June 05, 2015
Game devs unionize to improve working conditions on ‘Magic: The Gathering – Arena’ team
April 28, 2026
(Official UWOTC-CWA image) The team developing a video game based on Magic: The Gathering announced on Tuesday that they’ve unionized, describing the move as part of an attempt to improve working conditions at Renton, Wash.-based Wizards of the Coast and create better games. United Wizards of...
OpenAI’s models land on Amazon Bedrock, one day after Microsoft exclusivity ends
April 28, 2026
AWS CEO Matt Garman at the event Tuesday. (GeekWire Photo / Todd Bishop) SAN FRANCISCO — Amazon moved quickly Tuesday to capitalize on OpenAI’s new relationship status with Microsoft, launching a preview of OpenAI’s models on its Bedrock platform less than 24 hours after the ChatGPT maker was...
AWS turns Amazon’s hiring and supply chain expertise into new AI products for other businesses
April 28, 2026
Amazon Connect Talent shows recruiters anonymized candidate scores rather than names or resumes. (Amazon Image) SAN FRANCISCO — Amazon manages more than 400 million products in its supply chain and hired 250,000 seasonal workers last peak season. Now its cloud division is packaging up what the...
Truveta launches AI research tool to get quick insights from big database of U.S. clinical data
April 28, 2026
Screenshots of Truveta Intelligence, showing the query interface and sample results analyzing GLP-1 drug uptake trends. (Truveta Images) Truveta wants to give healthcare researchers something that has long eluded them: the ability to ask a question about real-world patient data and get an answer...
Seattle’s Sniffies lands $100M investment from Match Group in major bet on sex-positive tech
April 28, 2026
Sniffies about page. (Screenshot) Sniffies, a Seattle-based meetup platform for gay, bisexual and sexually curious men, has landed a $100 million investment from Match Group. The deal gives Match a significant minority ownership stake in the Grindr competitor, along with an option to acquire the...
T-Mobile enlists Starlink satellites for new ‘SuperBroadband’ business internet service
April 28, 2026
Mike Katz, T-Mobile’s chief business and product officer, speaks at an event last year highlighting the company’s longstanding satellite partnership with SpaceX’s Starlink. (GeekWire Photo / Todd Bishop) T-Mobile is boosting its footprint as a business internet provider, expanding further beyond...
Amazon earnings preview: Big AI deals meet a $200B spending binge
April 28, 2026
Amazon reports first-quarter earnings Wednesday amid accelerating cloud growth and a record capital spending plan. (GeekWire File Photo) Amazon reports first-quarter earnings Wednesday with more signs than ever that its cloud business is in demand, including a $244 billion revenue backlog,...
Inside the courthouse as Elon Musk’s suit against OpenAI and Microsoft goes to trial
April 27, 2026
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, left, and President Greg Brockman as photographed through the windows of the federal courthouse in Oakland as they arrived for jury selection in Elon Musk’s lawsuit against Altman, OpenAI, and Microsoft. (GeekWire Photos / Todd Bishop) OAKLAND — Did Microsoft knowingly...
Microsoft and OpenAI revamp partnership, with trial in Elon Musk suit set to begin
April 27, 2026
A crowd of lawyers and reporters waits outside the U.S. Courthouse in Oakland for the start of jury selection Monday in Elon Musk’s lawsuit against Sam Altman, OpenAI and Microsoft. (GeekWire Photo / Todd Bishop) OAKLAND — Microsoft and OpenAI announced a major amendment to their partnership...
Oprah goes Prime: Amazon secures multi-year rights to talk show queen’s video podcasts
April 27, 2026
Oprah Winfrey’s video podcast will be available across Amazon platforms. (Wondery Photo) Amazon has landed talk show queen Oprah Winfrey and her video podcasts for its suite of streaming services. “Long before the term ‘creator’ existed, Oprah was building a direct and deeply personal...
