GEEK News
Who gives a Zuck? Seattle does, apparently: Meta CEO’s giant yacht brings gawkers to Lake Union
Two people in a dinghy get a c loser look at Launchpad, the superyacht docked in Seattle on Lake Union on Wednesday. (GeekWire Photo / Kurt Schlosser) People saw it on Facebook. And they saw it on Instagram. But many had to come see it up close and in person. Social media scrollers turned into real-life gawkers on Wednesday as a steady stream of onlookers paused along the western shore of...
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Blue Origin readies New Glenn rocket to launch 48 Amazon Leo satellites after FAA clearance
New Glenn rockets are being processed inside Blue Origin’s Florida facility. (Blue Origin Photo) Five weeks after experiencing its first launch failure, Kent, Wash.-based Blue Origin is getting ready to put its heavy-lift New Glenn rocket back in service to launch 48 satellites into low Earth orbit for the growing Amazon Leo constellation. The mission, designated as NG-4 for the rocket and...
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Snowflake commits $6B to Amazon Web Services over 5 years in latest AI infrastructure deal
Snowflake’s office in Bellevue’s Spring District, where it expanded its regional presence last year. (GeekWire Photo / Kurt Schlosser) Snowflake on Wednesday committed to spend $6 billion on Amazon Web Services over five years, adding to the cloud giant’s growing roster of AI infrastructure deals. Snowflake, which sells cloud-based data warehousing and AI tools to big businesses, said the...
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Seattle teens to take on real-world ocean science challenges in underwater robotics championship
The Triton Robotics team, back row from left: Griffin Fisher, Tenzin Larkin, Thomas Gust, Simon Hajduk, Theo Lipson. Front row from left: Miles Lipson, Emi Enoki. (Triton Robotics Photo) A team of Seattle high schoolers will compete against underwater robotics teams from around the world during the MATE ROV World Championships in Canada next month. Triton Robotics is making its third...
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CodeIntegrity raises $5M to put permanent guardrails on unpredictable AI agents
CodeIntegrity’s co-founders are CEO Steven Jung, left, and CTO Abi Raghuram. (CodeIntegrity Photo) The computer security startup CodeIntegrity on Wednesday announced a $5 million seed round to support its efforts to build meaningful protections for agentic AI applications. The San Francisco-based company made a splash last year when it demonstrated how easy it was to trick AI models from...
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Eli Lilly to acquire Seattle-area biotech in $1.5 billion bet on next-generation shingles vaccine
Curevo CEO George Simeon. (Curevo Photo) Eli Lilly has agreed to acquire Curevo Vaccine in a deal centered on a next-generation shingles vaccine aimed at improving tolerability and boosting vaccination rates among older adults. The deal includes up to $1.5 billion in cash for the Bothell, Wash.-based biotech, consisting of an upfront payment and a contingent milestone payment. At the...
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Amazon offers its AI shopping tech to outside retailers in new phase of agentic commerce race
A demo of the AWS Agentic Shopping Assistant: an AI-powered style advisor operating on a retailer’s mobile site. (AWS Photo) Amazon’s cloud division announced an AI shopping assistant for retailers, following the company’s broader blueprint of turning its internal technology into products for others. The new tool from Amazon Web Services, the AWS Agentic Shopping Assistant, is built on the...
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Watch: Zuckerberg’s superyacht arrives in Seattle just as Meta cuts 1,400 local jobs
Mark Zuckerberg’s 387-foot superyacht Launchpad passes through Seattle’s Ballard Locks on Tuesday. (GeekWire Photo / Todd Bishop) Mark Zuckerberg’s $300 million superyacht passed through Seattle’s Ballard Locks on Tuesday, the same day Meta disclosed plans to cut nearly 1,400 jobs in Washington state. The 387-foot Launchpad, built by Dutch shipbuilder Feadship, traveled from Elliott Bay...
