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Comment by jtmarmon | Hacker News Reader

cost of land is probably the least of amazon's considerations in building a second HQ

edit: to elaborate, what they care much more about, i'm sure, is ability to attract and retain talent in the area. which I'm not sure detroit could do much about. even if you could make it more desirable to live there there's so little talent in the area you'd have to spend a crazy amount of time and money relocating people

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> there's so little talent

Citation needed. For example, the University of Michigan's engineering school is well ranked in many areas, grants 3,000 degrees a year, and is an hour away:

https://www.engin.umich.edu/about/facts/

I'd be quite surprised if Amazon hires less than 3,000 software engineers a quarter. U Michigan may be a good or great engineering school but if it's an hour away it rounds to part of the national market.

I went there, along with several of my friends. Most of them now work for Amazon, several in the extant Detroit office and commute there from just outside Ann Arbor. You'd be surprised at how easy an hour commute is in South-east Michigan, esp. compared to Cali or Jersey traffic.

Stanford and SF are a similar distance, and I don't think anybody would say that Stanford "rounds to the national market" for SF companies. I certainly know plenty of U of M grads who have ended up in Detroit, so I suspect your theory needs some work.

There's a fair amount of engineering talent out here. However, it's mainly focused in the auto industry which has never been seen as a sexy industry until the recent push into self driving cars.

Fair amount is an understatement when talking about the whole field of engineering. IIRC Metro Detroit has the largest population of engineers in the US. Granted a big portion of those jobs are in Auburn Hills, Dearborn and Warren rather than Detroit proper.

Edit: just checked the BLS numbers and apparently it's #4, beaten by Houston and edged out by NYC and LA.

Relocation is a relative drop in the hat if you can otherwise attract talent--potentially at a lower salary than the West Coast.

Jobs in remote locations make it hard to attract people who know what a BATNA is.

I mean, how am I supposed to negotiate with my boss for a $5,000 raise if he knows changing jobs will cost me $20,000 in relocation costs?

I think you are under-estimating the amount of tech talent that supports the automotive and satellite industries in the Midwest.

Amazon already has a (albeit relatively small) office in Detroit, so they must not be so skeptical of the talent pool.

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