GEEK News
‘This cannot continue’: Microsoft Xbox CEO calls for reset amid reports of looming job cuts
Microsoft’s restyled Xbox logo. (Microsoft Image) Xbox CEO Asha Sharma, roughly 100 days into her tenure, delivered a blunt assessment of Microsoft’s gaming business in a memo to employees Wednesday, saying that heavy spending with thin profit margins and declining revenue “cannot continue.” The memo, posted publicly on the Xbox blog, came as Bloomberg News reported that the division is...
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Silicon Valley venture capitalist and LA billionaire reportedly weighing Seahawks bids
Venture capitalist Vinod Khosla speaks in Seattle in 2025. (GeekWire File Photo) The list of potential buyers for the Seattle Seahawks is starting to look like an NFL Pro Bowl roster of billionaires, venture capitalists and global business leaders. Billionaire financier Todd Boehly is the latest high-profile name linked to the franchise, according to a report from Semafor, joining a field...
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Two-hour learning? AI-powered Alpha School lands in Seattle region
Alpha School has leased space in this building in Kirkland for its first Seattle-area school. (GeekWire Photo / Todd Bishop) Alpha School, an AI-driven private school chain that promises to teach kids core academics in two hours a day, plans to open a Seattle-area location in Kirkland this fall and will run its first local weekly summer programs on Microsoft’s Redmond campus starting in late...
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Tumbler tussle: Seattle’s MiiR sues Tesla, alleging copied cup design
The beverage tumblers from MiiR, left, and Tesla that are being compared in a lawsuit. (MiiR, Tesla Images, GeekWire Composite Image) MiiR, the Seattle-based maker of drinkware and other accessories, is suing Tesla, alleging the Elon Musk-led company copied its tumbler lid design and appearance. In a lawsuit filed May 28 in U.S. District Court in Seattle, MiiR alleges Tesla’s On The Road...
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Bill Gates goes to Capitol Hill in Epstein case as his ventures feel the effects
Bill Gates appeared voluntarily behind closed doors before House Oversight Committee investigators on Wednesday to answer questions about his ties to Jeffrey Epstein, part of a larger turn in his image that has been rippling through the Seattle-area institutions he built and funds. In a statement in advance of his testimony, the Microsoft co-founder gave his most detailed public account...
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Microsoft’s Brad Smith: Graduates jeering AI are ‘telling us what we need to hear’
Brad Smith speaks at a Microsoft Elevate event at Seattle’s Museum of History and Industry in 2025. (GeekWire Photo / Todd Bishop) The interests of Microsoft and graduates rebelling against AI are actually aligned. That was one takeaway for Brad Smith, Microsoft president and vice chair, from a recent return to his alma mater, Princeton University, for its reunion weekend. Seniors wore...
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Ex-Icertis executives raise $7.5M for Rivvun, a startup that recovers lost corporate cash
Rivvun co-founders Anand Veerkar, Niranjan Umarane, and Patrick Linton. Photos via Rivvun, composite image by GeekWire Two former executives from enterprise software giant Icertis have teamed up to launch a new Seattle startup aimed at a multi-trillion-dollar corporate headache. Rivvun AI, which today is announcing a $7.55 million oversubscribed seed funding round from Sitara Capital and...
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‘This is Seattle’s position on AI’: City Council votes unanimously to pause big new data centers
Supporters of a permanent data center ban, including members of Kshama Sawant’s congressional campaign, hold signs reading “Stop the Data Centers & AI Layoffs” during public comment at Tuesday’s Seattle City Council meeting. (Screenshot via Seattle Channel) The city that gave the world cloud computing just hit pause on the machines that power it. The Seattle City Council voted unanimously...
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Founders on the frontiers of space and robotics show off their gadgets and tell the stories behind them
Carbon Robotics CEO Paul Mikesell talks about his company’s LaserWeeder system with a model of Starfish Space’s Otter Pup spacecraft sitting on the table in the foreground. (GeekWire Photo / Alan Boyle) Four founders of companies on the tech frontier got together this week at a Seattle conference for a show-and-tell about the hardware at the heart of their businesses. And like any good...
