June 05, 2015
Data center resistance comes home to Seattle as council considers a one-year freeze
May 21, 2026
The rooftop park on Ocean Pavilion offers views of the Seattle skyline and Elliott Bay. (GeekWire Photo / Kurt Schlosser) While tech companies including Microsoft and Amazon call the Seattle area home, residents are voicing opposition to the construction of new data centers that underpin their...
‘One of a kind’: Tributes pour in for S. ‘Soma’ Somasegar, beloved tech mentor and friend
May 21, 2026
S. “Soma” Somasegar at AWS re:Invent in 2019. (GeekWire File Photo / Todd Bishop) The tributes came quickly for S. “Soma” Somasegar, and they came from seemingly everywhere and everyone he touched across the technology and business community. A consistent picture emerged: Somasegar was kind,...
Former Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell has a new gig — startup CEO
May 20, 2026
Former Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell at the GeekWire Summit in Seattle in October 2022. (GeekWire File Photo / Dan DeLong) Bruce Harrell has a new job — with term sheets and customers as opposed to stump speeches and constituents. The former mayor of Seattle is the new CEO of Filium, a...
At Tech Alliance annual luncheon, a stark analysis and a call to action
May 20, 2026
Tech Alliance CEO Laura Ruderman addresses the crowd at State of Technology luncheon in Seattle. (GeekWire Photo / Todd Bishop) It’s a complicated moment in Washington, our home state, where the tech giants are strong, the satellites are abundant, and economic growth may no longer be above...
Seattle, we’ve got an image problem
May 20, 2026
The cover of Newsweek magazine, May 20, 1996 — exactly 30 years ago today. Take a breath, close your eyes, and think about the words that define Seattle. Innovative. Outdoorsy. Global. Inventive. Smart. Progressive. Independent. A little reserved. A little weird. Thirty years ago today,...
Lab of UW Nobel winner cracks challenge of creating roomier protein cages to deliver genetic medicines
May 20, 2026
A computer-designed protein that forms a cage-like structure of pentagons and hexagons. (UW Institute for Protein Design Illustration) Medical experts use gene therapies for a variety of ailments — treating hemophilia with a clotting-factor gene or dosing a cancer patient with therapeutic DNA or...
Starfish Space shifts its sights to Australian satellite for orbital docking demonstration
May 20, 2026
An artist’s conception shows Starfish Space’s Otter Pup 2 satellite in orbit. (Starfish Space Illustration) Eleven months after launch, Starfish Space’s Otter Pup 2 satellite is finally kicking its test mission into high gear, closing in for a rendezvous with a newly designated target. If all...
Jeff Bezos describes his $38B startup Prometheus for the first time: ‘Nothing to do with robotics’
May 20, 2026
Jeff Bezos during a CNBC Squawk Box interview at Blue Origin’s Rocket Park in Merritt Island, Fla., on Wednesday, May 20, 2026. When CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin described Jeff Bezos’ startup Project Prometheus as being “really about AI robotics” in an interview on Wednesday, the Amazon founder...
Amazon Leo’s leaders provide an inside look at the satellite broadband network’s past and future
May 20, 2026
Rajeev Badyal, vice president of Amazon Leo, discusses Amazon’s plans for satellite broadband services while Chris Weber, Amazon Leo’s vice president of business and product, looks on during the Technology Alliance’s State of Technology Luncheon in Seattle. (GeekWire Photo / Brian M....
S. ‘Soma’ Somasegar, 1966-2026: Microsoft and Madrona leader was a champion of developers and startups
May 20, 2026
S. “Soma” Somasegar at Microsoft in 2014, giving a tour of the revamped Developer Division offices. (GeekWire File Photo / Todd Bishop) S. “Soma” Somasegar, a fixture in the Seattle tech community who led Microsoft’s Developer Division as part of his 27-year tenure at the company before...
Expedia at 30, the inside story: Online travel giant navigates its third tech disruption
May 20, 2026
From left: Expedia Group chairman Barry Diller, CEO Ariane Gorin, former CEO and current Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, and founder Rich Barton at Expedia’s Explore partner conference in Las Vegas this week. (Expedia Group Photo) From her office overlooking the atrium at Expedia Group’s sunlit...
Mistakes new startup founders should avoid — according to those who made them
May 19, 2026
Tin Can co-founder and CEO Chet Kittleson, right, speaks with Pioneer Square Labs Managing Director Greg Gottesman at Seattle Flow Startup Day at Bell Harbor Conference Center in Seattle on May 15. (Dan DeLong Photo) This past Christmas, Chet Kittleson was in the back of a minivan watching his...
