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The Missing Piece of Amazon's New York Debacle: It Kept a Burn Book (wsj.com) 130

Posted by msmash from the just-amazon-things dept.
When Amazon scrubbed plans to build a second headquarters in New York City earlier this year, the reason appeared rooted in a debate about unions, tax subsidies and housing costs. Then there was the burn book. [Editor's note: the link may be paywalled; alternative source.] The Wall Street Journal reports: In a private dossier kept at the time, whose existence has gone previously unreported, Amazon executives cataloged in minute detail the insults they saw coming from New York politicians and labor leaders, according to a copy viewed by The Wall Street Journal. By late January, Amazon executives had been pummeled at two public hearings. The burn book, which was kept in a Microsoft Word document called "NY Negative Statements," had separate sections for a half-dozen politicians and officials who had gone from thorns in the company's side to formidable opponents of a deal that now looked to be in jeopardy.

The document recorded how opponents mocked the helipad Amazon planned to build, pushed the Twitter hashtag #scamazon, and brought up the company's work for the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a sore spot among some Amazon employees. It was an eight-page, bullet-pointed, Calibri font testimony to Amazon's sensitivities. The burn book is one indication of just how ill-suited Amazon and New York were to each other, a buttoned-up corporation that didn't talk publicly about its unhappiness up against a raucous political circus that had no problem running its mouth. This account is based on interviews with multiple people who were part of the deal.
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The Missing Piece of Amazon's New York Debacle: It Kept a Burn Book More

The Missing Piece of Amazon's New York Debacle: It Kept a Burn Book

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  • Well.... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by 14erCleaner ( 745600 ) <FourteenerCleaner@yahoo.com> on Wednesday August 28, 2019 @05:05PM (#59134828) Homepage Journal
    They are a bookstore, after all.

  • I learned this lesson when I was ten... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by garyisabusyguy ( 732330 ) on Wednesday August 28, 2019 @05:12PM (#59134840)

    don't hang out with people who want to abuse you, go where people are nice

    • You have money and you want to do some piece of business in NYC, get ready for a beating. Or learn who needs the lubrication and see that they get it (but keep a thick skin, the public doesn't have a lot of power, but they do get to vent). I think in terms of avoiding slander: it's not technically bribes! It's... spreading business around to people with power and influence? Yes, that sounds definitely like a not-bribe that pays the way to successful businessing. To outsiders, this may be uncomfortable.

      • By who? The politicians, or the mafia/union management that you didn't pay protection money to?

      • Ah yes, the East Coast commerce model.

      • Amazon was already in New York. They have two large offices, one rather bleak office uptown on 55th St and a fancy office on 34th St near Penn Station. What Amazon wanted was subsidies for labeling the city HQ2. The simple fact is, they are going to hire where they need to hire. They ran away with their tail tucked because they hear the word UNION, which is antithetical to the Amazon cult.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by slonik ( 108174 )
          The 34th street office is right across Empire State Building and is next to an Amazon bookstore.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by guruevi ( 827432 )

          The word Union is antithetical to freedom, trade and capitalism. They went away because the media didn't want them, now a lot of people are rather unhappy they don't have those jobs.

          • Why are Unions antithetical to freedom or capitalism? Corporations themselves are a kind of union. Labor unions are simple a corporation of workers, people banding together to strengthen their market position through collaboration verses competition. In fact, if you want to optimize freedom, you should be free to unionize even without a majority vote.

        • In fairness, unions are pretty much unheard of outside of the northeast, except in certain industries. They are alien to tech companies from the west coast. In most employers I've worked at for the past 15 years we still break out in laughter when we hear that the lab move did not complete because the work was not done by 6pm and could not be done on the weekend because of union rules. There is no question in my mind that companies avoid the north-east because of this, and only create satellite offices for

      • You have money and you want to do some piece of business in NYC, get ready for a beating.

        That is exactly the opposite of what this is about.
        Amazon demanded lots and lots of New York taxpayer's money, or they were not going to build a new HQ there.
        It is literally a bribe being paid by taxpayers to a huge business, not the other way round.
        I know Fox News keeps telling you that those liberals in New York and California are going to run out of "other people's money" real soon now, but the reality is they are two of the most successful economies in the world.
        Amazon made a mistake when they t

        • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

          by Dunbal ( 464142 ) *

          Amazon demanded lots and lots of New York taxpayer's money

          A tax break does not cost the city anything. You can compare getting a discounted amount of tax versus getting no tax because they don't put the business there. Which one "costs" the taxpayer more?

          • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

            by Rei ( 128717 )

            That was one of the really annoying things about this debate. It seems that the general public is constitutionally incapable of understanding the difference between a city saying, "Here's a discount in your taxes in order to bring more jobs that will boost our overall tax pool", and saying "Here, have a dump truck full of taxpayer cash!". And there appear to be no shortage of politicians willing to exploit this ignorance.

