The good, the bad, and the Amazon

The date was May 5, 1997. A small Seattle based company that sold books online went public on the stock market. You could buy a share of stock for $1.50. That company was called Amazon.com.

As I type this, a mere 21 years later, Amazon stock is trading at $1,655 — or 1,104 times the original price. To put that another way, if you invested $1,000 on its opening day, your stock would now be worth $1,103,893.

But stock price is only one way to look at a company.

Ever wonder how many people collect a paycheck from Amazon? I just checked and it’s more than 613,000 people. I know some folks are critical of Amazon because the workers on the bottom of their corporate ladder are close to minimum wage. But without being too much of an Amazon apologist, aren’t all giant companies structured that way? Take WalMart for instance. They employ a staggering 2.1 million people. You can read about their wage disparity and their employees that need government assistance all day long.

On Tuesday, Amazon made it official. They will create two new headquarters on the East Coast. One in Virginia and one in New York City. Has Amazon done everything perfectly? Of course not. But I like to remind myself that a giant behemoth like Amazon is made up of flawed humans, too. So there will be imperfections. Could they pay their employees more? Sure, but so could every publicly traded company out there. Could they give back to the community more? Of course, but again, that critique could be leveled at every company.

The fact that well over 200 communities threw their hat in the HQ2 ring shows how much a Fortune 10 company means to a local economy. It’s a big deal.

So while I fully acknowledge that there are unintended consequences to this kind of meteoric growth — I’m looking at you real estate prices and traffic gridlock — the flip side of this equation is a city like Detroit. Just a generation ago, Detroit was one of the biggest economic engines in America. Now the population has dropped more than 60 percent and entire neighborhoods lay in ruins.

Yes, a pack of “brogrammers” in your neighborhood bar is annoying, but they are more than balanced out by the thoughtful international tech workers that add complexity and nuance to our region.

I’ll take the pains of growth over the pains of decline any day. So here’s to you HQ2 cities. You’re in for one heck of a ride. Let’s all check back in the year 2050 and see if I was right or not.

“What Are We Talking About Here” can be heard every weekday at 4:50 p.m. and 6:50 p.m. on the Ron & Don Show on KIRO Radio 97.3 FM.