June 05, 2015
Amazon lays off 121 workers across corporate and fulfillment jobs in Washington state
August 31, 2026
Two of Amazon’s Seattle headquarters towers rise above the Spheres. (GeekWire File Photo / Kurt Schlosser) Amazon is cutting 121 jobs in Washington state, according to a new state regulatory filing on Monday, hitting corporate tech teams in Bellevue and Seattle as well as fulfillment operations...
Seattle-area biotech led by ex-Athira CEO Leen Kawas raises $35M for hepatitis D drug
August 31, 2026
EIT Pharma CEO Leen Kawas (EIT Pharma Photo) A Kirkland, Wash.-based biotech company led by former Athira Pharma CEO Leen Kawas has raised $35 million in a Series A round led by Propel Bio Partners, the Los Angeles investment firm where Kawas is a co-founder and managing general partner. EIT...
Redfin fills CEO role with former Meta VP Alessio Sanfilippo after acquisition by Rocket
August 31, 2026
Alessio Sanfilippo, CEO of Redin. (Redfin Photo) Redfin, the Seattle-based real estate brokerage acquired last year by Rocket Companies, has named Alessio Sanfilippo as CEO. Sanfilippo was previously Meta’s vice president of insights for Reality Labs, where he led teams working in data...
What if Rivian spawned an e-bike? We test rode the new two-wheeler from the EV maker’s Also spinoff
August 31, 2026
The TM-B e-bike from Also, atop the hill at Gas Works Park in Seattle and just down the road from the startup’s new offices. (GeekWire Photo / Kurt Schlosser) I pulled a classic Seattle move while test riding an e-bike from Rivian spinout Also last week. It was straight out of the sketch comedy...
Rivian spinout Also lands in Seattle, with REI vet leading micromobility startup’s new office and retail hub
August 31, 2026
Ben Steele, chief commercial officer for Also, poses with the company’s TM-B e-bike on the deck of Also’s new offices in Seattle. (GeekWire Photo / Kurt Schlosser) Also, a fast-growing electric micromobility startup born out of Rivian in Silicon Valley, has quietly pulled into Seattle and...
Bill Gates in his own words: How he’s using AI, and why he’s worried about the future
August 29, 2026
Bill Gates, shown here in April 2025, released a memo this week warning that the world isn’t ready for AI. (GeekWire Photo / Kevin Lisota) This week on the GeekWire Podcast: Bill Gates published a new essay warning that the AI industry is crossing the safety lines it set for itself, and that...
Game over, new routine: Laid-off Xbox manager built her Korean skincare startup before cuts hit
August 28, 2026
Agnes Kim, founder of ViaJiin, a Korean-sourced beauty supply startup based in the Seattle area, with some of the skincare products that her new company offers. (ViaJiin Photos) Long before the July email arrived confirming she was one of thousands of Xbox employees laid off in Microsoft’s...
Tech Moves: Former Xbox exec named Dolby CEO; Microsoft AI exits; new Fred Hutch leaders
August 28, 2026
Marc Whitten, the new president and CEO of Dolby Laboratories. (Dolby Photo) — Marc Whitten, a former Microsoft and Amazon executive, was named president and CEO of San Francisco-based Dolby Laboratories. He succeeds Kevin Yeaman, who is retiring after leading the entertainment technology...
UW AI researcher wins top Marconi award and aims to put ‘superhuman hearing’ in billions of devices
August 28, 2026
Malek Itani, a Ph.D. student in the UW’s Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering. (Photo courtesy of Malek Itani) University of Washington Ph.D. student Malek Itani, who co-founded the AI-powered sound enhancement startup Hearvana, has been awarded the prestigious Marconi Society...
Pro.com co-founders reunite to launch OnTrade, an AI startup for the wealth management industry
August 28, 2026
L-R: OnTrade co-founders Zachary Harl, chief investment officer; Raji Subramanian, CEO; and Matt Williams, president. (OnTrade Photos) The co-founders of Pro.com, the Seattle-based home-improvement marketplace acquired by Opendoor in 2021, are back with a new company targeting what seems on the...
Seattle startup Arkero expands English soccer reach, landing historic club as latest AI customer
August 28, 2026
Arkero co-founders, from left: Daniel Shi, who oversees business operations; CEO Shivaas Gulati; and Vamsi Narla, who leads product and engineering. (Arkero Photo) Arkero, a Seattle-area startup leveraging AI to help professional sports teams streamline business operations, has expanded its...
