Summit for Under-Represented Founders keynote speaker Aina Abiodun, president of VertueLab, speaks at an event held April 29 at Venture Mechanics’ Bellevue, Wash., venue. (Venture Mechanics Photo) When Techstars suddenly pulled up stakes from Seattle earlier this year, Ron Wiener saw an...
And artist’s rendering of “Super Nintendo World” at Universal Orlando Resort. (Universal Image) Video game fans will be able to step inside the worlds of Super Mario and Donkey Kong in a new “Super Nintendo World” theme park experience opening in Orlando, Fla., next year. The Nintendo...
From left: Mason CEO Webb Stevens; Mason President Nancy Xiao; Mason founder Jim Xiao; and Mason CTO John Thimsen. (Mason Photo) Mason, a Seattle startup that offers a hardware-software platform for companies managing device fleets, hired Webb Stevens as its new CEO and John Thimsen as its new...
Members of the Creative Destruction Lab team in Seattle. Back row, from left: Macey McGovern (Seattle), Dhwani Patel (Seattle), Emer Dooley (Seattle), Ramzy Huneidi (Seattle), Carter McDonald (Vancouver). Front row: Lauren Cheung (Seattle), Amy Lippman (Seattle), Jon Haun (Vancouver), Jimmy Ye...
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy’s comments about unions during this 2022 interview on CNBC were among the public statements cited in a complaint against the company with the National Labor Relations Board. It was legal for Amazon CEO Andy Jassy to say that unionization would make it tougher for...
This visualization shows the solar system trajectories of asteroids discovered by ADAM and THOR. (Credit: B612 Asteroid Institute / Univ. of Wash. DiRAC Institute / OpenSpace Project) A team of asteroid hunters that includes researchers at the University of Washington says it has identified...
Photo by Marques Thomas on Unsplash. DoorDash dedicated two large paragraphs of its first quarter earnings report and spent several minutes on a call with analysts to voice opposition against controversial minimum wage laws for delivery drivers in Seattle and New York City. The company’s...
Jesse Posey (left) and Evan Poncelet, co-founders of Dreamward Ventures. (Dreamward Photos) A computer programmer and laboratory scientist are teaming up to help boost the number of Black founders and investors in tech startups. Evan Poncelet and Jesse Posey are the co-founders of Dreamward...
Microsoft President Brad Smith. (GeekWire File Photo / Dan DeLong) Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith and his wife Kathy Surace-Smith have purchased a stake in the Seattle Mariners, becoming just the third additions since the team formed a partnership group in 1992. Mariners...
The three new games on LinkedIn. (Linkedin Image) LinkedIn — the place where you go to update your resume, network with other professionals and search for jobs — is now another place to play games. Taking a cue from the very successful online puzzle and game integration at The New York Times,...
Ashish Kurmi (left) and Varun Sharma, co-founders of StepSecurity. (StepSecurity Photo) StepSecurity, a Seattle-area startup aiming to help developers secure their projects, raised a $3 million seed round led by Runtime Ventures. Founded in 2022 by former Microsoft engineers and...
Take-Two Interactive, the gaming giant behind the Grand Theft Auto franchise, is laying off 70 employees in the Seattle region. A WARN notification with Washington’s Employment Security Department (ESD) revealed the layoffs in Seattle as part of a closure beginning June 28. Take-Two lists...
Inside Assurance HQ in Seattle. (GeekWire File Photo / Taylor Soper) Insurance giant Prudential is shutting down Assurance IQ, five years after spending $2.35 billion to acquire the under-the-radar tech startup based in the Seattle region. “As we look to the future, we believe that directly...
Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, founder and former CEO of cryptocurrency exchange Binance, leaves the federal courthouse in Seattle after his sentencing hearing Tuesday. (GeekWire Photo / Todd Bishop) Binance founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao sat up straight in his chair inside a Seattle courtroom Tuesday...
Amazon wants to keep corporate headcount growth flat but is still hiring selectively in some areas of the company, including generative AI. That’s the word from Amazon CFO Brian Olsavsky, who spoke with reporters following Amazon’s first quarter earnings report. Amazon now employs 1.52...
An Amazon Fulfillment Center in Dupont, Wash. (GeekWire File Photo) Amazon topped estimates for its first quarter earnings, reporting $143.3 billion in revenue, up 13% year-over-year, and earnings per share of $0.98. Analysts expected Q1 revenue of $142.7 billion and earnings per share of...
Atavus CEO Kerry Carter. (Atavus Photo) Kerry Carter, a former pro football player with the Seattle Seahawks and other teams, is tackling a new role as CEO at Atavus, the Seattle-based sports technology company that teaches proper tackling technique. Atavus has grown beyond being a consulting...
