Marc Brooker, an AWS VP and distinguished engineer, leads Velocity Labs, a small team inside Amazon’s cloud unit. (Amazon Photo) Last month, a small team inside Amazon Web Services called Velocity Labs went from concept to the public release of a new open-source AI model in less than a...
Scenes from a previous GeekWire Gala in Seattle. Tickets are now on sale for the big bash on Dec. 10. (GeekWire File Photo) Early bird tickets for the 2026 GeekWire Gala are on sale now. Join us Dec. 10 for Seattle tech’s biggest holiday celebration, with a new venue, fresh experiences and...
Mazar Mohammed. (LinkedIn Photo) — After more than 33 years at Microsoft, Mazhar Mohammed has left to become vice president of AWS Streaming and Messaging at Amazon. Mohammed joined Microsoft as a software design engineer on Windows NT straight out of a master’s degree program. Over the...
Seattle Metro Chamber CEO Joe Nguyễn found lessons for Seattle in a trip to San Francisco. (GeekWire File Photo / Kurt Schlosser) Editor’s note: GeekWire publishes guest opinions to highlight a range of perspectives on issues shaping the tech and startup community. To submit a guest column,...
Microsoft’s Dona Sarkar (left) looks on as members of the FROM YOUR EYES team hoist the trophy after winning the 2024 Imagine Cup at Microsoft Build in Seattle. The competition is expanding beyond students for the first time in 2027. (GeekWire Photo / Todd Bishop) Microsoft’s Imagine Cup, a...
According to University of Washington research, across job interviews, conference presentations and English proficiency tests, AI models generally ranked American and British speakers highest, Indian speakers in the middle, and Chinese and Nigerian speakers lowest. (BigStock Image) Picture two...
Starbucks says roughly half of its customers use the drive-thru, where the company is exploring a “fast pass” for people who use its app. (Photo by Hamza Inayat on Unsplash) Starbucks’ idea to use technology to recognize regulars at the drive-thru is getting plenty of attention, but the actual...
Voters might find some election levity in a quiz for choosing candidates and a bingo game to recognize rumors. (Voter Lifeboat and UW CIP Images) With Election Day tomorrow, a Seattle-area tech entrepreneur has a quiz to help voters sort through candidates and ballot measures, while University...
Thessai’s bundle of motion sensors and panic buttons alongside the monitoring app. (Thessai Photo) Thessai, a Bellevue, Wash., startup led by a former Microsoft HoloLens executive, is rolling out a home monitoring system for older adults that flags trouble without cameras, microphones or...
Pope Leo XIV delivers his speech on AI at the Vatican on Oct. 30. (Vatican Media Photo) On Friday, 17 days after his surgery for lung cancer, Pope Leo XIV stood before a room of AI luminaries at the Vatican and delivered a speech on AI. No pope has engaged with AI as seriously, or as deeply, as...
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 Oct. 25, 2026. Sign up to receive these updates every Sunday in your inbox by subscribing to our GeekWire Weekly email newsletter. Most popular stories on...
Microsoft is offering buyouts to about 60,000 employees, about a quarter of its workforce, including some execs. Unlike the retirement program Microsoft offered in the spring, this one has no age or tenure requirement, and business leaders decide whether their groups take part. On this...
Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson, speaking at an event in Olympia in June, criticized Microsoft last week over a TV ad from a PAC the company has helped fund. (Office of the Governor Photo) Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson called out Microsoft for bankrolling a political action committee responsible for...
Madrona Prize honorees with representatives from Madrona at the Allen School Research Showcase. From left: Sethu Raman, Chris Picardo and Joe Horseman of Madrona; Zhihan Zhang, Madrona Prize winner; Tanush Yadav, first runner-up; Jacob Morrison of Madrona and the Allen School; and Phoebe Riser and...
Powerlattice founders, from left: Gang Ren, Peng Zou, and Sujith Dermal. (Powerlattice / Walden Kirsch Photo) Powerlattice, a Vancouver, Wash.-based startup developing chips that cut the power demands of AI processors, has raised $86 million, according to an SEC filing on Friday. The new...
NIC Global is closing its 100,000-square-foot manufacturing site in Woodinville, Wash., as demand shifts to Eastern Washington. (NIC Photo) Metal fabricator NIC Global plans to close its Woodinville, Wash., plant, eliminating 103 jobs. Declining business from local customers is prompting the...
Seattle independent radio station KEXP, based in Lower Queen Anne, lost power early Friday morning. (GeekWire Photo / Kurt Schlosser) KEXP’s website and online streaming were down Friday morning after a power outage hit the Seattle radio station, though its over-the-air broadcast was back and...
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy told analysts Thursday that “some folks are sleeping a bit” on how much progress the company’s stores business has made. (GeekWire File Photo) No company has ever had a business with $1 trillion in annual revenue. Andy Jassy says Amazon is on a path to have two. Amazon...
