Wendy is positively giddy — and liberal arts degree holders should be scared.
Here’s what we know about Louisville’s Amazon bid, by Caitlin Bowling (Insider Louisville)
While other cities are publicly touting potential sites and incentives for Amazon’s secondary headquarters or crafting gimmicks to attract attention, the city of Louisville has remained relatively mum when it comes to its bid.
Louisville’s economic development arm Louisville Forward is spearheading the effort, but it has culled information from various other entities inside and outside of Jefferson County to help strengthen its proposal …
… Wendy Dant Chesser, president and CEO of chamber of commerce One Southern Indiana, said the experience was fun because of the collaborative spirit surrounding it.
“If we can work together and be successful, we can all benefit from it,” she said. “We put in a package what I think is indicative of what the region has to offer. Now will it be enough? We will have to wait to hear from Amazon.”
It’s always fun when you’re playing with house (taxpayer) money. Now for that pesky fine print. I’m guessing there aren’t copies of this article in the break room at 1Si.
Amazon’s Uneven Playing Field, by Olivia LaVecchia (Motherboard)
Amazon is looking for a big subsidy to build its new headquarters—the latest move in the company’s long history of using the government to get favors its rivals can’t.In the hierarchy of the corporate world today, Amazon is near the top. It’s one of the top five most valuable companies traded on the major exchanges, and founder and CEO Jeff Bezos is now the second-richest person in the world.
People tend to think that Amazon has gotten there simply by out-competing everyone else. But there’s another part of the story of Amazon’s rise. From the very beginning, a core part of Amazon’s strategy has been taking advantage of public benefits not available to its competitors.
Now, bidding is set to close Thursday on the latest play in this strategy: Amazon’s decision to launch a public auction for the location of its second North American headquarters. In that auction, Amazon is angling for such a substantial public handout that, as Amazon itself puts it in its Request for Proposals, the “magnitude may require special incentive legislation.” Since Amazon opened bidding, more than 100 cities across the U.S. and Canada have publicly announced their interest in the Amazon sweepstakes, and have given over conference rooms and staff time to work on the bid, launched PR stunts, and started hashtags. Experts say that the end result of all of this hype could be a multi-billion dollar giveaway from taxpayers to Amazon.