Paul Mikesell, right, CEO of Carbon Robotics, and Jake Stallman, VP of build quality and design accept their prize at the 2023 GeekWire Awards alongside R2-D2. (GeekWire File Photo / Kevin Lisota) The 2024 GeekWire Awards are fast approaching on May 9 in Seattle, and we’ve released a limited...
Yihao Chen, left, and Malcom Yang, co-founders of AI startup GenreX. (Photos courtesy of GenreX) Another startup has added a new wrinkle to the growing ways artificial intelligence is affecting content creation — this time with a feature that analyzes video and creates music geared toward the...
Rippl, a Seattle startup that supports dementia care, acquired Kinto, a Boston startup that provides coaching services to family caregivers. Founded in 2018, Kinto uses AI to support and educate people taking care of loved ones with dementia. Rippl will add eight employees from Kinto,...
These servers inside a Microsoft data center in Quincy, Wash., were the first to be powered by the company’s Azure Cobalt 100 CPU, as part of a broader cloud infrastructure buildout. (Microsoft Photo / John Brecher) Analysts, investors, and the media are suddenly focused intensely on capital...
Amazon Q Apps was announced in preview Tuesday morning. (Amazon Image) Amazon says it will give non-developers the ability to create apps using natural language as part of a new feature for Amazon Q, the AI assistant unveiled by Amazon Web Services last fall. Amazon Q Apps “allows employees...
An artist’s conception shows Portal’s Supernova satellite bus in orbit, using a propulsion system that focuses sunlight on a heat exchanger to produce thrust. (Portal Space Systems Illustration) A Seattle-area startup called Portal Space Systems is emerging from stealth to share its vision for...
Tableau’s headquarters in Seattle’s Fremont neighborhood. (GeekWire Photo / Todd Bishop) Tableau will enable local file-saving for the free version of its data visualization software, no longer requiring Tableau Public users to publish their work online to the community if they prefer to keep...
Madisen McCleary, Skip Tech’s vice president of engineering, makes a hydrophobic coating for the interior of a flow cell for the startup’s hydrogen bromine batteries. (Puyallup Tribe of Indians Photo / Hailey Palmer) A startup developing long-duration batteries is teaming up with a Pacific...
A dish made from Bioform Technologies’ sustainable plastic. (Bioform Photo) A Vancouver, B.C.-based startup making biodegradable plastics out of wood pulp has raised up to $5 million from Brazil’s Suzano Ventures, the investment arm of a manufacturing giant turning farmed eucalyptus trees into...
Cloud Security Alliance CEO JIm Reavis gives the keynote at Washington State Cybersecurity Center of Excellence’s “Securing the Next Generation of Technology Workers” event in Bellingham, Wash., on April 24. (Frank Catalano Photo) Artificial intelligence is a double-edged sword when it comes to...
Matt Hulett in Rosetta Stone’s Seattle office in 2018. (GeekWire Photo / Todd Bishop) Matt Hulett, a veteran of the Seattle tech and startup scene, is stepping down as CEO and president of PetMed Express, a publicly traded, Florida-based online pet pharmacy. Hulett joined the company in...
Amazon’s logo on the front end of the Rivian electric van. (GeekWire Photo / Kurt Schlosser) Amazon reports its first quarter earnings on Tuesday. Analysts will be watching for continued growth in the company’s key profit drivers: advertising and cloud computing. After dropping in price...
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 April 21, 2024. Sign up to receive these updates every Sunday in your inbox by subscribing to our GeekWire Weekly email newsletter. Most popular stories on...
Wall Street Journal reporter Dana Mattioli is the author of the new book, “The Everything War: Amazon’s Ruthless Quest to Own the World and Remake Corporate Power.” This week on the GeekWire Podcast: A conversation with Dana Mattioli, Wall Street Journal reporter and author of the new book, “The...
Professor AI co-founders Pradyu Kandala, left, and Abhay Chebium. (Professor AI Photos) Frustrated by inadequate resources to help students study for advanced placement courses, two Seattle-area high school teens turned to technology, and put AI to work on AP. Pradyu Kandala and Abhay Chebium...
Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell is among a group of 22 representatives that are part of a new Artificial Intelligence Safety and Security Board organized by the Department of Homeland Security. Other members include top leaders from tech, such as Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Amazon Web Services...
(GeekWire File Photo) Amazon is making another big move into the sports world with a reported deal in place with the NBA to stream games for at least a decade. The Athletic reported Friday that Amazon and the NBA have the “framework for a deal” that would begin in the 2025-26 season....
SNØCAP co-founders photographed at Sweet Farm, from the left: General Partner Jonathan Azoff, General Partner Nate Salpeter, and Managing Partner Shrina Kurani. Also pictured is Rocky, a rescued baby raccoon headed for rehabilitation. Salpeter is co-founder of Sweet Farm, which supports animal...