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Report: Jeff Bezos sells $63M mansion near Seattle — a record price for Washington state home sale

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is the seller of a $63 million mansion in Hunts Point, Wash., just east of Seattle, the Puget Sound Business Journal reported Thursday. … Read More

Microsoft ends employment of two workers who protested inside 50th anniversary event

[Editor’s Note: This story has been updated to reflect the circumstances under which each employee’s employment ended.] Microsoft fired a software engineer who disrupted the Friday event in Redmond where the company launched new Copilot features and marked its 50th anniversary, according to a CNBC report. … Read More

‘We were built for this’: Trump’s tariff moves drive tailwinds for Seattle startup FlavorCloud

President Trump’s recent tariff announcements have roiled global markets and left companies scrambling to adapt, including online retailers that ship products across borders. … Read More

Microsoft and B.C. startup ink massive carbon removal deal targeting pulp and paper mills

Microsoft and CO280, a Vancouver, B.C.-based startup, today announced a 12-year deal to capture and store carbon emitted from a U.S. … Read More

Startup radar: Check out 5 up-and-coming tech companies from the Seattle area

Startup radar time! Our latest spotlight on burgeoning startups out of Seattle includes companies developing real estate software, AI for consumer packaged goods brands, and kid-focused smartphones. … Read More

Public safety drone maker Brinc raises $75M, forms strategic alliance with Motorola

Seattle-based Brinc announced $75 million in new funding and a strategic alliance with Motorola Solutions, aiming to expand production and accelerate deployment of its emergency response drones for police and other U.S. … Read More

Fusion R&D hub aims to break ground in Eastern Washington this summer

Seattle startup Avalanche Energy plans to open a first-of-its-kind facility for commercial-scale testing of radioactive fusion technologies in Eastern Washington. … Read More

Seattle’s newest investment group aims to break down silos between angel investors, VCs, founders

Longtime Seattle-area investor Brianna McDonald is leading a new organization called Ecosystem Venture Group that blends startup investment funds with services for entrepreneurs and investors. … Read More

Get paid to limit social media time: Portland startup’s app monitors usage and gives rewards

If you’ve already tried everything to reduce the amount of time you spend scrolling on social media, perhaps a Portland startup has the motivator to finally get your attention, or, more accurately, limit your attention — money. … Read More

Amazon enters real-time AI voice race with Nova Sonic, a unified voice model that senses emotion

What happens when the AI senses the frustration or joy in your voice? … Read More

Editor’s note: This guest post is written by Brooke Shepard, a former marketing executive at Salesforce and Tableau.

This might feel like another article about AI, but really it’s about independence, work, and tacos. 

I should probably start with tacos. They have been on my mind because until ChatGPT hit 100 million users in two months, I thought I’d witnessed the fastest adopted “tech” of my career. 

Which was Taco Bell’s Doritos Locos Tacos, which sold 200 million units in six months. 

I know that’s not technically a technology advancement, but taco meat in a Dorito flavored shell was, and still is, a revelation. And so, so delicious.

But today, the incredible adoption of AI tools like ChatGPT has revealed more about our attitudes toward work than tacos ever did about our shifting tastes.

Which is that workers are more independent than ever before, and individual workers have greater autonomy, authority and even buying power over their workplace technology.

This shift goes beyond changing appetites. In a new study of AI-aware corporate workers, my partners at B2B marketing agency Fight or Flight, research firm NewtonX, and I identified what we call the “Individualist Era” of workplace technology, defined by three key changes:

We are all entrepreneurs, and innovation is a personal responsibility. 

Entrepreneuralism is not a new idea, but it seems to be reaching a zenith in modern business culture. We found that 62% of workers report feeling pressure to be more efficient, and 77% are willing to experiment with new tools to innovate personally. 

Innovation is no longer the job of the corporation, it is a personal must for success, and relatively cheap AI tools are the easiest means to achieve that goal. 

Our bonds with work technology grow, even when ties to the workplace fray. 

While we hear a lot these days about the eroding ties between employer and employee, our affiliation to our tech is going the other way. 

Nearly three-quarters of respondents consider the tools they use as essential to career growth (not job growth, but career growth), and 54% say they would leave their job if management removed software or tools essential to their role. 

Our relationships with our tools can last longer over a career than an individual job, and as a result, our workbench has become part of our work brand.

Buying power is shifting to individual workers. 

More than half of respondents have more autonomy over purchases, and 40% would spend more individually if they could. Plus, when only 14% believe their organizations policies towards bringing in new tools are “very clear,” many are pushing ahead on their own. 

Perhaps this last point most of all makes us believe this is truly a new era for workplace technology, as power dynamics shift in the workplace. 

Compare it to the last major shift 25 years ago, as the cloud expanded tech ownership beyond IT to every department head and team across corporations, from sales to marketing to HR to finance and more. 

Now, accessibility of personalized AI pushes power even further — from teams to individuals — making custom solutions available to every worker, not just department heads.

