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June 05, 2015 - 01:04 PM
Starbucks cuts tech jobs as new CTO reshapes organization

Starbucks cuts tech jobs as new CTO reshapes organization

April 22, 2026

Starbucks is cutting an unspecified number of tech jobs. (GeekWire File Photo) Starbucks is cutting jobs in its technology organization, restructuring the team under a new chief technology officer who joined the coffee giant from Amazon four months ago. Several affected employees posted about...

Microsoft’s new Xbox chief makes first major change, cutting Game Pass price, but with a catch

Microsoft’s new Xbox chief makes first major change, cutting Game Pass price, but with a catch

April 21, 2026

Asha Sharma and Matt Booty, the new leadership team for Microsoft Gaming. (Microsoft Photo) Asha Sharma’s first big move as Microsoft’s gaming chief is a trade-off. The company is cutting the price of its Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription by $7 a month, from $29.99 to $22.99. However,...

Tech Moves: Microsoft quantum lead joins IonQ; Heptio co-founder now CTO at Stacklok; Amazon departure

Tech Moves: Microsoft quantum lead joins IonQ; Heptio co-founder now CTO at Stacklok; Amazon departure

April 21, 2026

Jeff Henshaw. (LinkedIn Photo) — Former Microsoft quantum lead Jeff Henshaw has joined IonQ as senior vice president of quantum compute products. Henshaw said on LinkedIn that he has advised “dozens of quantum companies, from early-stage startups to industry titans,” and cited IonQ’s rapidly...

Former advisor to Steve Jobs says new Apple CEO is exactly what’s needed: an engineer from the inside

Former advisor to Steve Jobs says new Apple CEO is exactly what’s needed: an engineer from the inside

April 21, 2026

John Ternus, left, and Tim Cook at Apple Park. (Apple Photo) Tim Cook’s plan to step down as Apple’s CEO, announced Monday, will put the tech giant in the hands of a hardware engineer, John Ternus, returning Apple’s top job to its product roots after nearly 15 years under a leader who made his...

PowerLight’s laser power beaming system keeps a drone in the air for hours during Pentagon test flights

PowerLight’s laser power beaming system keeps a drone in the air for hours during Pentagon test flights

April 21, 2026

A KHA K1000ULE drone receives power via PowerLight’s laser power beaming system during a flight test. (PowerLight Photo) Kent, Wash.-based PowerLight Technologies says its laser power beaming system has been used successfully to keep a military-grade, fixed-wing drone in the air for hours during...

Amazon doubles down on Anthropic with $25B investment, mirroring its OpenAI cloud deal

Amazon doubles down on Anthropic with $25B investment, mirroring its OpenAI cloud deal

April 20, 2026

Amazon and Anthropic announced an expanded partnership Monday that includes up to $25 billion in new investment and more than $100 billion in cloud commitments over 10 years. (GeekWire File Photo / Todd Bishop) Amazon is now running the same playbook with both of the world’s top AI labs. Two...

Opinion: You can’t blame data centers in Seattle for our skyrocketing electricity prices

Opinion: You can’t blame data centers in Seattle for our skyrocketing electricity prices

April 20, 2026

Power lines, storm clouds, and shoes over Seattle. (Kurt Schlosser Photo) After a vague report that some companies were seeking to build “large” data centers in Seattle, Mayor Katie Wilson is exploring a moratorium on new data centers. This seems like the typical performative, hypocritical...

Seattle-area billboard takes a page from Bay Area playbook: ‘Startup energy should be more visible’

Seattle-area billboard takes a page from Bay Area playbook: ‘Startup energy should be more visible’

April 20, 2026

A billboard for Bellevue, Wash., startup Summation, visible from SR 520 in Bellevue. (Photo courtesy of Summation) A Bellevue, Wash.-based startup that came out of stealth last fall is really trying to get noticed now, taking a page out of a playbook that’s more prevalent in Silicon...

In a first, Blue Origin uses a recycled rocket to send a satellite into orbit — unfortunately, it’s the wrong orbit

In a first, Blue Origin uses a recycled rocket to send a satellite into orbit — unfortunately, it’s the wrong orbit

April 19, 2026

Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket rises from its Florida pad, sending an AST SpaceMobile satellite into space. (Blue Origin via YouTube) Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture used a previously flown New Glenn rocket booster to send a satellite into space today, marking a first for the company....