Student rocketry team soars in U.S. competition despite losing their motor in the mail
May 19, 2026
The Washington Youth Aerospace team, from left: Nikhil Sirivara, Daniel Tadesse, Mikhail Antipin, Bao-Ky Tran, Antoine Vigneron and Anay Mediwala, pose with the rocket supplies vendor who found the motor the kids needed for a successful launch in Washington, D.C. (Photo courtesy of Sudheer...
TerraByte raises the curtain on its campaign to use AI to unleash the power of geospatial data
May 19, 2026
A screenshot of TerraByte’s software platform pinpoints cargo ships, warehouses, solar farms, mining sites and areas of deforestation. One complex query generated more than 2,000 results that can be further filtered. Click on the image for a larger version. (Credit: TerraByte AI) A stealthy...
StitcherAI emerges from stealth with $3M and a different take on the AI spending problem
May 19, 2026
StitcherAI co-founders Varun Mittal (left) and Udam Dewaraja. (StitcherAI Photo) StitcherAI, backed by $3 million in pre-seed funding, launched today with an unusual approach to help companies get a handle on AI and cloud spending before the bills get out of control. Founded by a pair of...
Jury finds Musk waited too long to sue OpenAI and Microsoft, clearing defendants in landmark AI case
May 18, 2026
Reporters and lawyers line up outside the federal courthouse in Oakland for jury selection. (GeekWire File Photo / Todd Bishop) A jury ruled unanimously Monday that Elon Musk waited too long to file his lawsuit against OpenAI, Sam Altman, and Microsoft, finding the defendants not liable on all...
Starbucks layoffs impact 252 jobs at Seattle support center, including VPs and other senior roles
May 18, 2026
Starbucks headquarters in Seattle. (GeekWire File Photo) Layoffs at a Starbucks support center in Seattle will impact 252 corporate jobs, including a number of vice presidents, directors and senior managers, according to a new state filing on Monday. A Washington Worker Adjustment and...
Gates Foundation Trust ends an era, selling off all remaining Microsoft stock
May 18, 2026
The Gates Foundation marked its 25th anniversary in May 2025 with a panel, from left: Emma Tucker, Wall Street Journal’s editor-in-chief; Mark Suzman, CEO of the Gates Foundation; and Bill Gates. (GeekWire screenshot from live stream) The Gates Foundation’s trust no longer owns any shares of...
AWS veteran Matt Wood returns to cloud giant in new role: chief AI and technology officer
May 18, 2026
Matt Wood speaks at the AWS Summit in New York in July 2024. (Amazon Photo) Matt Wood, who spent more than 14 years helping to lead Amazon Web Services’ artificial intelligence and machine learning initiatives before leaving the company in 2024, is returning to the company in a newly created...
Opinion: Don’t let the OpenAI soap opera hide the precedent
May 18, 2026
From left: Elon Musk, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. The courtroom spectacle in Oakland has obscured a bigger question, argues AI industry veteran Oren Etzioni: Can a charity be converted into a corporation? (GeekWire File Photos) We are watching a courtroom drama in...
UN digital envoy warns AI influence is concentrated in a ‘few zip codes,’ calls for global action
May 17, 2026
United Nations’ Under-Secretary and Special Envoy for Digital and Emerging Technologies, Amandeep Singh Gill, appears via Zoom to deliver the opening keynote at Seattle University’s 2026 Ethics and Tech conference on May 15, 2026. (Photo: Ken Yeung) Big tech companies are deploying compute...
Week in Review: Most popular stories on GeekWire for the week of May 10, 2026
May 17, 2026
Get caught up on the latest technology and startup news from the past week. Here are the most popular stories on GeekWire for the week of May 10, 2026. Sign up to receive these updates every Sunday in your inbox by subscribing to our GeekWire Weekly email newsletter. Most popular stories on...
What we learned about Microsoft in the OpenAI trial, and is Seattle squandering its edge?
May 16, 2026
This week on the GeekWire Podcast: As the Musk v. OpenAI trial heads to the jury, we dig into what Microsoft’s internal board memos and executive testimony revealed about the origins of the company’s massive bet on AI, and why this case matters beyond the billionaire drama. Plus, Howard...
