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Shira Ovide

Amazon May Have Outsmarted Itself With HQ2 Tactics

It received maximum publicity and incentives but left the company open to resentment.

Orange is the new backlash. — Orange is the new backlash.
Photographer: Jim Young/Bloomberg

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November 13, 2018, 1:12 PM UTC

This season of “The Bachelor: Amazon” has ended. Next up may be the season of recriminations.

It has been more than a year since Amazon.com Inc. trumpeted its hunt for “HQ2,” which was billed as a co-equal company headquarters on which Amazon pledged to spend more than $5 billion on construction and eventually hire as many as 50,000 people. More than 200 places in North America asked Amazon to pick them, some employing gimmicks like trying to send a giant cactus to Jeff Bezos and offering to name part of a town after the company.