Yahoo Finance's Tech Editor Dan Howley joins The First Trade with Alexis Christoforous and Brian Sozzi to discuss Amazon's decision to expand its corporate offices.

Video Transcript

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: Amazon is staffing up. The company announced this morning it plans to add thousands of corporate jobs and expand its offices in six US cities-- New York, Phoenix, San Diego, Denver, Detroit, and Dallas. Yahoo Finance tech editor Dan Howley is here with more on this one. So Dan, I don't know, is this all about-- are we going to hear HQ2, 3, 4 now? What is this all about?

DAN HOWLEY: No, this isn't as drastic as those expansions were expected to be. Basically, what this is is just building out some 3,500 jobs across those various cities and adding office space. I think really what's happening right now is Amazon recognizes a need for additional office space at some point. And they see that this is a good time to pick up office space, when a lot of companies are either ditching it or not currently able to occupy their space. So they're seeing this as an opportunity to basically stock up on the cheap.

BRIAN SOZZI: You know, Dan, why--

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: But what's interesting--

BRIAN SOZZI: I'm sorry. Go ahead, Alexis.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: Well, I was going to say it's interesting to me that they would want more office after telling employees that they could work from home during this pandemic and beyond, and the fact that so many companies now realize they can do what they were doing in the office from home. It's interesting that they want more office space.

DAN HOWLEY: Yeah, what they see basically is people working from home until January 8. That's what the latest time frame that they've given is. But, as you know and I know, a lot of companies are shifting that time frame, extending it out. Some companies even holding until the end of the year or past that.

Amazon, basically, though, is saying at some point, people will return to the office. And when they do, it will offer a better work environment than virtually doing these kinds of work-from-home scenarios at large. I think for them, they see it as a better opportunity for co-workers to better interface. There's no delay in getting people. You can just walk up to them.

And I think that's what they're envisioning. And hopefully we do get back to that normalcy at some point.

BRIAN SOZZI: Dan, why is there such a philosophical difference between Amazon gobbling up real estate and Facebook and Twitter saying you know what? Workers probably work from home indefinitely.

DAN HOWLEY: I think this really just comes down to who is running those companies. Jeff Bezos likes to have his board meetings every day. He loves to have people in offices.

And I think it also kind of shows that Amazon-- its growth and its power. Right, it's a way to project that yes, we have offices in this many US cities, and we're employing this many Americans, right? That's something that they can be able to use in the future when they end up having to lobby. Or down the line, it'll be a nice feather in their cap if they do end up coming under some form of suit because of antitrust investigations.

But I think it really comes down to-- look, Facebook and Twitter, they're social networks. You can do that remotely. But for Amazon, it seems as though, despite the fact that they're an online service, they really want to have people in person to be able to interface better.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: And Dan, in New York, those office spaces-- at least some of that office space is going to come from that iconic Lord & Taylor building, right, that I guess WeWork bought and Amazon bought from WeWork.

DAN HOWLEY: Yes, it's a building that they purchased for $1 billion. And it's interesting because we did see, obviously, it's HQ2 plans for Long Island City in Queens kind of go up in flames after widespread kind of pushback. And then there was the pushback against the pushback, saying that they could have brought in hundreds of thousands of jobs.

But I think this is still part of their obvious effort to continue to recruit from the New York area. You don't have to be in Silicon Valley or Seattle. I think a lot of these tech companies are now proving that.

So while they may not offer permanent work from home, like a Facebook or Twitter, I think it's also good that they are staffing up in these cities so that you don't have to be in one main central hub or the other. You do have options to be where you need to be in the US to work for one of these large firms.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: Yeah, and Amazon can certainly afford to do it. Dan Howley, thank you.