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NASA taps Blue Origin to deliver lunar rovers for Moon Base initiative
An artist’s conception shows Blue Origin’s Blue Moon Mark 1 lander lowering an Astrolab rover to the lunar surface. (NASA Illustration) Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture has won NASA’s nod to deliver crew-carrying rovers to the lunar surface as part of the space agency’s decade-long plan to create a base near the moon’s south pole. “America is returning to the moon,” NASA Administrator...
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Etzioni on AI: The Pope can talk, but only we can walk
On May 25, Pope Leo XIV released Magnifica Humanitas — “Magnificent Humanity”— the first encyclical of his papacy, subtitled “On Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence.” There’s something incongruous about turning to the Catholic Church for moral guidance on AI. This is an ancient institution with a deeply complex history, still reckoning with its own moral...
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Meta cuts nearly 1,400 jobs in Seattle area, 20% of local workforce, in sweeping AI revamp
One of Meta’s buildings in Bellevue’s Spring District, where nearly 700 jobs are being cut. (GeekWire File Photo / Kurt Schlosser) Facebook parent company Meta is cutting 1,395 jobs in Washington state, about 20% of its local workforce, as part of a companywide effort eliminating about 8,000 positions as part of an aggressive push into artificial intelligence. Details of the Seattle-area...
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No dirt, no tractor, no problem: Canopii aims to tuck robotic farms into tennis court-sized urban spaces
Canopii’s team among its robotic system and basil plants. CEO and co-founder David Ashton is tossing greens. (Canopii Photo / Bryan Aulick) A running joke in the agricultural field is the average age of a U.S. farmer is 58 today, but that will tick up by one next year. The trouble is, it’s not so funny when the people who grow our food are aging out with no one to replace them. An Oregon...
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Climate progress at 30,000 feet: Alaska Airlines’ Ryan Spies on the flight path to sustainable aviation
Ryan Spies, Alaska Airlines’ managing director of sustainability. (Photo courtesy of Spies) Ryan Spies, Alaska Airlines’ managing director of sustainability, isn’t a climate perfectionist. Yes, he drives an EV — but he also eats a relatively carbon-intensive cheeseburger now and then. What matters more, he says, is when people work to drive larger-scale change: engaging in collective...
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New tune for Code.org’s Hadi Partovi: CEO of piano education venture with unique method and big ambitions
Hadi Partovi, founder of Code.org and new CEO of Payam Music, speaking at a Microsoft event in July 2025. (GeekWire Photo / Todd Bishop) Hadi Partovi helped kids around the world learn to code. Next on the playlist: piano. The Code.org founder, who earlier this year handed off the CEO role at the nonprofit, announced this weekend that he is the new CEO of Payam Music, a Bothell, Wash.-based...
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Week in Review: Most popular stories on GeekWire for the week of May 17, 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 17, 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 Friends and colleagues remembered S. “Soma” Somasegar, the longtime Microsoft developer leader...
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Etzioni on AI: The Virgin Unicorns
Illustration generated by Google Gemini Twelve AI labs have a combined valuation larger than Ford and GM. None of them sell anything. I call them the Virgin Unicorns — valued above a billion dollars, but innocent of product or revenue. OpenAI proved that an AI research lab with the right product could become one of the most valuable companies on earth. A dozen other AI labs are trying to...
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SpaceX IPO filing reveals Starlink’s impact, Bezos sounds off on CNBC, and Gemini owes John a beer
This week on a supersized Memorial Day Weekend edition of the GeekWire Podcast: A massive IPO filing from SpaceX includes new details about Elon Musk’s Starlink business and its satellite factory in Redmond. Jeff Bezos talks about wealth, inequality and eventually tech in an hour-long CNBC appearance. John goes to World Cup ticketing hell and turns to ChatGPT and Gemini when...
