GEEK News
June 05, 2015 - 02:04 PM
Agility Robotics co-founder on its Nasdaq debut, lessons from Amazon, and the future of work
Agility Robotics co-founder and Chief Robot Officer Jonathan Hurst and the company’s Digit 5 humanoid robot, which was designed to work alongside people without a safety barrier. Agility began trading on the Nasdaq on Thursday. (Agility Robotics Photos) Agility Robotics of Salem, Ore., made its Nasdaq debut Thursday as the first publicly traded U.S. company devoted solely to humanoid robots —...
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Seattle startup OneCourt brings tactile tablets for blind and low-vision fans to NHL games
A hockey fan uses OneCourt’s tactile device during the NHL Heritage Classic, an outdoor game between the Montreal Canadiens and the Winnipeg Jets at Princess Auto Stadium in Winnipeg, Manitoba, on Oct. 25. (Ticketmaster Photo) Seattle startup OneCourt is bringing its haptic devices for blind and low-vision sports fans to hockey, with the NHL and Ticketmaster making the tablets available free...
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Shield AI to buy Bill Gates-backed radar maker Echodyne in $5.3B deal, doubling down on Seattle area
Echodyne CEO Eben Frankenberg, right, leads Sen. Maria Cantwell, left, U.S. Rep. Suzan DelBene, behind her, and others on a tour of the company’s new radar factory in Woodinville, Wash., in July. Shield AI agreed to acquire Echodyne in a deal valued at up to $5.3 billion. (Echodyne Photo) Shield AI, the defense tech company planning to build its AI-piloted X-BAT fighter jet south of Seattle,...
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No sweat: High-tech T-shirt brand Neat survives ‘Shark Tank’ and lands $400K deal with Lori Greiner
CEO Jim Huffman, left, and COO Tyler Stelter of Seattle-based apparel maker Neat make their pitch in front of the sharks on ABC’s “Shark Tank” during an episode that aired Wednesday night. (Disney Photo / Daniel Delgado Jr.) If Jim Huffman and Tyler Stelter were sweating during their pitch on ABC’s “Shark Tank,” their T-shirts didn’t show it. It probably helped them land a deal. Huffman is...
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Uncommon Thinkers: Curiosity led Mary Brunkow to an immune breakthrough — and a Nobel Prize
Mary Brunkow receives her Nobel Prize from King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden in Stockholm on Dec. 10, 2025. (Nanaka Adachi Photo) Editor’s note: This series profiles five Seattle-area “Uncommon Thinkers,” who will be recognized Dec. 10 at the GeekWire Gala in partnership with Greater Seattle Partners. Mary Brunkow had considered becoming a veterinarian or doctor — she knew she wanted to do...
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Longtime investor Martin Tobias says no to 99% of startups — his new AI tool helps them find a yes
Martin Tobias. (Incisive Ventures Photo) Martin Tobias was pitched by about 4,500 startups last year. He wrote 10 checks. Now the pre-seed investor is offering the rest of them a consolation prize: an AI tool that tells founders which investors are most likely to say yes. Tobias, a longtime figure in the Seattle tech scene, is now based in Spokane, Wash. He founded Loudeye, a digital...
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Amazon teams up with Uber on restaurant delivery, years after shutting down its own service
(Amazon Image) Amazon is bringing Uber Eats inside its own app, letting U.S. Prime members order restaurant delivery without a separate Uber account and skip the delivery fee on orders of $25 or more. The deal replaces a Prime perk with Grubhub, which Amazon made an ongoing benefit in 2024 after a one-year trial. Amazon said in a statement to GeekWire that it has ended that agreement after...
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Zillow CEO’s reality check on AI agents: ‘Finding a home isn’t a chore to hand off to a robot’
Zillow Group CEO Jeremy Wacksman says home shoppers want to do the searching themselves, even as AI agents take on more everyday tasks. (Zillow Photo) People will let AI agents cancel subscriptions and book appointments, but most won’t want one to do their house hunting, predicts Zillow Group CEO Jeremy Wacksman. Wacksman made the case Wednesday afternoon in prepared remarks on Zillow’s...
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A year in, Smartsheet CEO Raj Singh bets on a new vision beyond the company’s flagship product
Smartsheet CEO Raj Singh unveils vsActual, an AI product that customers can use without Smartsheet, during his keynote at the company’s Engage conference in Seattle on Wednesday. (GeekWire Photo / Todd Bishop) Smartsheet’s biggest new product in years doesn’t require Smartsheet. The Bellevue, Wash.-based company on Wednesday unveiled vsActual, as in “plan versus actual,” an AI product that...
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A rare second exit: AI startup Suplari acquired by Docusign nearly 3 years after Microsoft spinout
Members of the Suplari team, as pictured on the company website. (Suplari Photo) Some startups dream of getting acquired by a big tech company. Suplari has now done it twice. Docusign on Tuesday announced its acquisition of the AI-powered spending analysis company, five years after Microsoft bought the Seattle-based startup and nearly three years after the Redmond tech giant spun the...
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Washington voters keep millionaires tax, splitting tech leaders over the state’s competitive edge
The Washington State Capitol Building in Olympia. (GeekWire Photo / Kurt Schlosser) Washington voters appear to have upheld the state’s new tax on high earners, putting the state on track to lose its place among the nine states without an income tax — a status that tech leaders have long touted as an edge in recruiting companies and talent. Initiative 645, which would repeal the 9.9% tax on...
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First X-BAT fighter jet prototype unveiled as Shield AI preps Seattle area factory for 2027 launch
A prototype of Shield AI’s X-Bat AI fighter jet, which will be built in the Seattle area. (Photo via Shield AI) Defense technology startup Shield AI has completed its first full-scale prototype of the X-BAT autonomous fighter jet as the company prepares its manufacturing and engineering hub south of Seattle. Constructed in 12 months at a facility in Frisco, Texas, the prototype is...
