentive and there was another part that mentioned you know in lieu of paying taxes or it would be developing infrastructure within Long Island City in Queens not sure if I'm a big fan of that deal I don't know how many schools Amazon is making or how much it's helping with the subway or the police in New York but I feel like that is something that you know community organizers have always been annoyed about in terms of the steel I know in Newark they had basically given them the largest possible tax break had they gone with newer actually Maryland gave them the biggest with an eight point five billion Network offered the second high is a publicly known one with 7 billion but yeah like there's there are a lot of questions that people always ask as far as like this is one of the wealthiest companies in the world it's one of the biggest companies in the world why are we giving them and wishing I wish I could get paid 1.5 billion dollars to move to New York but I do exactly what you were planning on doing in the first place so you know that's all the time we have for today's show if you liked what you heard check us out on CNET I'm Alfred Inge I'm Ben Fox Ruben thanks for listening and thus concludes another recording of the audio podcast thanks everybody for joining us for the recording of the podcast now it's time to jump into the chat take some questions and comments and there's a lot of good ones filtering in for common expanding on the commentary we had earlier about Amazon and their tax breaks and are they building schools are they helping subways I'll tell you one thing it's not going to help the subways crowding them up going out to Long Island City and I live in Long Island City Astoria to be exact and I got some cold hard facts for those who are going to be working out there at the new Amazon HQ whenever that happens trains are great not great the worst part is is that the seven train which I assume is what would be a long Long Island City for what they're taking as bad as it is is still consistently the best train in New York City yeah that's alarming no like I used to have to take the seven train on also the straphangers campaign or straphangers align it's like the the same like right group yeah they have always rated the seven train as like the best training isn't it the newest one don't really know I mean yeah like the three dozen yard stop is the newest one if that's what you mean yes that is what I mean because that's what what I would use it for I I feel like I'd be if I were still taking that train every day though I'd be extremely frustrated at like because that train is really crowded in the mornings Brian I'm sure you can attest it if you take this train but it's like stupid crowded so to kind of take the other position here just to like explain why politicians are so interested in these types of developments despite the fact that like you know we're talking about schools and and police roads subway all those things is that they see this as an enormous long-term benefit I saw it when I lived in Connecticut where they were developing these giant casinos in the middle of nowhere and they they built like two really big ones one of them Foxwoods one of them was Mohegan Sun and the politicians were falling all over themselves saying this is going to be jobs this is going to be investment is going to help our community years later obviously there were a lot of complaints about the fact that police were answering a lot more phone calls than they had used to the infrastructure the roads around the casinos were not nearly as well-equipped so and that was granted in the middle of nowhere but New York City as we were talking about already very strained infrastructure Amazon has said they want to be a partner in helping develop hq2 by I understand why people would be very concerned about this Hey and Long Island City let me just kind of paint a picture for anyone that's not from New York or familiar with the area it's very much an industrial kind of setting like it is building up like there are a lot of like high-rise condos and like fancy like places now but if you're like honest on a ground level it's still very much like industrial like construction stuff they're like it's the only place in New York that has a good will that sells by weight like you can go in and like people wait like that and they like have these giant bags when they come in and they like put everything in the bag and like it's like five dollars for a pound of clothes they're like that's kind of like the vibe that I said that's a really good deal yeah I want to go I hope that like helps paint the image of like what Long Island City is kind of like where it's like more gritty and working-class yeah but like it's also like gradually shifting like the MoMA ps1 is around there like they took a public school that like was closed and they turned it into like an art museum it's like very much like stuff like that yeah so that's a big difference between Long Island City and Newark Newark was obviously in the running they offered a ton of money and there's a lot of development area in Newark but it is not in significant development like it's not in the process of gentrifying it sounds like in the same way Long Island yes yes anyway let's jump into the chat and dig out some questions first up from Sean Lewis they're deciding how between Virginia and New York City will each building be responsible for different things how is this really work out what's the point of having multiple H cues good question I don't think they really said yeah they didn't clarify but I would assume that the one in Virginia is more dedicated to Amazon's government contracts they so they have a big deal with the CIA and I believe the Department of Defense on cloud services and also obviously there is their facial recognition program that has been catching a lot of flak but also courting government contracts in that way also Jeff Bezos has ties to the Washington Post ties as in he owns it right there we go but you know like I feel like he'd probably be closer to that operation within the Crystal City office as far as New York I feel like Ben you might have a better answer for that I don't they currently have a lot of like advertising in fashion employees so I would expect them to double down on those areas and I like media relations as well so those are all important areas in New York the other thing that we didn't even mention was that Google is planning on significantly expanding its footprint in New York and the West right yeah they're going to expand with 12,000 more workers so granted that's not nearly as many people as are in Silicon Valley but I don't know that is it shows how significant New York is becoming as another tech hub next question so what really is the the effect on the consumer level of things with these new headquarters are we going to get