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Robot pizza startup runs out of dough: Picnic shuts down, sells assets to mystery buyer
Freshly sliced pepperoni is delivered via conveyer belt onto a pizza being assembled by a Picnic pizza-making robot. (GeekWire File Photo) Picnic, the 10-year-old Seattle food automation startup that set out to revolutionize the production of pizza with robotics, has shut down and liquidated its assets. According to legal documents and an email to creditors and investors, Picnic was unable...
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What’s next for Bungie? Rumored layoffs and end of ‘Destiny 2’ updates raise questions about studio’s future
(Bungie press image) Thursday abruptly became a big news day for fans of Bellevue, Wash.-based video game developer Bungie, which announced that it plans to cease development on its popular online shooter Destiny 2. Eight hours after Bungie’s announcement, Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier released a piece that alleges Bungie plans “a significant number of layoffs” once Destiny 2 is brought to a...
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Tech Moves: Xbox names CTO; Smartsheet gets first AI chief; Amazon VP departs for DoorDash
Scott Van Vliet. (LinkedIn Photo) — Microsoft’s Xbox promoted Scott Van Vliet to the role of chief technology officer. Van Vliet, based in the Los Angeles area, has been with the company across two stints totaling more than seven years, with work on Teams and Azure Communication Services. “I’ve been a gamer my whole life and an Xbox fan since day one, so this is a rare opportunity to bring...
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Bellevue teens targeting salmon die-offs and mental health win big at international science fair
Lakshmi Agrawal, left, and Anusha Arora, both of Bellevue, Wash., hold their prizes at the Society for Science’s Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair earlier this month. (Lisa Fryklund / Licensed by Society for Science) Two teenagers from Bellevue, Wash., took home a combined $125,000 at the world’s largest high school science competition this month — one for a low-cost filter...
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The view from Bellevue: Seattle has the foundation for future growth — if it can fix its taxes
Participants at the Bellevue Chamber’s Seattle-focused luncheon, from left: Joe Nguyen, Seattle Metro Chamber; Tiffini Connell, West Coast Commercial Realty; Jon Scholes, Downtown Seattle Association; and moderator Joe Fain, Bellevue Chamber. (GeekWire Photo / Lisa Stiffler) BELLEVUE, Wash. — The foundational pieces that tee a city up for economic success are well established: an educated...
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A ‘final season’ at Microsoft for Yusuf Mehdi: Longtime exec plans to leave after one last year
Yusuf Mehdi speaks at Microsoft’s Copilot+ PC event in May 2024. (GeekWire Photo / Todd Bishop) Yusuf Mehdi, one of Microsoft’s best-known and longest-serving business leaders, whose tenure has spanned 35 years from Windows 3.1 to Copilot, plans to leave the company after one more year — his “final season,” as he called it in an interview. Mehdi, 59, is Microsoft’s EVP and consumer chief...
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Why this Seattle-area startup is putting its name on the front of an English Premier League soccer team
Crystal Palace Football Club and Seattle-area open-source software platform Temporal are partnering on a front-of-shirt sponsorship deal. (Crystal Palace Image) A Seattle-area developer tools startup is doing something that no amount of banner ads or conference booths could: it’s putting its name on the chest of an English Premier League football club. Temporal, the Bellevue workflow...
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CEO of Paul Allen’s $3.1B science and tech fund steps down less than a year after launch
Dr. Lynda Stuart’s last day at the Fund for Science and Technology was May 8. (File photo courtesy FFST) The first CEO of the Fund for Science and Technology, the $3.1 billion foundation responsible for giving away a large portion of the late Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen’s fortune, has stepped down nine months after its public launch. Dr. Lynda Stuart, a physician-scientist who...
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SpaceX is churning out 70 Starlink satellites a week in Redmond, and other tidbits from its IPO filing
SpaceX is producing an average of 70 Starlink satellites per week in Redmond, its IPO filing shows. (GeekWire Photo / Alan Boyle) Redmond, Wash., has been known for decades as the home of Microsoft, to the extent that the city’s name has become synonymous with the software giant. Maybe it’s time to rethink that, because it’s also home to one of the world’s most prolific satellite...