            There's lots of things to complain about re: Amazon. But the debate over this deal wa

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by DRJlaw ( 946416 )

              The fact that there would be consequences - that Amazon asked itself, "Why are we launching a massive expansion project in a place openly hostile to us?", and cancelled it - should have been obvious.

              It was obvious, so obvious that it was the desired result. And the politicians pushing for that result were not necessarily wrong. It seems that you're constitutionally incapable of understanding that point.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by steveha ( 103154 )

              It seems that the general public is constitutionally incapable of understanding the difference between a city saying, "Here's a discount in your taxes in order to bring more jobs that will boost our overall tax pool", and saying "Here, have a dump truck full of taxpayer cash!". And there appear to be no shortage of politicians willing to exploit this ignorance.

              However, the opposition to Amazon was spearheaded by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and she appears to have been ignorant of this difference herself. Onc

          • That argument works on the scale of one company and one city, but if applied consistently it would mean that no company paid any tax, and then taxpayers in every city would have to pay more income, property, or sales tax, or accept a reduction in services.

          • Re: (Score:3)

            by DRJlaw ( 946416 )

            A tax break does not cost the city anything. You can compare getting a discounted amount of tax versus getting no tax because they don't put the business there. Which one "costs" the taxpayer more?

            Yep. There's no side effects whatsoever. They couldn't use their reduced costs to outcompete a local business paying the full tax rate, they wouldn't serve as an example for the next business to demand a tax break, and they certainly wouldn't be creating any additional load on the infrastructure and city service

        • Wisconsin?! That's not close enough to New York. Where their customers are.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by PPH ( 736903 )

      The antithesis of the Slashdot model.

    • And yet here you are, writing public comments on the internet!

    • not to be a the bratty kid who makes unreasonable demands of all my friends (I wanna Helicopter!).

      Ok, to be fair I learned that at 6.

    • But what about my job?

  • No problem until... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Obfuscant ( 592200 ) on Wednesday August 28, 2019 @05:14PM (#59134848)
    I saw no problem with a company documenting any of this for their own records, until I saw it was in Calibri. Any sane burn book is kept in Franklin Gothic. What a bunch of maroons.

  • It's the (local) economy, stupid (Score:3)

    by nicolaiplum ( 169077 ) on Wednesday August 28, 2019 @05:26PM (#59134884)

    There was a lot of reasons for a lot of people to dislike Amazon but what really made them a hate object to the average New Yorker was the local tax discounts. Amazon were going to be evading taxes (in the mind of the average person) and that is something everyone could agree to dislike about them.

    If Amazon hadn't been so scroungingly cheap as to demand a local tax discount they would have had far less trouble. Amazon feels, on principle, it always has to achieve lower taxes than others and they insisted on it this time too. New Yorkers don't need Amazon and don't want to give a tax discount to a corporation with huge revenues.

    Google has large and growing offices in New York and they're not a city-wide object of hate. That's because they pay their (local) taxes and don't stand out.

    • Re: It's the (local) economy, stupid (Score:5, Interesting)

      by kenh ( 9056 ) on Wednesday August 28, 2019 @06:24PM (#59135084) Homepage Journal

      If Amazon hadn't been so scroungingly cheap as to demand a local tax discount

      You understand municipalities literally lined up to offer Amazon waivers on all sorts of taxes, Amazon did not have to DEMAND a local tax discount - candidate localities freely freed them.

      New York State offers any company that relocated to NY State TEN tax-free years to induce them to relocate - they put it on billboards and ran ads on TV/radio promoting this offer.

      • Amazon was going to bring a whole lot of traffic but not many jobs. It came out that a lot of the jobs were going to go to people brought in from out of state. That plus the rather unreasonable request for a free Helipad nailed that coffin.

        And it's not like NY has any shortage of companies that want to set up shop there, or that Amazon is really all that great a place to work (they pay well, but my God they treat you like crap, and not just the warehouse guys).

    • Re: It's the (local) economy, stupid (Score:5, Informative)

      by ArmoredDragon ( 3450605 ) on Wednesday August 28, 2019 @06:35PM (#59135128)

      No, based on the comments I think it was more about New Yorkers always having money while hating on people with money for the sake of their money, and then voting for people with money who hate on people with money for the sake of their money.

      How else do you think Bill de Blasio got elected?

    • The shadiness of the tax breaks are directly proportional to what they are for. Where I live they are usually breaks for "personal property" taxes - which are levied on all the stuff the business owns. Computers, office equipment, furniture - companies pay tax on the value of the stuff. So, opening a new office will usually result in a big tax bill the first year. It lessens over time as all the stuff depreciates, but it acts as a disincentive for companies to open up new facilities. They still pay property

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AHuxley ( 892839 )
      NY was free not to offer what other parts of the USA offered.
      That was something NY selected to do....