Week in Review: Most popular stories on GeekWire for the week of April 12, 2026

Week in Review: Most popular stories on GeekWire for the week of April 12, 2026

April 19, 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 April 12, 2026. Sign up to receive these updates every Sunday in your inbox by subscribing to our GeekWire Weekly email newsletter. Most popular stories on...

Opinion: Whither Microsoft? A view from the neighborhood

Opinion: Whither Microsoft? A view from the neighborhood

April 19, 2026

Microsoft’s Redmond campus. (GeekWire Photo / Todd Bishop) Feroze Motafram is an operations consultant based in Sammamish, Wash., and founder of Avestan LLC. This piece is adapted from a LinkedIn post. Someone asked me recently what made me think about writing this. The trigger, I told them,...

Physicists share the glory and the wealth after winning $3M for exploring muon mysteries

Physicists share the glory and the wealth after winning $3M for exploring muon mysteries

April 19, 2026

University of Washington physicist David Hertzog checks out the 50-foot-wide superconducting magnetic ring for the Muon g-2 experiment at the time of its startup at Fermilab in 2018. (Photo Courtesy of David Hertzog) University of Washington physicist David Hertzog can’t wait to find out how...

Seattle mayor floats moratorium on new data centers in city limits

Seattle mayor floats moratorium on new data centers in city limits

April 19, 2026

Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson. (Campaign Photo) Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson addressed concerns about a potential wave of new data centers in the city and raised the possibility of a moratorium, citing economic and environmental issues. Wilson’s public statement Saturday followed a Seattle Times...

The tough new realities for startups, Amazon’s next big strategic bets, and Allbirds’ crazy AI pivot

The tough new realities for startups, Amazon’s next big strategic bets, and Allbirds’ crazy AI pivot

April 18, 2026

This week on the GeekWire Podcast, a week of Seattle-area startup news shows how the AI era is reshaping the regional tech scene. Q1 venture numbers reveal bigger checks going to fewer companies, with Seattle slipping behind the likes of Austin and Miami on deal volume. And yet the...

Amazon payments to Bezos’ Blue Origin reach $1.8B as shareholders cite conflicts of interest

Amazon payments to Bezos’ Blue Origin reach $1.8B as shareholders cite conflicts of interest

April 17, 2026

Jeff Bezos, the billionaire founder of Amazon and Blue Origin, shows off a mockup of the New Shepard suborbital space capsule during a 2017 conference in Colorado. (GeekWire Photo / Kevin Lisota) Amazon paid about $1.8 billion last year to Blue Origin, the space company owned by its founder and...

The $100-a-month workforce: How an entrepreneur uses AI bots to bootstrap a Portland delivery startup

The $100-a-month workforce: How an entrepreneur uses AI bots to bootstrap a Portland delivery startup

April 17, 2026

Fetchlist founder Taylor Marean, left, helps move a used sofa. (Fetchlist Photo) Taylor Marean is a lifelong entrepreneur, tracing his first venture to mowing lawns in his Hood River, Ore., neighborhood at age 11. His latest startup is Fetchlist, which pairs delivery services with platforms like...

The fusion pivot: Helion CEO David Kirtley’s journey from starships to sustainable star power

The fusion pivot: Helion CEO David Kirtley’s journey from starships to sustainable star power

April 17, 2026

Helion CEO David Kirtley, left, with then Washington Gov. Jay Inslee at Helion’s Everett facility in July 2024. (GeekWire Photo / Lisa Stiffler) David Kirtley always wanted to harness the power of the sun. But first he had to fuel some rockets. As a University of Michigan engineering student,...

SeekOut’s Anoop Gupta steps down as CEO, hands reins of AI recruiting company to tech vet Sean Thompson

SeekOut’s Anoop Gupta steps down as CEO, hands reins of AI recruiting company to tech vet Sean Thompson

April 16, 2026

SeekOut co-founders Aravind Bala (left) and Anoop Gupta, who is stepping down as CEO to become executive chairman. Bala will continue as CTO, working with new CEO Sean Thompson. (SeekOut Photo) Anoop Gupta is stepping down as CEO of SeekOut, the Bellevue-based recruiting startup he co-founded in...