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UW’s Ed Lazowska adds ‘Distinguished Teaching Legacy Award’ to his long list of honors
University of Washington professor emeritus Ed Lazowska. (UW Photo / Mark Stone) Ed Lazowska needs to clear more room in the trophy case. The University of Washington professor emeritus — a longtime computer science educator, researcher and fixture in Seattle’s tech community — has been honored with the 2026 Distinguished Teaching Legacy Award, UW Magazine reported this week. The...
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Opinion: Washington state’s tax debate is missing half the equation
Housing costs, public safety concerns and the local political climate have all contributed to Seattle’s struggles. But tax policy influences business decisions too, particularly at the margin where firms decide where future hiring and expansion will occur. (GeekWire File Photo / Kurt Schlosser) [Editor’s note: Alex Murray is a small business owner who has previously written for GeekWire about...
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EV startup Electric Era launches battery systems to tackle data center energy crunch
Artist’s rendering of a CoPower Platform by Electric Era. (Electric Era Image). Seattle EV charging startup Electric Era is applying its battery expertise to energy storage systems for data centers. The company on Thursday announced the CoPower Platform, which pairs large batteries with the software it developed to manage its EV charging stations. Those DC fast-charging systems already...
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Meet the company that won the Microsoft-donated World Cup suite with a $100k bid for a great cause
L-R: Michael Atalla, chief marketing officer at UiPath and Katie Fath, director of community giving at Seattle Children’s Hospital with John Cook, GeekWire co-founder and publisher. (GeekWire Photo / Todd Bishop) Seattle’s business and tech community just delivered a World Cup-sized assist for a great cause. A premium 2026 World Cup suite experience, donated by Microsoft, raised $100,000...
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AI is not your strategy: Author and business advisor Brian Evergreen explains why vision comes first
GeekWire’s Todd Bishop interviews author and strategist Brian Evergreen for the GeekWire Podcast at an Agents of Transformation dinner presented by Accenture at El Gaucho in Bellevue, Wash. (GeekWire Photo / Holly Grambihler) [Editor’s Note: Agents of Transformation is an independent GeekWire series, underwritten by Accenture, exploring the adoption and impact of AI and agents. See coverage of...
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Data center resistance comes home to Seattle as council considers a one-year freeze
The rooftop park on Ocean Pavilion offers views of the Seattle skyline and Elliott Bay. (GeekWire Photo / Kurt Schlosser) While tech companies including Microsoft and Amazon call the Seattle area home, residents are voicing opposition to the construction of new data centers that underpin their operations. Seattle City Council is considering a one-year moratorium on the computing...
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‘One of a kind’: Tributes pour in for S. ‘Soma’ Somasegar, beloved tech mentor and friend
S. “Soma” Somasegar at AWS re:Invent in 2019. (GeekWire File Photo / Todd Bishop) The tributes came quickly for S. “Soma” Somasegar, and they came from seemingly everywhere and everyone he touched across the technology and business community. A consistent picture emerged: Somasegar was kind, generous with his time, humble, and a steadying presence. To many, those qualities mattered even...
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Former Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell has a new gig — startup CEO
Former Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell at the GeekWire Summit in Seattle in October 2022. (GeekWire File Photo / Dan DeLong) Bruce Harrell has a new job — with term sheets and customers as opposed to stump speeches and constituents. The former mayor of Seattle is the new CEO of Filium, a Seattle-based sustainable textile company founded in 2015 as Ably. The move puts the longtime Seattle...
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At Tech Alliance annual luncheon, a stark analysis and a call to action
Tech Alliance CEO Laura Ruderman addresses the crowd at State of Technology luncheon in Seattle. (GeekWire Photo / Todd Bishop) It’s a complicated moment in Washington, our home state, where the tech giants are strong, the satellites are abundant, and economic growth may no longer be above average. That was the feeling walking out of the Technology Alliance’s annual State of Technology...
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