Welcome to Axis ProRata, a podcast that takes just 10 minutes to get you smarter on the collision of tech business and politics.

I'm Dan Pramak. We don't usually do a Friday show, but there isn't usually a development so squarely in our wheelhouse as Amazon's decision to bail on its planned HQ2 facility in New York. So here we are.

It also means a different format, as we'll bypass most of my

usual chatter and go directly to our two guests, Axios reporters David McCabe and Erica Pandy.

So McCabe, I wrote this morning in the pro rata newsletter that it was capricious of Amazon, the

decision, and that a company like Amazon that's so used to being loved lashed out when criticized. Am I

wrong? I think that they were absolutely responding

to the criticism. I think what they would say is that their concern was that basically this would

always be true. The people would always, these same people would always be angry at them, that they

would never be able to catch a break from local lawmakers. But I think the optics are undeniable.

This is one of the most valuable companies in the world, owned by one of the richest people in the world, essentially saying, we're done. We got yelled at during a couple

city council hearings. We think this is untenable, and we're out. Erica, you're in New York right now.

You were on the street in Queens yesterday to kind of do some man on the street sort of reaction.

What was the reaction? Was there a consensus? Some people were happy to see Amazon go. Some people were

furious that Amazon did this. The one thing I noticed across the board was just total whiplash.

I was quite literally breaking the news to so many of these people. I went there an hour after

the statement came out and I said, Amazon's leaving. Do you have to anything you say? And they were,

what? They're leaving? What? I thought they were just here. What's going on? The president of the tennis association, Amazon was going to be

neighbors with the nation's largest housing project. And she was serious. She was saying that they

completely blindsided us. No one's happy how it played out, how quickly it all happened.

You know, it was maybe like three or four days ago the first reports came that Amazon might be bailing on New York City. And I think I even tweeted, you know, they doth protest too much.

I didn't think it was serious. Okay. How does this come about so fast and give any of the

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