#70: Mo Headquarters Mo Problems
I try to avoid hot takes in this newsletter but occasionally something happens that I have no choice but to acknowledge, and Amazon's decision to locate half of its second headquarters in New York City is one of those events. Actually, what's more interesting to me is the collective reaction to the news—which I've mostly observed via Twitter—and what it indicates about the current zeitgeist. I'll try to make this more of an anti-hot (but not cold) take, or something that undermines our hard-earned opinions and leaves us all feeling less certain that's it's possible to truly know anything. But I also invite anyone reading this to tell me why I should feel a certain way more strongly. I really wanted to hate the decision to put HQ2 in Long Island City, and in many ways I do. I've been tugging on the Amazon thread for a good chunk of this year; when I consider the degree to which the company continues embedding itself in the very fabric of our reality, I can't see Amazon's physical expansion of its corporate footprint as anything more than the smallest tip of a humongous iceberg.
The HQ2 reactions fall into two broad categories: (a) We hate this for a few specific reasons but more broadly just because everything a big tech company does is problematic now (not the worst blanket attitude to have, by the way, if you must have a blanket attitude) and (b) This is fine, or at least, New York is a reasonable location choice. Ben Thompson, whose newsletter I consider the tech industry's paper of record, was predictably objective, pointing out that more HQ locations give Amazon more lobbying opportunities, that NYC makes sense as one of the locations for a variety of reasons, and that Amazon expertly initiated a bidding war among cities that forced even proud New York to abase itself and give too much away. I guess I wasn't upset about the news because everything bad about Amazon coming to New York has already been underway for decades. The city has been rolling out the red carpet for corporate interests at its residents' expense for as long as many of us have been alive. Neoliberalism was effectively invented here 40 years ago. The Post is worried about wealthy douchebags ruining the city's dating scene? Are we Columbus, Ohio now? It's great if HQ2 galvanizes people to care more about what happens here or in any city, but, as with Facebook's Cambridge Analytica scandal, why weren't you guys paying attention before?
Here's what really fascinates me about the Amazon HQ2 dialogue, though: It mattered so much more when it came to New York. The other location, Crystal City in suburban DC, will be equally impacted, and so would any of the other hypothetical candidate cities that didn't win. Everyone agreed even a year ago that HQ2 would destabilize whatever city it came to in many ways, but to my Twitter echo chamber, at least, most US cities aren't worth preserving in any recognizable form and might as well have the Amazon bomb dropped on them. If we admit that HQ2 had to end up somewhere, then, for the greater good of humanity, why not NYC, which has a robust transit system (insert joke here), is already overstuffed with money, and can best absorb a major new employer? Ultimately, our attitude toward Amazon adding a headquarters should be consistent with our attitude toward Amazon itself, but I don't know many people who want Amazon to disappear, or would even forgo their Prime subscriptions. New York City used to dump all of its garbage within city limits, but now ships its trash out to places like Pennsylvania and Virginia. HQ2 is a similar kind of externality; by having it in our backyard maybe we'll take its negative side effects more seriously.
Reads:
Another superb analysis of Apple/Google Maps by Justin O'Beirne. He observes that Apple Maps is still plagued with inaccuracies due to its failure to algorithmically extract information from the imagery its vans collect, as Google does. He also floats an interesting theory that Apple is secretly using an army of contractors to trace its satellite imagery by hand.
Nathan Jurgenson on the growing belief that we live in a post-truth society: "Crying fake is the feeling of confusion, of irrelevance, of giving up rather than understanding uncertainty as also a source of possibility for new ideas, new voices, and new methods of confusion we can’t yet comprehend."
Michael Sorkin's list of 250 things an architect should know. Make that anyone.