Idealism largely pervaded the effort. Members of the HQ2 team earnestly believed that any city had an opportunity to win. At one point, they put their predictions for the finalist cities on pieces of paper and sealed them in an envelope. Holly Sullivan, Amazon’s eloquent and well-connected economic development director, came closest to guessing the outcome. “We genuinely thought we were working on the most important economic development project in a generation and were going to change the lives of hundreds of thousands of people,” said one of the HQ2 employees. In early January, Sullivan and
...more