As U.S.-China biotech race heats up, Seattle makes its case to D.C.
August 28, 2026
From left, Marc Cummings, Life Science Washington; Snehal Patel, Sana Biotechnology; Joe Horsman, Madrona Venture Group; Rebecca Bryant, Fred Hutch Cancer Center; and Alex Zanghellini, Arzeda, at a Seattle forum hosted by the National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology on Tuesday....
Startup Spotlight: Skyfarer connects pilots with flight training, aviation services and airplanes in one place
August 28, 2026
Skyfarer founder and CEO Nick Tsang in the cockpit of a Gulfstream G650. (Photo courtesy of Nick Tsang) When a pilot wants to find a flight instructor, a mechanic, an examiner for a flight test, or a fair price on an airplane, the solution is usually the same: ask around at the airport. Nick...
AI turns up a promising finding in cancer data that researchers hadn’t noticed for years
August 27, 2026
Dr. Kelly Paulson of Providence Swedish Cancer Institute examines an immunofluorescent image showing T-cells surrounding a lobular breast cancer tumor sample, confirming a finding flagged by Ai2’s AutoDiscovery system. (Ai2 Photo) An AI system built by Seattle’s Allen Institute for AI (Ai2) has...
You think tech is a circus? This former Facebook engineer quit to focus on a career as an elite juggler
August 27, 2026
Cory Black is a former tech worker who left his career to focus on juggling, mostly of soccer balls. (Vitz Photography Photo) Most tech workers are used to keeping multiple projects up in the air at once. Cory Black took the concept to a literal level. A graduate of the Paul G. Allen School...
Microsoft 2.5: Superintelligence leader Ali Farhadi points company toward AI self-sufficiency
August 27, 2026
Ali Farhadi, now a Microsoft corporate vice president of AI, at a Technology Alliance event in May 2024. (GeekWire File Photo) GeekWire is profiling over the next few weeks some of the people and teams that are shaping the evolution of Microsoft in what we’re calling its “Microsoft 2.5”...
As the influencer economy drives retail sales, Seattle startup raises $22M to play matchmaker
August 27, 2026
Levanta builds marketing tools so influencers and creators can connect with brands. Image via Levanta. Influencers and online creators have become an increasingly powerful way for brands to sell products. But managing those relationships can get complicated — especially for companies selling...
Etzioni on AI: Bill Gates has the right diagnosis but the wrong prescription
August 27, 2026
Bill Gates, whose new essay warns of the risks ahead in the AI era, during a 2017 interview. (GeekWire File Photo / Kevin Lisota) When Bill Gates talks, people listen. This week he published a lengthy essay on what AI is going to do to work, and told GeekWire that people inside AI companies who...
T-Mobile to cut 77 jobs in Washington state, impacting corporate and retail positions
August 26, 2026
(BigStock Photo) T-Mobile is cutting 77 jobs across Washington state, trimming staff across its Bellevue headquarters, regional retail stores, and remote roles, according to a new state filing. The layoffs are expected to occur between Sept. 21 and Nov. 18, according to the Worker Adjustment...
Washington to receive up to $339M in landmark $17B settlement over Meta social media addiction claims
August 26, 2026
Meta must overhaul Instagram and Facebook for young users by enforcing daily time limits, turning off push notifications during school hours, and blocking access late at night. (BigStock Photo) Washington state will receive up to $339 million as part of a historic $17.1 billion multistate...
Flipboard acquires Portland startup Graze in bid to ‘re-orient the attention economy’
August 26, 2026
Graze co-founders Peat Bakke (left) and Devin Gaffney. (Graze Photo) Portland-based social media startup Graze is joining Flipboard in a strategic acquisition aimed at expanding open social protocols and giving users control over their own content algorithms. Founded by Devin Gaffney, Peat...
Amazon to acquire DuckLabs, adding the team behind DuckDB amid broader shakeup in cloud data
August 26, 2026
DuckDB creators Mark Raasveldt, left, and Hannes Mühleisen. (DuckLabs Photo) Amazon has agreed to acquire DuckLabs, the company behind DuckDB, the fast-growing open-source database that has become a favorite of developers looking to analyze large amounts of data without the cost and setup of a...
Not dead yet: The race to give spent EV batteries a second life on the grid and beyond
August 26, 2026
In the foreground are battery packs just as they would look installed in an EV, now repurposed by Redwood Materials and plugged into the microgrid serving Crusoe’s data center at Redwood’s campus in Nevada. (Redwood Photo) Subscribe to Positive Charge: Apple Podcasts, Spotify,...