Avi Saxena, left, and Tyler Whitworth. (LinkedIn Photos) — Two former Amazon executives who helped build Discovery’s direct-to-consumer operation in Bellevue, Wash., are stepping down from their leadership roles following the company’s acquisition by Paramount Skydance. They will remain in...
AWS now brings in revenue at a $184 billion annual pace, and it’s closing in on Amazon’s third-party seller business as the company’s second-largest source of sales. (GeekWire File Photo / Todd Bishop) Amazon Web Services revenue grew 39% to $46 billion in the third quarter, its fastest pace in...
Richard Wang says he gets inspiration from mentoring aspiring startup founders. (Idea to Launch Photo) Richard Wang, co-founder and former CEO of coding bootcamp Coding Dojo, is launching Idea to Launch, a 30-day program that helps would-be founders turn a startup idea into a working product...
Group14’s silicon anode facility began manufacturing materials in 2024. (Group14 Photo) Next-generation battery materials startup Group14 Technologies today announced $169 million in new funding and plans to build a manufacturing facility in Spain, expanding a production network that includes...
A for-sale sign on a home sold through Zillow Offers, the company’s home-flipping business, which Zillow shut down in 2021. The company has agreed to pay $212.5 million to settle an investor lawsuit over its statements about the business. (Zillow Photo) Zillow Group will pay $212.5 million to...
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella at OpenAI’s DevDay in November 2023. (GeekWire File Photo / Todd Bishop) OpenAI generated $10 billion in revenue for Microsoft in the quarter ended Sept. 30, about 11% of the Redmond company’s total revenue, according to its quarterly filing...
Microsoft broke out Azure’s quarterly revenue for the first time in its new financial structure. (GeekWire File Photo / Todd Bishop) Microsoft’s Azure cloud business brought in $33.2 billion in revenue in the September quarter, up 48% from a year earlier, blowing past the company’s own forecast...
Hannah Freeman, co-founder of Ganaz. (LinkedIn Photo) Seattle startup Ganaz, which provides payroll and HR tech for agricultural workers and employers, has been acquired by Beacon Holdings. Ganaz co-founder and CEO Hannah Freeman announced the deal Wednesday on LinkedIn, saying the public...
F5’s logo at the entrance to F5 Tower in downtown Seattle. The company’s stock fell about 20% Wednesday after it forecast slower growth and lower margins, along with more spending on AI security. (GeekWire Photo / Todd Bishop) Shares of F5 fell about 20% on Wednesday, a day after the...
Seattle-based PicoBrew set out to revolutionize home beer brewing with a line of machines it initially sold on Kickstarter. (PicoBrew File Photo) The patents behind PicoBrew, the Seattle startup that once promised to do for home beer what Keurig did for coffee, are up for sale again — six years...
Mike Sievert in 2017 when he was serving as T-Mobile’s COO before rising to CEO in 2020. (GeekWire File Photo/Kevin Lisota) Former T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert is hanging up his magenta hat, leaving the wireless giant’s board of directors and vice chair role effective Nov. 1. Sievert will also...
The Prologis Park SeaTac 3 industrial building in Des Moines, Wash. (Prologis Photo) Blue Origin is taking over an industrial building in Des Moines, Wash., where the Jeff Bezos-founded space company plans a mix of lab, development and light production work, the company confirmed to...
Andy Jassy says Amazon “could invest a lot more” in AI infrastructure “and it wouldn’t be a bad use of capital.” (GeekWire File Photo / Todd Bishop) Amazon reports third-quarter earnings Thursday afternoon with more demand for its cloud services than it can serve, driven by AI labs such as...
A visualization shows the orbital path of the dwarf planet candidate 2026 ED138 in relation to the orbits of the solar system’s larger planets. Click on the image for a larger version. (Credit: NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory / NOIRLab / SLAC /AURA / R. Proctor) Astronomers sorting through...
Anthropic filed to go public on Monday under the ticker ANT, and you may end up owning the stock soon even if you never buy it directly, because index funds and ETFs will be required to buy it within weeks of its debut. Anthropic’s bankers are reportedly valuing Anthropic between $1.5 trillion...
Helen Chiang. (LinkedIn Photo) — Xbox Chief Operating Officer Helen Chiang has suddenly left Microsoft after 21 years with the company, just months after landing the role in July. Her past roles include leading Mojang and the Minecraft franchise. Verge first reported the news on Friday,...
Satya Nadella & Co. report quarterly earnings under a new financial structure Wednesday. (GeekWire File Photo / Kevin Lisota) Update, 10/28: Microsoft’s Azure cloud business brought in $33.2 billion in revenue in the September quarter, up 48% from a year earlier, blowing past the company’s own...