While Salt Lake technically meets the requirements, they do so just barely. The metro area barely cracks a million people, and the airport maybe has 1 or 2 international flights a day. Plus Amazon and the Utah state government still have a lot animosity towards each other from the whole online tax thing.

Plus it's really tough to attract out of state talent in Utah.

I think Salt Lake would be a very hard sell compared to what Amazon could easily get with Denver.

SLC metro population: 1+ million

Including SLC and Utah counties both: 2+ million

University of Utah, Brigham Young University, Utah Valley University

Substantial tech talent, startup scene. Adobe, EA, Ebay, Microsoft, Oracle all have a presence. And don't forget the NSA.

International airport connects to Canada, France, Mexico, Netherlands, UK... but will take two hops to get anywhere else. https://www.slcairport.com/assets/pdfDocuments/Flight-Schedu...

Meetingplace of I-15, I-80, I-84

Culture almost the complete opposite of Seattle's.

Mountain Time Zone

Killer cost of living

Government willing to make substantial concessions to tech companies

But... I'm guessing it's just not quite connected enough to be seriously considered.

SLC has terrible pollution that is directly correlated with population within the valley. Adding 50K more to the mix in a short amount of time is not a helpful addition