additional perks as Amazon customers or is this really just expanding their general operation you get a chance to work as an Amazon employee now if you buy Prime membership they'll hire you as an and four for 150,000 that's how that's how great their wages are that they I don't I don't know that it really hits much on the consumer level except to convey the fact that Amazon is growing and it's growing really really quickly and it doesn't plan on slowing down anytime soon so if you are an Amazon customer expect to see more stuff out of them in the near future because there are obviously a very ambitious company next question is coming in from Timothy do is there a correlation that when a big company brings their core offices to a big city with housing prices and cost a living increase as well that's a good question yeah that that's definitely gonna bump up especially for Long Island City around that area considering that there right now let me look up the average rent of Long Island's at a real quick but it just changed while you were looking at it but yeah if there I am Lord around that area and I know that there are what like at least 25,000 employees coming in over the next 10 years that have a sau have six-figure salaries do you think I'm gonna be charging the same rate that I was charging people before like I there's no way right and in the broader area too obviously we've seen how Brooklyn and Manhattan have had you know significant increases already those will just get exasperated yeah the average household income for Long Island City is about $70,000 and Amazon is really yeah they're gonna be bringing in like an influx of people that make more than double that so right the other the other issue to consider is is it going to be an influx of people that are going to be coming in from other cities around New York or are they just going to be poaching people from other New York City tech jobs so it is possible that it's not going to be a massive influx either way it probably will be a massive influx and thousands more people coming in not just shifting people over from different jobs but it's important to consider I guess not all twenty five thousand are gonna be new people to the city and this is according to curbed from a 2017 article but their Long Island City is already the least affordable neighborhood and like one of the least informal neighborhoods in New York that's why I thought they weren't gonna come to New York you know like it's already like ridiculously unaffordable I didn't even know where they were gonna locate 25,000 people where they need 4 million square feet so that at least to me was a bit of a surprise but it always seemed very very likely they were gonna go to DC so if I was to be surprised at all by any of this announcement it was that they were gonna put yeah New York Long Island City is pretty expensive which is you know why I am looking for a roommate if any Amazon employees are listening to this I'm charging about 10,000 dollars a month which i think is a pretty real yeah bring your prime memberships yeah so if you if you're interested you know tweet at me let me know good idea what is the higher cost of living New York or Seattle that's very high they're both very high but and Seattle has increased substantially since Amazon has been growing there really really quickly two point five percent more expensive than Seattle right but Seattle the valley knows yeah see it's it's Seattle Silicon Valley like the San Francisco area in New York are like the three of the like most expensive areas in the US by more than la ok let's throw our lay in there I actually don't know I lay off the top of my head cuz I'm a tech reporter I know those three areas he's not a real estate agent I'm not a real estate guy but I am offering Amazon employees to move into my basement in Springfield New Jersey for the low low price of nine thousand nine hundred ninety nine dollars a month well what is steel yeah that's much cheaper than what Alford was offering so come on come on better okay oh well I'll help with the commute a little everybody how much would you charge an Amazon employee to live with you you're right there you're in Astoria uh I mean I just want a free prime account Oh what wow wow you've really undercut the market not cool dude I have simple tastes let's take some more questions all right this one's a little off-topic but from Timothy do question for commuters in New York is it better or faster to use an uber or lyft or the train to get to work uber and lyft is never worth it unless you're running around super late at night and the trains are basically non-existent don't get me wrong they function just fine but if you're trying to commute through actual New York rush-hour traffic you're screwed yeah you're better off taking the train I actually train as bad some lied I did the math on this when I was I was up in Queens recent last week to vote and I had to I could either take the 7 train all the way back down to the N train and then go to Brooklyn or I could take an uber that would have been a straight shot there but it was it was like it was like six six o'clock so I was like rush-hour traffic and I would have gone back in the exact same amount of time even though I would have paid like $40 for a new burns yeah so yeah most of the times it depends on traffic or if you just want to be by yourself like you don't want to be surrounded by people like if you want to pay the extra like money for that go ahead but like time wise it's usually the same way different take yeah yeah I like I said outside of when I leave here at 12:30 in the morning like I did last night and the trains are not running yeah I took a car home yeah all right so we got a time for a couple more questions from storm king do you think New York will have a dedicated transportation system to and from Amazon like a central hub that's a far-out question right there but it does spawned some other thought processes that processes that Timothy and Andre have been kind of bringing up what if Amazon did develop a transportation system a proprietary transportation system drones for yeah what else could Amazon get into now here's some fun thoughts what if Amazon developed a film studio if they're going to be in Long Island City they're not far from Silvercup studios a famous TV studio I I wouldn't put that too far past them would they get into politics given their proximity to DC would they expand into other transportation avenues like Elon and the boring company and what if they started to develop housing to compete with the higher rent just because they put a headquarters here my god so many all that I think oh that's extremely optimistic of what Amazon really wants to do because you're comparing them to like five different companies that are doing he's doing I'm like I get it that Amazon it's like the everything store but I don't