‘I am very concerned’: Bill Gates says the world needs a plan to deal with AI, and he has three ideas to start
August 26, 2026
Bill Gates at the keyboard in a 2018 file photo. (Gates Notes Photo) Bill Gates is legendary, bordering on notorious, for his late-night emails — missives to colleagues with piercing questions about Java back in the day, or malaria these days, or whatever esoteric topic he happens to seize upon...
Seattle’s AI weed wars: One startup maps them, another zaps them
August 26, 2026
TerraClear’s new Weed Maps helps farmers identify individual weeds as small as a quarter inch. (TerraClear Photo) The next big test for AI isn’t happening in a data center. It’s happening in the dirt. Really, it’s in the weeds. Two Seattle-area startups are betting that AI can transform...
Jeff Bezos remembers Dolly Parton — a recipient of his $100M ‘Courage and Civility’ award
August 26, 2026
Dolly Parton in Los Angeles in 2012. (BigStock Photo) Amazon founder Jeff Bezos joined the chorus of people who said they were touched by the life and work of Dolly Parton as he shared his condolences after the passing of the entertainment legend. Parton, the rags-to-riches country music star...
Wizards of the Coast offers first look at ‘Warlock,’ the next video game based on ‘Dungeons & Dragons’
August 25, 2026
(Wizards of the Coast/Invoke Studios press image) Wizards of the Coast and its subsidiary Invoke Studios released a first-look gameplay trailer for Warlock: Dungeons & Dragons, a new open-world action game based upon the systems and setting of Wizards’ popular tabletop role-playing...
Xbox layoffs fallout: ‘South of Midnight’ creator Compulsion Games successfully goes independent
August 25, 2026
(Compulsion Games image) One of the video game studios impacted by Xbox’s layoffs in July has successfully reclaimed its independence, as well as control over its intellectual property. Compulsion Games, headquartered in Montreal, was founded as an independent studio in 2009 and acquired by...
Report: Amazon eyes ‘fully automated’ delivery stations to bring robotics to the last mile
August 25, 2026
Amazon’s ZancaSort system brings packages to workers automatically at its Last Mile Innovation Center in Dortmund, Germany. A separate initiative, Project Tetromino, reportedly aims to bring full automation to delivery stations. (Amazon Photo) Visiting an Amazon delivery station can feel like...
Airline security in the cloud: PNNL tech analyzes checked bags during flight to skip layover lines
August 25, 2026
The International Remote Baggage Screening platform allows U.S. customs agents to analyze X-ray images of checked baggage during an inbound flight. (GeekWire File Photo / Kurt Schlosser) While passengers are cruising at 35,000 feet, their checked luggage is already passing through a very...
University of Washington and Seattle biotech win $245M patent judgment against Guardant
August 25, 2026
TwinStrand graphic A federal judge has entered a final judgment requiring Guardant Health to pay more than $245 million to Seattle biotech TwinStrand Biosciences and the University of Washington over DNA sequencing technology developed at the university. The judgment, entered Friday in U.S....
Homebuilding AI startup Digs raises $25.3M and partners with building products giant
August 25, 2026
Digs co-founders Ty Frackiewicz, left, and Ryan Fink. (Digs Photo) Digs, a Vancouver, Wash.-based startup building AI software for residential construction, raised $25.3 million in Series A funding led by building products giant Builders FirstSource, the companies announced Tuesday. Under the...
Immersive Gamebox brings controller-free gaming to new location south of Seattle this week
August 25, 2026
The players are the controller in the play spaces at Immersive Gamebox. (Immersive Gamebox Photo) Immersive Gamebox, a global interactive group gaming company, is coming to the Seattle region with its first Pacific Northwest location opening this week at Westfield Southcenter mall. Designed...
Washington state pioneered a privacy model for the nation — when will it finally pass the law at home?
August 24, 2026
Rep. Shelley Kloba, D-Kirkland, has introduced a privacy bill in the Legislature every year since 2021, none of which has reached the House floor due to disagreements over whether consumers should be able to sue. (Washington House Democrats Photo) More than 20 states have now passed the...
How the FTC’s last-minute settlement with Zillow and Redfin reshapes their $100M rentals deal
August 24, 2026
GeekWire Illustration Zillow and Redfin settled an antitrust case with the Federal Trade Commission and five states Monday, just as a trial was set to begin, agreeing to undo part of a $100 million partnership that the government said effectively paid Redfin to stop competing in apartment rental...
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