Late-night name drop: Seattle startup Tin Can achieves cultural milestone
April 27, 2026
Tin Can co-founder and CEO Chet Kittleson. (Tin Can Photo) Jimmy Kimmel was riffing on presidential social media habits last week when he offered a suggestion that doubled as an unscripted product endorsement. “I wonder if they’ve considered getting him one of those Tin Can phones like the...
Microsoft earnings preview: After a $357B wipeout, tech giant gets another chance
April 27, 2026
The last time Microsoft reported earnings, it seemed to do everything right, at least by the traditional metrics. Revenue was up 17%, profits soared 24%, and the company’s closely watched Azure cloud business beat internal forecasts. And then it got absolutely...
Week in Review: Most popular stories on GeekWire for the week of April 19, 2026
April 26, 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 19, 2026. Sign up to receive these updates every Sunday in your inbox by subscribing to our GeekWire Weekly email newsletter. Most popular stories on...
An AI hater’s guide to keeping LLMs as far from your workflow as possible in 2026
April 26, 2026
Clippy almost deserves an apology, now that we’ve seen what came next. (Original cartoon: Amadeo Garcia III for GeekWire) Longtime GeekWire readers might recognize my byline from my frequent coverage of the PNW’s video game industry, as well as occasionally dipping into the arts. I am also not a...
AI, fungi, and the future of enterprise tech: Industry vet Bill Hilf on his debut novel, ‘The Disruption’
April 25, 2026
Bill Hilf, board chair of the Allen Institute for AI and American Prairie, and author of the new novel “The Disruption.” (GeekWire Photo / Todd Bishop) Bill Hilf has spent decades working inside some of the biggest names in tech — bringing open source software into Microsoft when it was heresy,...
Internal memo: Five senior execs out at Qualtrics as new CEO restructures leadership team
April 24, 2026
Qualtrics is based in Provo, Utah, and downtown Seattle (above). (GeekWire File Photo) Qualtrics CEO Jason Maynard shook up the company’s senior leadership team on Friday at its dual headquarters in downtown Seattle and Provo, Utah, less than three months after taking the helm of the experience...
Tech Moves: Expedia names CFO; former Tune CEO leaves Roku; Amazon and Microsoft departures
April 24, 2026
Derek Andersen. (Expedia Photo) — Expedia Group named Derek Andersen as its new chief financial officer starting May 11. He succeeds Scott Schenkel, who is stepping down after more than two years in the role. The Seattle-based travel giant hired Andersen from Snap, the company behind...
Meta signs multibillion-dollar deal to use Amazon’s Graviton chips for agentic AI
April 24, 2026
An AWS Graviton chip. (Amazon Photo) Facebook parent Meta signed a deal to use Amazon’s Graviton chips for agentic AI, the latest indication of growing demand for the tech giant’s growing silicon business. Bloomberg reports that the deal is worth billions of dollars over multiple years. It...
Seattle HR leader’s candid book offers practical insights for building a business without losing yourself
April 24, 2026
Mikaela Kiner’s new book is “The Reverb Way: How to Build a Thriving Business Without Sacrificing It All.” (Photo courtesy Mikaela Kiner) The dreamy part of Mikaela Kiner‘s life is easy to picture. She has spent her recent winters working from a small Costa Rica beach town, taking surfing...
It’s just Xbox: Microsoft gaming leaders start new era with old name, new metric, and challenger mindset
April 23, 2026
The new Xbox logo, featuring glass effects, part of the “We Are Xbox” strategy shift. (Microsoft Image) Microsoft is changing the way it measures success in its Xbox business, focusing on daily active players rather than longer periods of time — a tighter measure that reflects the way the...
A nuclear first: TerraPower officially starts construction on next-gen Natrium plant in Wyoming
April 23, 2026
TerraPower is celebrating the start of construction on its nuclear plant in Kemmerer, Wyo. (TerraPower Photo) TerraPower announced Thursday that it has started construction on its Natrium plant, making it the first company in the U.S. to break ground on an advanced nuclear power...