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‘City at your fingertips’: Seattle powers up first digital wayfinding kiosk near tourist hot-spot
Jon Scholes, president and CEO of the Downtown Seattle Association, cuts the ceremonial ribbon on an IKE Smart City digital kiosk at First Avenue and Pike Street in Seattle on Tuesday, alongside current and former officials from the city, DSA and Orange Barrel Media. (GeekWire Photo / Kurt Schlosser) The iconic neon sign at the Pike Place Market in Seattle manages to attract a lot of...
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After lagging behind, Gov. Ferguson pushes for statewide school cellphone ban in Washington
(BigStock Photo) Washington state Gov. Bob Ferguson on Tuesday announced that banning cellphone use in kindergarten through 12th grade throughout the school day will be one of his top priorities when lawmakers convene in January. “More than half of states across the country are moving in one direction, and one direction only. They’re passing laws to keep cell phones out of classrooms,”...
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Seattle slips in ranking of best U.S. cities for foreign investment, fueling concerns about business climate
The Seattle skyline. (GeekWire File Photo / Kurt Schlosser) Seattle declined in a new ranking of the best places in the U.S. to attract foreign businesses and investment, drawing fresh concern and criticism in the ongoing debate about the business climate in both the city and Washington state. The fifth annual list compiled by British newspaper Financial Times and stock market index Nikkei...
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Golden Analytics lands $14M seed extension and opens AI platform to public beta
Francois Ajenstat, Golden Analytics founder and CEO. Golden Analytics, the AI-native analytics startup founded by former Tableau product chief Francois Ajenstat, added $14 million to its seed financing round just two months after emerging from stealth, bringing its total seed funding to $21 million. The additional funding, announced Tuesday, was led by Insight Partners, with existing...
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Meet ArchAstro: Ex-Stripe, Microsoft and Meta vets assemble powerhouse team for cross-company AI agents
Vivek Sharma, Rob Masson, Tore Hanssen and Calvin Grunewald of ArchAstro (ArchAstro photo) ArchAstro just emerged from stealth with an artificial intelligence network designed to automate complex, cross-company software deployments and integrations. Founded earlier this year by a team of veteran engineers from Microsoft, Stripe, Statsig and Meta, the Seattle-area startup is tackling a...
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Expeditors cuts 230 tech jobs in Seattle region, ending decades-long policy against layoffs
Expeditors had previously been expanding its technology staff, according to its financial reports. (Alamy Photo / JHVEPhoto) Updated below with confirmation via a state filing by the company. Expeditors International, the Seattle-area logistics company known for never laying off employees, cut about 230 technology-related jobs in Washington state on Monday, ending a tradition that had been...
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Ai2’s Skylight project launches ‘Shippy,’ an AI agent that dives into ocean data
Skylight’s new Shippy AI agent answers a plain-language question about vessels in Seattle’s harbor, showing a breakdown of vessel types alongside a map of the area. (Skylight Image) Skylight, the free ocean-monitoring platform built by Seattle’s Allen Institute for AI (Ai2), launched an AI agent that gives maritime analysts answers to plain-language questions about what’s happening across the...
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Hydrogen aviation startup ZeroAvia retreats from Seattle area as it scales back ambitions
The nose of ZeroAvia’s Q400. The company in 2023 announced a partnering with Alaska Airlines to retrofit the aircraft with ZeroAvia’s powertrain. (GeekWire Photo / Lisa Stiffler) ZeroAvia was flying high. After launching in California in 2017, the clean aviation startup was expanding, establishing an R&D facility in Everett in the shadow of aerospace juggernaut Boeing and running test flights...