GeekWire Awards voting is now closed: Thanks for casting ballots to pick the best in Pacific NW tech

GeekWire Awards voting is now closed: Thanks for casting ballots to pick the best in Pacific NW tech

April 16, 2026

Who will take home the coveted robot trophies at the 2026 GeekWire Awards? (GeekWire Photo) Voting closed April 16 at 1 p.m. for the 2026 GeekWire Awards, so we want to thank everyone who cast a ballot to help select the top innovators and entrepreneurs in Pacific Northwest tech. Now in...

GeekWire Awards: From AI safety to robotic ultrasounds, meet the Startup of the Year finalists

GeekWire Awards: From AI safety to robotic ultrasounds, meet the Startup of the Year finalists

April 16, 2026

The key players leading 2026 GeekWire Awards Startup of the Year finalists, clockwise from top left: Grin Lord, CEO of mpathic; Edward Wu, Dropzone AI CEO; Loopr CEO Priyansha Bagari; Dopl Technologies co-founders Wayne Monsky, Ryan James and Steve Seslar; and ElastixAI co-founders Saman...

Microsoft’s NFL tech goes beyond the tablet: What AI is doing for coaches, players, and scouts

Microsoft’s NFL tech goes beyond the tablet: What AI is doing for coaches, players, and scouts

April 16, 2026

A Microsoft Surface tablet at Lumen Field in Seattle on Wednesday running Copilot as it’s seen by Seahawks and other NFL personnel who use the devices and technology during games. (GeekWire Photo / Kurt Schlosser) When Bill Belichick famously spiked a Microsoft Surface tablet as the New England...

Snap cuts 95 jobs in Washington state as part of broader layoffs, pushing for AI efficiencies

Snap cuts 95 jobs in Washington state as part of broader layoffs, pushing for AI efficiencies

April 16, 2026

A slide from Snap’s investor update on highlights AI-driven efficiency gains, saying more than 65% of new code is generated by AI. Snap is cutting 95 jobs in Washington state as part of a broader restructuring that will eliminate about 1,000 positions, or 16% of the company’s...

Bigger checks, fewer bets: Seattle startup deal count drops to lowest level since 2020

Bigger checks, fewer bets: Seattle startup deal count drops to lowest level since 2020

April 16, 2026

Seattle-area quarterly VC deal activity from 2016 through Q1 2026, showing capital invested and deal count. Deal count dropped to 69 in Q1 2026, the lowest level since mid-2020, with total capital raised of $1.5 billion. (GeekWire Graphic / Data: PitchBook-NVCA Venture...

One year after its rocky launch, Microsoft’s Windows Recall still raises security red flags

One year after its rocky launch, Microsoft’s Windows Recall still raises security red flags

April 15, 2026

Windows Recall, originally available to all users of Copilot+ PCs in April 2025, stores screen caps of user activity. (Microsoft Photo) Microsoft says its Recall app — which captures and stores screen shots every few seconds — is safe. Security researchers keep saying otherwise. Recall was...

GeekWire Awards: Young Entrepreneur of the Year finalists tackling AI, robotics, and more

GeekWire Awards: Young Entrepreneur of the Year finalists tackling AI, robotics, and more

April 15, 2026

The 2026 GeekWire Awards finalists for Young Entrepreneur of the Year, clockwise from top left: Kavian Mojabe (MediScan AI); Zheqing (Bill) Zhu (Pokee AI); Caleb John (Pioneer Square Labs); Charles Wu (Orchard Robotics); and Emily Choi-Greene (Clearly AI). From farm robots to cybersecurity to...

Latest AI (coffee) buzz: Starbucks launches ChatGPT app to help customers discover their next drink

Latest AI (coffee) buzz: Starbucks launches ChatGPT app to help customers discover their next drink

April 15, 2026

Prompting the Starbucks app inside ChatGPT returns suggestions related to various coffee drinks. (Starbucks Images) Starbucks is getting in on the agentic buzz. The Seattle-based coffee giant launched a beta app inside ChatGPT on Wednesday, leveraging OpenAI’s chatbot to help customers...