Brute-force attack linked Rec Room user phone numbers to online identities
April 23, 2026
Rec Room gift cards in a retail kiosk in Seattle. The social gaming platform, which is shutting down June 1, experienced a previously unreported brute-force attack on its friend-finder feature earlier this year that linked user phone numbers to their online identities. (GeekWire Photo / Todd...
Microsoft will offer voluntary retirement to thousands of employees in a first for tech giant
April 23, 2026
Time to hang it up? Microsoft will be giving some employees that chance. (GeekWire Photo / Todd Bishop) Microsoft is offering a one-time voluntary retirement program for the first time in its 51-year history, giving thousands of long-serving U.S. employees a chance to leave with a financial...
Opinion: Which capitalism are we defending?
April 23, 2026
Editor’s Note: Nick Hanauer is a Seattle entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and founder of Civic Ventures. He was an early investor in Amazon and is co-founder of Second Avenue Partners. This piece is a reply to Chris DeVore’s “Make Democracy Capitalist Again.” Nick Hanauer. (Civic Ventures...
Iridius, led by Microsoft and AWS vets, raises $8.6M to crack AI’s regulatory compliance bottleneck
April 23, 2026
Iridius CEO and co-founder Mike Kropp. (Iridius Photo) Many companies in regulated industries such as pharmaceuticals are pouring money into AI. But a lot of that work ultimately doesn’t see the light of day, due to the compliance, validation, and audit requirements that govern every system they...
Amazon names AWS exec Prasad Kalyanaraman to S-team, promotes Dave Brown to SVP
April 22, 2026
Prasad Kalyanaraman, VP of AWS Infrastructure Services, has been named to Amazon’s senior leadership team. (Amazon Photo) Amazon added a new member to its senior leadership team Wednesday, naming AWS infrastructure chief Prasad Kalyanaraman to the group known as the S-team or “steam,” while also...
LinkedIn CEO change: Daniel Shapero takes the helm as Microsoft broadens leadership team
April 22, 2026
New LinkedIn CEO Daniel Shapero, left, and Ryan Roslansky, EVP of LinkedIn and Microsoft Office, at LinkedIn headquarters. (LinkedIn Photo) LinkedIn has a new CEO for the first time in six years. Daniel Shapero, the company’s chief operating officer since 2021, is stepping into the top job,...
Washington state flunks school phone policy rankings
April 22, 2026
(BigStock Photo) A new scorecard rating school cellphone policies nationwide gave Washington state and four others a failing grade. Washington lacks statewide rules setting limits on phone use in the classroom and on campus, allowing districts to set their own policies. The rankings, first...
Seattle report says gig worker pay law is working, countering claims by DoorDash and Uber
April 22, 2026
GeekWire File Photo Updated below with DoorDash statement. Seattle’s gig worker pay law, requiring minimum pay rates for app-based delivery workers, has been one of the most contentious labor experiments in the country for more than two years. Now the city is pushing back on critics —...
From the ‘scurfy’ mouse to the Nobel Prize: How a Seattle biotech pioneer’s long game paid off
April 22, 2026
Fred Ramsdell, left, speaking with moderator Karen Tkach Tuzman at the Life Science Innovation Northwest 2026 conference in Seattle on April 21. (GeekWire Photo / Lisa Stiffler) The biotech industry is increasingly shaped by computer-designed drugs and investor pressure to move...
Brev raises $3.3M for AI agents that keep companies on track with goals
April 22, 2026
Brev co-founders Vic Hu (left) and Chris Pitchford. (Brev Photo) Brev, a startup with roots in Seattle’s tech community, has raised $3.3 million in pre-seed funding for its AI tools that automatically track how companies are performing against goals. The company’s AI agents join standups,...
Seattle high schooler’s Google Doodle pays tribute to hair and family history as a superpower
April 22, 2026
Google Doodle artwork by Kameirah Johnson of Renton, Wash. (Google Image) Kameirah Johnson, a senior at Seattle’s Lakeside School, is one of five students nationwide whose artwork will appear on the Google homepage later this month, after being selected as a finalist in the annual Doodle for...
Starbucks cuts tech jobs as new CTO reshapes organization
April 21, 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
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
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...
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