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FCC gives Amazon Leo more leeway on its satellite deployment schedule
Amazon Leo satellites are folded up in their dispenser, ready for deployment in low Earth orbit. (Amazon Photo) The Federal Communications Commission has freed Amazon from a requirement to deploy the first 1,616 satellites in its Amazon Leo broadband internet constellation by July 30. The looming deadline had been a condition of the FCC’s 2020 license for the network, when it was known as...
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This is bold … and italic and more: Microsoft Azure CTO vibe codes a text formatter for LinkedIn posts
Microsoft Azure CTO Mark Russinovich at the GeekWire Cloud Tech Summit in 2018. (GeekWire File Photo / Kevin Lisota) Mark Russinovich writes a lot of LinkedIn posts. Going forward it appears he’ll be formatting the text for those posts in a new tool he built. In a LinkedIn post on Sunday — complete with bold, italic, bullets, emojis and more — the longtime Microsoft Azure CTO said he vibe...
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Zillow co-founder and Seattle tech icon Rich Barton takes up residence in Las Vegas
Zillow Group co-founder Rich Barton. (GeekWire File Photo / Kevin Lisota) The man who helped revolutionize how Americans buy and sell homes has a new residence. Seattle entrepreneur Rich Barton, who co-founded Zillow Group in Seattle 20 years ago and remains its co-executive chairman, announced on X that he’s now officially a Las Vegas resident: “Kids are launched, empty nest achieved, and...
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Remaster specialist Nightdive takes on classic stealth game ‘Thief: The Dark Project’
(Nightdive Studios press image) Nightdive Studios, based in Vancouver, Wash., has made its reputation from remasters and re-releases of dozens of out-of-print PC gaming classics. On Sunday, it announced its next project is the 1998 cult classic Thief: The Dark Project. The news came as part of PC Gamer’s PC Gaming Show for 2026, which was part of this year’s Summer Game Fest in Los Angeles....
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Xbox Showcase 2026: New CEO’s first broadcast shows off ‘Gears of War,’ ‘Halo,’ ‘Spyro’ and more
(Microsoft press image) Microsoft released a new pre-recorded Xbox Showcase on Sunday morning as part of this year’s Summer Game Fest event, which also marked new CEO Asha Sharma’s first big public event since taking over the company’s gaming division. Back in February when Sharma took over Xbox, some analysts, including me, openly wondered if she was there to shut down the department....
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Week in Review: Most popular stories on GeekWire for the week of May 31, 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 May 31, 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 A team inside Microsoft has been quietly building a platform for devices that run AI agents...
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Microsoft Build decoded: Solara, Scout, AI models, GitHub’s woes and more with Mary Jo Foley
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella speaks onstage at Microsoft Build 2026 in San Francisco. (Photo by Dan DeLong for Microsoft) Microsoft’s Build conference was a firehose: in-house AI models, agent-first devices, new coding tools, and a Copilot “super app” that got teased but not yet shown. This week on the GeekWire Podcast, we’re joined by Mary Jo Foley to understand what’s ready and what’s not...
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The big AI labs are eating the startup playbook — here’s where founders can still compete
Mia Lewin of TheFounderVC, left, and Yifan Zhang of AI2 Incubator spoke on a panel with Bryan Hale of Anthos Capital, and Tim Porter of Madrona discuss where startups can find a niche at the Technology Alliance Seattle Investor Summit+Showcase in Redmond, moderated by Laura Barr of Orrick, foreground. (GeekWire Photo / Todd Bishop) REDMOND, Wash. — Startup founders used to worry that tech...
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Tech Moves: Salesforce names president; Microsoft execs coming and going; Amazon departures
Rohan Kumar on the big screen. (LInkedIn Photo) — After 28 years at Microsoft, Rohan Kumar is heading to Salesforce as president and chief platform officer, based out of the San Francisco company’s Bellevue, Wash., offices. The rise of automated AI agents is “reshaping how every company thinks about work, software, data, productivity and customer relationships,” Kumar said on LinkedIn,...
