Kamal Ghorui
Microsoft and Amazon are two of the biggest rivals. The two companies compete in the Cloud, with Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services (AWS). The two fight for customers as well sometimes for talent. However, a ‘crisis’ in America’s Washington State has brought the two together. The two companies — Microsoft and Amazon — recently took out a full-page ad and wrote an Op-Ed in The Seattle Times on the Washington state’s housing crisis. The Op-Ed titled ‘WA must make it easier to build our way out of the housing crisis’ was jointly written by Microsoft president Brad Smith; and Amazon’s chief global affairs and legal officer David Zapolsky. The Seattle region “faces a housing emergency that threatens our state’s quality of life, health and economic competitiveness. Each year over the past decade, affordability has declined, commutes have lengthened and our region’s ability to attract and retain talent has been put at greater risk. For some, the impact is even more serious,” wrote Microsoft and Amazon’s top execs. Talking about Microsoft and Amazon’s contribution to deal with the crisis, Op-Ed says, “As leaders at Amazon and Microsoft, we’ve helped advance unprecedented community-focused investments to address the shortage of affordable housing in our home state. Together, our two companies have committed $1.6 billion to preserve and build more than 26,000 affordable homes, benefiting the communities we live, serve and operate in. Not for our employees, but the entire community.”
“Root cause of the crisis”
“The lack of affordable housing is a complex problem. But its roots are straightforward. We simply don’t have enough housing today, and we need to build more homes of all kinds. This is a supply-side problem at its core. The best estimates predict the state will need 1 million additional housing units over the next 20 years, or 50,000 per year. While our companies’ collective efforts helped spur more investment, last year’s permit applications in Puget Sound suggest that the pace of construction is slowing down. In other words, the hole we’re in as a region is at risk of getting deeper,” said the Op-Ed on the root cause of the crisis.
‘Message and warning’ to policy makers
“Going forward, legislators must commit to a simple test: If a policy makes housing more costly or takes longer to build, don’t pass it. Consider an alternative,” they write. “Enact policies that pencil in today’s market, not aspirational measures that might work down the line.” They warn that other states are moving faster to attract developers. “Capital is fluid,” they write. “Banks, investors and lenders are going where they can make predictable returns.”