Tech Moves: Hootsuite founder returns as interim CEO; Scowtt adds CFO; new role for former Edifecs CEO

Tech Moves: Hootsuite founder returns as interim CEO; Scowtt adds CFO; new role for former Edifecs CEO

April 15, 2026

Ryan Holmes and Irina Novoselsky. (LinkedIn Photos) — Ryan Holmes is again leading Hootsuite, a Vancouver, B.C.-based social media management platform. Hootsuite’s focus will be “going even deeper with the businesses we serve, expanding what we can do with data and insights, and investing in AI...

Former NSA director Keith Alexander stepping down from Amazon’s board

Former NSA director Keith Alexander stepping down from Amazon’s board

April 15, 2026

Retired Gen. Keith Alexander. (Amazon Photo) Keith Alexander, a retired four-star Army general and former director of the National Security Agency, is leaving Amazon’s board of directors after more than five years. Alexander, 74, informed the company April 7 that he wouldn’t stand for...

World Quantum Day serves as a cause for computer celebration

World Quantum Day serves as a cause for computer celebration

April 15, 2026

Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson is directing $500,000 from a state economic development fund to support the expansion of IonQ’s manufacturing facility for quantum computing hardware in Bothell, Wash. (GeekWire Photo / Alan Boyle) Leaders of the Pacific Northwest’s computing community gathered in...

GeekWire Awards: The machines of the future, from self-driving earthmovers to space robots

GeekWire Awards: The machines of the future, from self-driving earthmovers to space robots

April 14, 2026

The finalists for Hardware/Robotics/Physical AI of the Year at the 2026 GeekWire Awards. Clockwise from top left: AIM Intelligent Machines; Brinc’s Guardian drone; Starfish Space’s Otter spacecraft; Orbital Robotics; and Augmodo’s Smartbadge. (Company Photos) An emerging class of startups is...

AI-powered hiring startup Humanly acquires Anthill to boost employee engagement

AI-powered hiring startup Humanly acquires Anthill to boost employee engagement

April 14, 2026

(Image via Humanly) Bellevue, Wash.-based Humanly, a startup that makes AI-powered interviewing tools for employers, announced it has acquired Anthill, a platform that uses AI to help companies connect with and support frontline employees. It’s the latest acquisition for Humanly, which...

Seattle startup Ambassador acquires ad platform Humming, eyes more deals amid AI shakeout

Seattle startup Ambassador acquires ad platform Humming, eyes more deals amid AI shakeout

April 14, 2026

Ambassador leaders, from left: COO Mark Steffler, CEO Geoff McDonald, and Chief Strategy Officer John Larson. (Ambassador Photos) Seattle customer engagement startup Ambassador has acquired the operating assets of Tacoma-based programmatic ad platform Humming, part of a roll-up strategy that...

These fifth graders vibe coded a real-world Braille tool — and wowed their Microsoft teacher

These fifth graders vibe coded a real-world Braille tool — and wowed their Microsoft teacher

April 14, 2026

Fifth graders who worked on the Braille 3D Generator at Global Idea School in Redmond, Wash., from left: Valentin, Grayson, Ella, Hunter and Julian. (Photo courtesy of Juan Lavista Ferres) As the head of Microsoft’s AI for Good Lab, Juan Lavista Ferres and his researchers can spend months...

Opinion: Make Democracy capitalist again

Opinion: Make Democracy capitalist again

April 14, 2026

Washington state’s Legislative Building, which houses the Legislature. (GeekWire Photo / Brent Roraback) Longtime Seattle investor and entrepreneur Chris DeVore is managing partner of Founders’ Co-op. I have a confession to make. I’m a Democrat. And a capitalist. Both, at the same...

Amazon and Apple vs. Starlink: Globalstar satellite acquisition comes with a big iPhone bonus

Amazon and Apple vs. Starlink: Globalstar satellite acquisition comes with a big iPhone bonus

April 14, 2026

Amazon announced an agreement Tuesday to acquire Globalstar, adding the satellite operator’s fleet, spectrum, and Apple partnership to its growing Amazon Leo network. (Amazon Image) Amazon isn’t just buying Globalstar — it’s inheriting Apple’s satellite roadmap. The Seattle-based company’s...

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