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Zuckerberg’s superyacht moves north out of Seattle, dwarfing ferries along the way
The superyacht Launchpad, right, passes in front of the Walla Walla, a Washington State Ferries vessel making the run from Kingston to Edmonds across Puget Sound on Thursday. (Tim Davis Photo / timdavisimages) Give way, Washington State Ferries, Mark Zuckerberg’s superyacht has a new port of call — it’s now north of Seattle off Everett, Wash. Launchpad was spotted Thursday making the move...
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LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman to leave Microsoft board after nearly a decade
Reid Hoffman speaks at a Tech Alliance event in Seattle in 2017. (GeekWire File Photo / Todd Bishop) Reid Hoffman, the LinkedIn co-founder who has served on Microsoft’s board since 2017, will not stand for re-election at the company’s 2026 annual meeting, ending a board tenure that coincided with some of the most consequential years in the tech giant’s history. Hoffman informed Microsoft on...
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Etzioni on AI: Ten Commandments for AI Startups
Not on the list: Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s GPUs. (AI-Generated Image by Google Gemini) For my 10th column in the “Etzioni on AI” series, I want to share ten commandments for AI startups, preceded by timeless classics that still apply. They draw on my work with founders at the AI2 Incubator, Madrona, and my own experience as an AI founder from Netbot (1996) to Vercept (2024). To...
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Innovega’s smart glasses aim to improve sight for people with visual impairments
Innovega’s Gen One smart glasses capture the scene with a camera and project an enhanced image onto transparent displays to help people with low vision see more clearly. (Innovega Image) Innovega, a company known for its augmented-reality contact lens technology, has turned its focus to a different product for now: smart glasses for people who are visually impaired. The market: nearly 300...
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Docusign moving downtown Seattle offices, leaving its namesake tower
The JPMorganChase Center in downtown Seattle will be getting a new tech tenant, Docusign. (GeekWire Photo / Taylor Soper) Electronic signature powerhouse Docusign is reportedly moving its offices in downtown Seattle a few blocks north, leaving the tower that bears its name. The Seattle Times reports that Docusign signed a 115,000 square foot lease at JPMorganChase Center, with plans to...
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Find it, fix it: Seattle startup Emphere raises $2.1M to automate software vulnerability patching
Emphere co-founders Ankit Kumar, CEO, left, and Pallav Gupta, CTO. (Emphere Photos) AI-powered security tools are getting increasingly good at finding vulnerabilities, but a new Seattle startup is aiming to help software companies do the harder part: fixing them. Emphere announced $2.1 million in pre-seed funding Thursday from AI2 Incubator and Outsiders Fund to automate the work of fixing...
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World Cup scoreboard in the sky: Drones will fly over Seattle to put match results in lights
High-scoring affair: A rendering of a drone-enabled score between the USA and Australia in the FIFA World Cup as it might appear in the Seattle sky near the Space Needle. (Visit Seattle Image) Soccer fans who aren’t there in person or not glued to their phones or TVs during FIFA World Cup matches in Seattle will be able to look to the sky for results. Visit Seattle is planning to launch...
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Data center operator reveals plans for downtown Seattle facility as city weighs one-year ban
The building at 301 Virginia St. in downtown Seattle, formerly a Bed Bath & Beyond store. (Image via King County property records) A Texas company has formally signaled plans to build a data center in downtown Seattle, even as the city moves toward a moratorium that could impact the construction of such facilities. Digital Realty of Austin, a real estate investment trust with more than 300...
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Google alert! Seattle-area teen wins Doodle contest with artwork celebrating hair and culture
The winning Google Doodle artwork by Kameirah Johnson of Renton, Wash. (Google Image) The Google homepage has a special look this morning thanks to the artwork of a Seattle-area teen. Kameirah Johnson, a senior at Lakeside School, is the winner of the 2026 Doodle for Google contest, and her work is now displayed online for the millions of people who visit the search giant. Kameirah, 18,...
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