Amazon is an infrastructure company. A large part of its greateness comes from the bricks and mortar infratrsucture that it owns meaning fast and cheap service to consumers. If a company can provide evidence that it is cheaper to own rather than to rent, eg by getting a martgage on the property at a nice low rate, then one can make a case for it.

Again a campus that grows up with the company is OK and having everyone together does have advantages. That being said in this day and age, geographical distance is no real excuse for poor communication.

The main issue here is what a spanking new HQ says about the managment mindset. What advantages will there be to shareholders by having everyone in Kings Cross rather than Victoria. None that I can see other than a thumping $700m hole in the cash balance for shareholders. If I was a shareholder of Google, I would rather pay 30% tax and have $700m returned to me.

I’d hate to inquire about what you think of Amazon, trying to buy its headquarters while building a campus in the same town. 🙂 If this is about signaling though, I wonder if the mindset is different on the other side of the ocean. There are many well run, highly regarded US based companies that make a point of owning their main buildings, lest they “throw money at rent”. Often, it is not just about money. Some are so large, they actually have to build their own campuses lest they distribute their teams across too many buildings scattered around different neighborhoods, making intra-company interaction unwieldy.

If anyone would like me to undertake and indepth analysis of this issue and how it has affected companies over the last 20 years I am more than happy to talk terms. 🙂