‘Lean Startup’ author reveals one regret about his bestselling book — and how his new one fixes it
May 16, 2026
“Lean Startup” author Eric Ries, left, discusses his new book “Incorruptible” with GeekWire’s Todd Bishop at Seattle Flow Startup Day 2026. (Photo by Dan DeLong for Seattle Flow) When Eric Ries wrote his landmark book “The Lean Startup,” published in 2011, the introduction ended with a bold...
Tech Moves: Microsoft names first chief design officer; execs resign from T-Mobile and OfferUp
May 15, 2026
Jon Friedman. (LinkedIn Photo) — Microsoft has named Jon Friedman as its first chief design officer. Friedman, who has been with the tech giant for more than 22 years, said the new role recognizes the challenge of innovating in an AI-dominated world where customers need products they can trust,...
A whiff of social media supremacy: Seahawks schedule release is a spritz in the face of NFL opponents
May 15, 2026
The Seattle Seahawks perfume is L’essence de victorie. (Image via Seahawks.com) The release of 2026 NFL team schedules on Thursday night marked the return of the “social media Super Bowl” — and the actual Super Bowl champs were might in the mix. The Seattle Seahawks used a fun play on perfume...
Starbucks announces new round of corporate layoffs following cuts in Seattle tech roles
May 15, 2026
Starbucks’ Seattle headquarters. (GeekWire File Photo) Starbucks announced Friday that is laying off 300 additional corporate employees and closing several regional offices after earlier this week providing details on the elimination of 61 tech roles in Seattle. The cuts aim to “further...
Seven years after her death, sci-fi pioneer’s last novel bridges Minoan and Pacific Northwest history
May 15, 2026
This reconstructed image of a fresco from the Palace of Knossos on the island of Crete shows three Minoan women with their hair in ponytails. “The Curve of the World” throws a spotlight on Minoan seafarers. (Credit: Carole Raddato, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons) Long before Homer wrote the...
Microsoft adds more former Ai2 researchers, bolstering its Superintelligence team
May 15, 2026
A sign at the Allen Institute for AI headquarters in Seattle, with the Space Needle in the background. (GeekWire Photo / Todd Bishop) The wave of departures from the Allen Institute for AI to Microsoft is bigger than previously known: A total of at least 10 former Ai2 staffers and researchers...
Forget smart glasses: UW researchers put tiny cameras into earbuds for hands-free AI
May 15, 2026
VueBuds, a prototype developed by University of Washington researchers who have embedded a rice-grain-sized camera into each earbud of a standard pair of Sony wireless earbuds. (UW Photo) Wireless earbuds seemingly sprang out of nowhere. Popularized by Apple’s AirPods, they were suddenly...
Are we on a Road to Nowhere? Seattle’s growth masks deeper anxieties about its future
May 14, 2026
(GeekWire File Photo / Kurt Schlosser) I can’t get “Road to Nowhere” out of my head. The 1985 Talking Heads anthem is built on contradiction — upbeat and anxious at the same time. Songwriter David Byrne once described it as “a resigned, even joyful look at doom.” That paradox felt...
Can AI replicate an army of associates? These lawyers are betting their new firm on it
May 14, 2026
Matt Souza, left, and Sam Shaddox, founders of Talairis Law Group. (Talairis Photo) Sam Shaddox and Matt Souza have spent years on the inside of big-time legal work, as attorneys at a major Seattle firm and later as general counsels at tech companies. They’ve watched as law firms charge startup...
Amazon Leo aims to double its pace as it gets set to roll out its satellite broadband network
May 14, 2026
Chris Weber, vice president of business and product for Amazon Leo, sports a T-shirt bearing Amazon Leo’s logo in the project’s signature krypton shade of purple during countdown coverage for an April satellite launch. (Credit: United Launch Alliance) REDMOND, Wash. — Chris Weber isn’t ready to...
Microsoft’s multi-agent AI system tops Anthropic’s Mythos on cybersecurity benchmark
May 14, 2026
CyberGym benchmark scores over time, showing the rapid improvement in AI vulnerability discovery capabilities. Microsoft’s multi-model MDASH system (top right) tops the leaderboard at 88.4%. (CyberGym / UC Berkeley) Mythos has been MDASH’d. A new AI-powered system from Microsoft surpassed a...
Cowboy Space raises $275M as it seeks 40-60 employees for new satellite and rocket hub in Seattle
May 14, 2026
(Cowboy Space Corp. Photo) Cowboy Space Corp., a space startup growing out a new satellite and rocket engineering center in Seattle, raised $275 million in a Series B funding round this week that valued the company at $2 billion. The Bay Area-based company — formerly known as Aetherflux — was...
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