My dad went to a charity event two years ago. I remember asking him how it was, and he raved about the auctioneer. “New York is amazing,” he said, “no matter what job there is – from doctors to lawyers to artists to chefs – the best talent is in New York City.”
NYC is called the finance capital of the world. Yet last week, Bloomberg reported that J.P. Morgan, one of the world’s largest banks, is considering moving thousands of jobs out of New York City. AllianceBernstein announced a similar cost cutting move last year when they relocated their headquarters to Nashville. Fascinatingly, at the same time that J.P. Morgan and other financial firms are reducing costs, technology companies are invading NYC and spending millions of dollars on growth. Google, Amazon, Facebook, Netflix, Slack, Apple, Microsoft, LinkedIn and Uber all signed or are close to signing massive new leases in New York City. That these companies are growing is no surprise when observing how the world has changed. But why do they want to be in NYC? For access to that amazing auctioneer.
After signing its expansion lease in Hudson Yards late last year, John Foley, the CEO and co-founder of Peloton Interactive, said,
“New York City is where Peloton started, and it will continue to be our home as we scale our business globally. For a long time, New York was considered to be an afterthought for tech start-ups, but it’s now the second highest performing startup ecosystem in the world. As our brand lives at the intersection of fitness, technology and media, this city is where the best talent can be found across all three of those industries.”
Google had a similar feeling about talent when deciding to expand by 1.7 million sq. ft. in Hudson Square. In a blog post to employees, CFO Ruth Porat wrote,
New York City continues to be a great source of diverse, world-class talent—that’s what brought Google to the city in 2000 and that’s what keeps us here…With these most recent investments in Google Chelsea and Google Hudson Square, we will have the capacity to more than double the number of Googlers in New York over the next 10 years.
Nothing lasts forever. One of America’s founding fathers, Benjamin Franklin, expressed this view when he said, “Change is the only constant in life. One’s ability to adapt to those changes will determine your success in life.” Fortunately, New York has and continues to live by Franklin’s words. The city has been resilient; not only to adapt but to flourish with the changing markets. It’s ability to lure technology companies is part of what made 2018 the best year for Manhattan leasing since 2000.