Cornell Graduate School Helped Make New York Appealing to Amazon

That seems a bit extreme, but that was the response from our engineers in Detroit.

Amazon claimed we didn't have enough programmers, but the reality is that most of our programmers are picked up by automotive companies. There is talent, but they are already high in demand.

If amazon admitted they didn't want to exceed our 6 figure salaries, the response would have been better. Instead I see Amazon as an increasingly crony company.

> Amazon had the opportunity to attract talent to make a city that is not currently a world-class city into one

Not really. Big cities operate at scales and complexities far above what Amazon can bring. Density begets density. Meanwhile, that cities have largely been built—and remained—in similar places (protected harbours with navigable rivers and ideally shallow bedrock) implies there are deeper reasons for why density exists where it does.

Amazon's already had to go through the growing pains of doing that once (in Seattle) and probably learned that they didn't want to do it again.

difference is, NYC has all the talented MBAs, engineers and other smart people who will work 60+ hours a week already. that kind of culture just isn't present in many other cities

I'm not aware of another city in the USA with as useful a transit system. In terms of what it could be, it's atrocious. In terms of how it enables the city to function, it's essential.

Come to SF then you will think nyc transit is quite strong in fact

Name a single city in the US that has a better one.

NYC doesn't compare to Europe or Asia, of course, but it's streets ahead of anything else in the US.

*Note: there is SO MUCH wrong with the MTA and the NYC subway system, but it's currently the best in the country, unfortunately.

Stanford dropped out before submitting their bid because Cornell got a big donation that Stanford wasn't able to match. Stanford was actually the clear favorite before that happened.

>The piece is much more about Cornell Tech than about Amazon's decision.

Sure, but why does the article title mention Amazon and not Cornell Tech? It's dumb.

As you mention, it would make little sense for academia to do this as a cost-cutting measure. The same goes for companies like Google or Facebook that are swimming in cash. Is it that hard to believe that they're doing this because they value the additional opportunities for informal communication and collaboration that open-plan offices provide?

I realize this is a polarizing topic, but personally I've always preferred working in open-plan spaces to having a private office for precisely that reason.

"More stable labor force": you are thinking of faculty, who make up a small percentage of research labor at universities.

Graduate students & postdocs—who make up the majority of research labor—come and go, on the order of months-to-years, making open plans actually somewhat reasonable.

> Why embrace the bad parts of startup culture (open plans)

That's really just your opinion, not a fact. I for one love open plans, I find they make working a more social activity, which suits me.

I'm a professor at CMU. I have a lovely office.

I don't use it except for holding office hours and 1:1 meetings that require confidentiality. I spend most of my time near the entry of an open plan area where I bump into people at a much higher rate. I love it.

I do sometimes hide in my office or home for some things, but much less than you'd probably guess. I also spend a lot of time walking around - I find that things like reviewing papers is best done away from all distraction, including electronic , so I'll walk over to a nearby park while reading. I often do the same for editing my student's papers.

I wonder this too. My guess is it could be similar to programming-- there's times when it's just me and my computer-- everything else is a distraction. Other times though, I'm working with others, asking questions, helping people or socializing. I have friends at places where they have offices, and I work on an open-office space: we each like and dislike different aspects of our respective setup.

From my experience in college (anecdotal observations), there's professors who seem to spend a lot of time working with others. They were solving problems with grad-students or at meetings-- though there's some I always found alone in their offices too. I'm sure this varies by person and by field, but I'd be interested in knowing if the open office is working for the faculty here.

My question still stands?

> Why not choose Boston that is very close to MIT and Harvard. Why not choose SF which is very close to UC Berkeley and Stanford?

Not CMU, but Cornell's College of Engineering most recent class enrolled more women than men.

I believe that "higher" means higher female ratios than many other CS programs, not necessarily more females than males.