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Cylix ( 55374 )

      The ire wasn't from the local community, but from the politicians. AOC led a lovely charge against a business and turned away countless jobs.

      One of the many reasons her approval rating is in the toilet.

      • Whenever somebody talks about countless jobs, remember, the only reason they're ever uncountable is if they didn't happen. Jobs that exist are both countable, and already enumerated.

  • a buttoned-up corporation that didn't talk publicly about its unhappiness up against a raucous political circus that had no problem running its mouth.

    Forget that it's Amazon we're talking about, this could be any business. The first one can suffer economic hardship, the second one - the politicians, the media, the commentators - they suffer no hardship or pushback from taking ridiculous positions and flat-out lying.

    • In an educated, sane world, they would suffer by being put in an echo chamber by everyone else. Their ideas forever lost within their own chambers.
      But we're a bunch of fucking morons, so status quo keeps chugging along.

  • Damian Leigh, too gay to function.

    Sharon Norbury: Ms. Norbury is a Pusher, A SAD OLD DRUG PUSHER.

    Regina George: This girl is the nastiest skank bitch I've ever met. Do not trust her. She is a fugly slut.

  • If I or anyone else kept a burn book, it could be considered a hit list and the authorities could get involved...

  • Critics pointed to what New York City and State were giving up in the process: $3 billion in tax breaks and circumvention of the land-use process.

    If anything, cities should give tax breaks to small companies that can't afford them, not to big ones that can.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Cylix ( 55374 )

      Cities do give tax breaks to local businesses. It is posted in your local paper. They give tax breaks to anyone that can convince them they are developing the area. You can quite literally check the local paper to see them posted.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Agripa ( 139780 )

      If anything, cities should give tax breaks to small companies that can't afford them, not to big ones that can.

      Big companies are concentrated interests and small companies are dilute interests. Small companies are lucky they are not simply declared illegal at the behest of big companies and sometimes this happens.

      Poor voters are even more dilute interests.

  • So so (Score:3)

    by Impy the Impiuos Imp ( 442658 ) on Wednesday August 28, 2019 @05:46PM (#59134960) Journal

    On no! Politicians called to task by the people they ride to power lambasting!

    I haven't seen anything this silly since...Bill Clinton? Who complained oil companies weren't spending billions to rush out new refineries to lower gas prices even as he yelped how they were going to crush gasoline use through regulation. Sure, we'll spend billions to make refineries to take the political heat off you, only to have them become redundant a few years later if you get what you want.

    Okey dokey!

  • Why shouldn't they keep such records? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Ungrounded Lightning ( 62228 ) on Wednesday August 28, 2019 @06:18PM (#59135068) Journal

    It seems to me it would be monumentally stupid for a corporation NOT to keep track of what politicians were actively working against their projects - and what truth or lies they spread.

  • The real debacle: Picking NYC at all. (Score:3)

    by SEE ( 7681 ) on Wednesday August 28, 2019 @06:58PM (#59135184) Homepage

    Seriously. The only thing NYC has is proximity to Wall Street (which Amazon hardly needs). In exchange, you get a high cost of living, massive state and local taxes, and a whole pile of perennially-hostile politicians. That NYC even made the HQ2 shortlist was insanely stupid.

    The logical location was a state with Republican senators (thus ensuring a "Senator from Amazon" being in the majority whichever party controls the Senate), low cost-of-living, a pro-business state political environment, a large local tech scene, and a major university also known for tech. Which is to say, the Austin or Raleigh areas.

    • Seriously. The only thing NYC has is proximity to Wall Street (which Amazon hardly needs).

      The only thing? You seem to be forgetting about the pool of 20,000,000 inhabitants from which Amazon would hire people.

    • Let's see, since Amazon is from an uber-left-wing state, Washington, I'm guessing more if there's a D majority, or a D senator, that'll be the Amazon senator.

  • Something is not adding up. I see where there's value in tracking aspects of your company's image, but I have trouble seeing any company, even with management as vain as Amazon's, making business decisions involving substantial money on the basis of hurt feelings.

    • It's not about hurt feelings. It is the grind of operating in an environment where you will always be the enemy.

      Politicians in NYC played to the activists instead of the folks that wanted the direct benefits of the jobs or the secondary benefits of the additional spending. NYC operators were never going to be happy because it didn't play well with their public "Amazon is evil" posturing.

  • Are we supposed to chide them for being "butthurt", or some childish reaction along those lines?
    It was a hostile environment they were trying to bring business to, and they documented it as such. Woo-wheee.
    Can I have some salt with this nothing burger?

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