think they're doing like all those things like the obviously they're getting into politics they spend a lot more money in politics than they used to and they get a lot more money from politics and he used to write so and Bezos has obviously been much more involved with that kind of stuff so definitely expect more of that as far as them moving more into transportation like the most that I would expect them to do in New York where Arlington is to like create a shuttle service like yeah like those they offer that kind of stuff yeah Google has their own bus service from San Francisco to their office in like Mountain View NYU like has their own shuttle service for their own students if there were transportation thing they'd have to do it themselves like not with the city of New York like they wouldn't fix the subways as much as I'd like yeah and they wouldn't build their own subway which would be like I mean that's what do you want musk is doing with the boring company like those it's like the schmucky astir yeah build your own subway just do how things go like if Amazon were intent on doing that they'd have done that for Seattle where they also messed up the housing market so good point yikes I mean they could you'll probably see a lot more Whole Foods in your neighborhood that's like the only thing I can really think of like as far as like improving the quality of life for around like where you are well that's fine that's fine I think Whole Foods has delicious hummus we have time for a couple more questions Timothy do Amazon is announcing free shipping for all customers for the holiday season aren't there any perks or discounts for current Prime members they'll probably announce some of that later usually they have like a December surprise that they like to announce just to get people excited and interested about shopping on Amazon like one year was Amazon go which granted it wasn't open yet the other year was the drones which granted that hasn't happened yet yeah okay surprise you just seem like things that don't actually materialize these December surprises they're terrible so yeah don't expect anything but yeah as we get closer to the Black Friday expect Amazon to like announce more deals so we'll we'll see how that goes maybe they'll even have like an HQ to deal should be really lame but we'll see what what they decide to come up with do we get a field trip with your buddy Jeff when they build that thing then I sure be a while it'll be a while they plan to start hiring for all three locations next year and it's gonna take them quite a long time to actually staff up to 25,000 in each location and also build out the space for four million square feet so this is these are like 15 year projects this isn't like a you know unboxing where it's just going to be ready to go immediate why not we're in the world of immediate satisfaction I demand HQ to be unboxed right now well yeah yeah or at least with two-day shipping I suppose so yeah I think they should put Mike Shaw in charge of this because his brilliant idea I want a subscription to Subway Prime yeah isn't that just a monthly commuter card yeah but it's not ninety nine dollars for the year it's like 121 dollars a month mm-hmm and it also doesn't work yes thanks MTA Matthew Dasher and Amazon HQ is great now but where are they going to put the data centers for AWS they can put the they put them all over the United States the data centers not only have to be located in a bunch of different places because of potential natural disasters or what-have-you but they also because of the way the internet works you might know more about this than I do but the way the internet works is you could locate them in the Midwest and it doesn't really harm the the way that those data centers in the cloud mm-hmm and the cloud is super fast but yeah they have data centers all over the place just like they have warehouses all over the place like dotted all over the United States Henry Kay is just kind of daydreaming about what the campus could look like what kind of incentives do you think Amazon may include to make a really attractive campus like a Google type campus in Long Island City I actually took them like 20 years to develop kind of a kind of a landmark piece in Seattle is it those disgusting spheres yes yeah it was the spheres which inside they look really really cool they're like kind of like a terrarium feel like a spider when you're walking around in there and there's all this like you know it's like like a rainforest II kind of really hope they don't bring that too they're not gonna do that over again but they're they're intentionally non flashy like when you walk around their campus in Seattle they on purpose do not have big Amazon banners like big Amazon signs outside the buildings because they're trying to blend in you could also claim that they're not trying to blend in they're just trying to take over and do it very quietly but those are two different ways of looking at it the chant wants to know if any of us are going to quit and join the Amazon HQ yeah I've been covering Amazon for the past three years with the explicit interest of getting hired by them so if you guys are listening hire Benton they've already told me I'm not qualified no well they told me that a few times already but I'm still trying never quit always follow your dreams right either way the podcast is gonna repurpose itself as the Amazon 59 when hq2 opens in long I last for as long as it takes for a package to get to your around your doorsteps oh yeah we'll all get hired there it'll be great okay we are just about out of time hashtag hire Ben before we go I need you two to look at the camera right go ahead look at the camera and say David Rodriguez David Rodriguez because he's having a mild aneurysm in the chat and needed a shout-out just to get through his day so oh hey what's up we hope we made your day but we are at a time we'll be back tomorrow probably with some more chatter and speculation about Amazon boohoo my god I hope and I'd like you 5 tomorrow baby let's go let's never ever talk about HQ 2 again this has been such a much q3 it is much ballyhooed year of BS I just love you just with Ali whoo yes I said vallance ballyhoo I love rollin from New Jersey in all the thirsty posts from people that wanted Amazon HP to and it's like look at that your giant cactus did nothing mm-hmm yeah I appreciate that comment all right send us on out of here oh I'm doing this okay well if you liked what you heard today the 359 podcast is available on stitcher that's it I'll do it iTunes tune in stitcher feedburner google play music google podcasts amazon echo go amazon and of course Tina calm thanks everybody we'll see you tomorrow don't send in any more hq2 questions ever want to talk again is at Ben Fox please don't please don't I'm not a tree gonna be answering questions all day so alright bye folks you