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Ai2 gets $5M from Google to turn AI weather model into a tool for projecting climate change
Ai2 plans to use funding from Google to build an open-source AI model for projecting climate change decades into the future. (Ai2 Image) Google is giving Seattle’s Allen Institute for AI about $5 million in funding, plus another $1.8 million in cloud credits, to turn an AI weather model developed by Google Research into a tool for projecting climate change decades into the future. The money...
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Amazon plans its first large-scale data centers in Washington state as residents raise concerns
Racks of servers inside an AWS data center in 2023. (AWS Photo / Noah Berger) Amazon is moving toward building its first large-scale data centers in Washington state, with a proposed campus in Walla Walla County and a second in the Tri-Cities that the company confirmed this week. The expansion into Amazon’s home state comes amid nationwide pushback against the rapid deployment of new AI...
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Finpilot raises $10M for AI agents that handle the grunt work for institutional investors
Finpilot co-founder and CEO Lakshay Chauhan. (Finpilot Photo) Seattle startup Finpilot, which uses AI agents to take the paperwork off the plates of people who invest money for hospitals, pension funds and foundations, has raised $10 million in a Series A round. The round was led by Bay Area venture firm Lobby Capital, with participation from Madrona, which led Finpilot’s $4 million seed...
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Rover hires Textio co-founder Jensen Harris and former Amazon exec Vik Rajagopal
Rover CFO Vik Rajagopal, left, and Jensen Harris, the company’s new president of marketplace, product and technology. (Photos via Rover) Seattle-based pet care marketplace Rover is adding two executives to its leadership team: former Motus CFO Vik Rajagopal as chief financial officer and Textio co-founder Jensen Harris as president of marketplace, product and technology. Rajagopal succeeds...
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Starfish Space loses contact with its Otter spacecraft, ending satellite inspection mission
An artist’s conception shows Starfish Space’s Otter spacecraft in orbit. (Starfish Space Illustration) Starfish Space says it can no longer receive data from its first full-scale Otter space vehicle, bringing a $15 million NASA mission to inspect inoperable satellites to a premature end. In a LinkedIn post, the Tukwila, Wash.-based startup said its Otter 24C spacecraft was not able to...
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Filing: Amazon’s previously announced layoffs include 95 jobs in Washington state
Most of the employees in the latest Washington notice are based in Amazon’s Seattle offices. (GeekWire File Photo / Kurt Schlosser) A notice made public Tuesday evening, disclosing about 95 Amazon job cuts in Washington state, is part of the company’s previously reported layoffs in its retail business, not a new round of reductions, a spokesperson confirmed. The filing lists software...
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Amazon rewrites its software engineering playbook for an era when AI writes the code
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 week. The group, whose existence hasn’t been previously reported, was formed in April. Velocity Labs has...
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Don’t miss Seattle tech’s biggest holiday party: Get early bird tickets for the GeekWire Gala
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 hundreds of the region’s top founders, investors, entrepreneurs and business leaders. This year, we’re...
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Tech Moves: Microsoft loses a CVP to AWS and gains one from Alteryx; Lila Bio and BECU name execs
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 decades, he also worked on messaging, mobile services and partner experience for cloud services. He most...
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Opinion: San Francisco is delivering, while Seattle is still deliberating
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, email tips@geekwire.com. How can a region care so much, spend billions in tax dollars and yet leave...
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Microsoft opens Imagine Cup to startups, and the new rules show how its AI strategy has changed
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 competition for student developers since 2003, is expanding for the first time to early-stage startups...
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Accent bias: AI models penalize certain speakers in interviews and tests, UW study finds
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 job candidates giving the same answer to the same interview question, word for word. One has an...
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How a Starbucks drive-thru ‘fast pass’ could actually work
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 implementation might not be as sci-fi as some of the headlines suggest. CEO Brian Niccol said on...
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Who gets your vote? What rumors should you spot? Election quiz and bingo offer guidance
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 of Washington researchers have a bingo card for spotting familiar election-fraud rumors. Both offer...
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Startup uses motion sensors and AI to tell families when an aging parent’s routine changes
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 wearables. Motion sensors placed around the home feed Thessai’s AI software, which learns a person’s...
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Pope Leo XIV on AI
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 Leo XIV. The timing shows how much AI matters to him. His remarks were important, on target, and...
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Week in Review: Most popular stories on GeekWire for the week of Oct. 25, 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 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 GeekWire Microsoft is offering buyouts to about 60,000 employees in the U.S., Canada, the U.K. and...
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Microsoft’s big buyout, Amazon’s trillion-dollar future, and an AI wearable reviews our show
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 week’s GeekWire Podcast, we discuss what’s behind the offer, why buyout stories draw so much interest...
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Washington governor rips Microsoft over TV ad in leaked audio
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 a TV ad describing state government as broken, according to newly leaked audio from a Seattle...
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Madrona Prize goes to UW research on agents that shrink AI models to run on small chips
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 Baxter Black of Madrona. (Photo by Kristine White) A University of Washington project that uses...
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Filing: Chip startup Powerlattice raises $86M to ease AI’s power crunch
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 funding is nearly triple the $31 million the company had raised when it emerged from stealth last...
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Metal fabricator NIC Global to cut 103 jobs near Seattle, move production to Eastern Washington
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 company to shift production primarily to Eastern Washington to meet data center-related growth. The...
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Power outage takes down KEXP streaming for Seattle radio station’s worldwide audience
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 running. The outage started around midnight, and the station was on and off for a while before it...
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