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Originally Posted by IrishIllini
I'm over the Amazon debacle. Rumors swirling Boston is likely the location, which makes some sense from a talent perspective but absolutely zero sense from a housing perspective. Boston is already unaffordable, so not sure how Amazon will do anything to help that. We'll see though. Still hoping we can pull this one out, but I think we're all setting ourselves up for disappointment if they do choose to bypass Chicago.
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Debacle? Not sure what that means yet in this context.
I saw the report just now about Boston on how executives are pushing for it. It makes some sense and doesn't. Amazon is a hot name, but they also probably think too highly of themselves in regards to getting talent when they mentioned Harvard and MIT. No offense to them, but it's true - most companies are like this though. The senior executives in this case are just expressing where they'd personally like to end up, but they also usually don't actually know what it takes to hire tech talent. This isn't a C-Suite HQ - this is a HQ they need to hire tens of thousands of people for. What they say is pretty much stupid considering how many people they have to hire. They have to consider already experienced work force plus a pipeline of good tech talent who is capable of making actual software on a team interacting with numerous other teams.
When you are making actual software, it's different. Merely being smart will not get you a job at a good company. Communication is extremely important. I have interviewed at least 60 to 75 people alone this year (in NYC) since maybe February or March for positions at my company (I am a software engineer) - some for entry level and a lot for more experienced senior positions. We've hired maybe 3 or 4 of those people. Why? Because a lot of people just frankly were not good even though their resumes were great. It's been a struggle - I couldn't even imagine at this point being tasked with hiring 200 GOOD candidates at any level. I work for a company that is extremely well known and gets a lot of demand for hiring. You could give me two candidates - one from Cal Tech and another from the University of Iowa. If I thought both could do what I needed them to do, they were intelligent and fast learners, but one of them was immensely better at communication than the other then I'd take the one better at communication. I would give absolutely zero fucks where they went to school and in reality, this is how MOST tech companies are. Communication is extremely important and costs companies thousands if not millions per year due to bad communication while making things like software. I have turned smart people away who went to prestigious schools only because their communication skills were not good and they'd be a risk to us for that reason alone. Don't care about their 180 IQ at all.
Most tech companies also do not get talent like MIT - they do get the Stanfords of the world sometimes, but on average they aren't hiring ivy league or equivalent talent. They are going to solid public universities with solid programs like U of Washington, Georgia Tech, Illinois, Michigan, etc instead. A lot of the people at schools like MIT and Harvard also are not interested in going into industry unless they will get research positions at these places. They usually either go into research at various organizations whether it's university or they go to companies where they will get paid way more than Google. Who do you think is working for companies like Jump Trading in Chicago or NYC? I'll give you a hint - they are what companies like Google want but they skip companies like Google entirely.
Here is an article about which universities have the most alumni working in Silicon Valley. No Ivy League school is on the list and MIT is merely 20th. In fact, 3 schools from the midwest (Illinois, Michigan, and Purdue) all have more alumni working in Silicon Valley, individually, than MIT does. In fact, not a single university from the Boston or NYC area cracks this list. Cornell is the closest which I believe is not in the NYC metro area, but close enough I guess. Meanwhile outside of the west coast, 11 universities are on this list and 5 are in the midwest or Texas. Another one, Penn State, is a Big Ten school. 4 are from the Northeast if you count Carngie Mellon (not sure if that's considered NE) and Penn State:
https://qz.com/967985/silicon-valley...he-ivy-league/
Also, when you need to staff up THOUSANDS of workers in an area, you need to have those types of workers already in your area who are experienced in what you need them to be experienced in. Also you need to have a pipeline of people who will move to your city or universities that graduate a lot of people from great programs (aka Illinois, Michigan, Texas, etc). MIT and Harvard's graduating classes are small and most aren't going to work for Amazon - let's be real. They are instead going to be hiring regionally from Boston University (not bad, actually), Boston College, and probably Penn State, UMass, etc with the occasional MIT, Columbia, Brown, and Harvard sprinkled in. Not bad, but the best? I'd say you could regionally do better for this type of work outside of the west coast.
Also being on the east coast doesn't make as much sense as somewhere in the central US for their flight situation. They want a place with daily flights to Seattle, SF, DC, etc. Being in the middle of the country has its advantages with that. Take it from someone who used to fly every week for a living for multiple years. Close to good talent, but Amazon also, while a good company, isn't necessarily the stopping point for top recruits. Good recruits, yes - but the absolute best candidates don't even go to the Googles or Facebooks of the world.
In the end though, not even close to a done deal - it would be dumb for them to have RFP and then within under a week without reviewing anything say "YEP BOSTON IT IS!" Point is, how much sway do these senior executives actually have? They are probably personally going for it - and half of them probably wouldn't live wherever it is. It's not a HQ relocation - it's up to 50K workers. The executives hopefully know that they are not just deciding for themselves. They are picking the locations that would be best for the types of workers they want.
Not saying Boston is a bad choice - it's actually one of my top 3 that it would go. However, I think Chicago is better - honestly - from what they want at least and understanding who they need to hire and from where, as tech is my industry. The executives seem to be expressing where they personally would like to go but often times executives have no idea what they are talking about regarding how to hire talent in the tech industry. Being close to MIT is not going to mean anything. They need the other universities like Boston College, Boston University to be turning out the talent they want more than Harvard and MIT.
Anyway, here are some quotes from the article
Quote:
Amazon said every city remains “on an equal playing field.”
“We are energized by the response from cities across North America who have already reached out to express their interest,” Amazon said in an email. “There are no front-runners as this point. We are just getting started with the process.”
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