Like the transition to the cloud, not everything will change at once, but everyone should heed the change. Whether you are innovating your own workplace or introducing the hottest new B2B tech, individual workers’ need to innovate on their own terms will play a key role. 

Flavors of technology may shift, but worker desire for autonomy will not go away. Neither will tacos.

This week on the GeekWire Podcast, we’re featuring highlights from a live interview with Nathan Myhrvold, CEO of Intellectual Ventures and former chief technology officer at Microsoft.

Myhrvold worked at Microsoft from 1986 to 2000, where he laid the groundwork for Microsoft Research, recruited top computer scientists, and played a key role in shaping the company’s technology strategy.

Since leaving Microsoft, he has worked across fields including energy, science, physics, paleontology, photography, and high-tech cuisine.

In this conversation, recorded at Town Hall Seattle as part of GeekWire’s Microsoft@50 event, Myhrvold shares his thoughts on the rise of AI, his longtime collaboration with Bill Gates, the future of energy, the secrets of Microsoft’s success, and what’s next in his Modernist Cuisine book series.

Listen below, and continue reading for highlights from Myhrvold’s remarks, edited for context and clarity.

On predicting Microsoft’s rise: In 1987 I told [Bill Gates] that Microsoft would be the most valuable company on Earth, and he’d be the richest man in the world, and it would take 10 years. And I was totally wrong. It took three… I had not figured that Sam Walton would die.

On Bill Gates’ brutally honest feedback: I remember Bill said, ‘Well, you’re new here, so I’ll forgive the stupidity of your remark.’ That was the type of supportive feedback [that he gave].

On Microsoft’s willingness to admit mistakes: They would admit they were wrong. For some people, especially big-shot CEOs, that’s really hard. But for Bill, it was more embarrassing to not admit it.

On the boom-and-bust fashion cycles of AI: AI is like clothes — it goes through cycles of being in fashion and out of fashion… When speech recognition became successful, they called it ‘speech recognition’ — that used to be AI, until it worked.

On where AI stands today — and how far it still has to go: Today, [AI] is a lot like personal computers in the 1980s… good for a bunch of things… but its potential is enormously higher. And that will require a whole lot of work by a whole lot of folks.

On the ‘miracles’ still needed for human-level AI: AI doesn’t yet have the ability to create new abstract concepts and reason about them. That’s at least one miracle that needs to be figured out. I’ve variously thought there are three to five miracles. It could happen tomorrow — or maybe it already happened tonight, and they just haven’t told us.

Why he’s not losing sleep over AI doom scenarios: Humans love really scary, nasty villains that aren’t actually real. Sauron, the Night King — those weren’t really going to get us. AI overlords destroying us is very similar… it’s a story you can get excited about, but we all know there’s no AI overlord outside that’s going to get us.”

On energy use, AI, and the global demand for more power: “The average American uses about 12 kilowatts — it’s like you had 12 toasters running 24/7… The poor world wants to get rich, and the rich world wants to do more things that require power, like AI.

On using AI to analyze thousands of pastry recipes: I’m writing a big, 2,500-page book on pastry… And I use AI in that. I’ll say, ‘I think this assumption isn’t necessary,’ and ChatGPT will always say, ‘You’re absolutely right.’ Oh my God, it’s learned how to butter me up.

On the surprising reactions to his latest food project: I’m writing a big, 2,500-page book on pastry… Literally, last week, I said to someone, ‘I’m writing a big book on pastry,’ and they immediately said, ‘It must be hard writing on pastry.’ And I didn’t know if they were pulling my leg or what.

Subscribe to GeekWire in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.

Audio editing by Curt Milton.

Microsoft and CO280, a Vancouver, B.C.-based startup, today announced a 12-year deal to capture and store carbon emitted from a U.S. pulp and paper mill. The tech company will pay for the removal of 3.685 million metric tons of carbon, marking one of the largest deals of its kind.

Microsoft set a goal of becoming carbon negative by 2030, but its emissions keep rising, driven by the growing use of artificial intelligence. AI requires energy-intensive computing and the construction of data centers, increasing the Redmond, Wash.-based company’s carbon impacts.

“The CO280 strategy of adding carbon removal to existing paper mills is an efficient way to quickly scale carbon removal and bolster investment and jobs into timberland communities across the United States,” said Brian Marrs, Microsoft’s senior director of energy and carbon removal, in a statement.

SLB Capturi will provide the technology for retrofitting an existing pulp and paper mill to catch carbon dioxide released from a boiler stack. The captured carbon will be disposed of in a permanent geological storage.

The companies did not disclose how much Microsoft will pay for the carbon removal, or the location of the mill.

CO280, which develops large-scale carbon removal deals, has more than 10 projects in the works and expects to complete half of those by 2030.

“The agreement with Microsoft is a significant milestone for CO280 and the [carbon dioxide removal] market,” said Jonathan Rhone, co-founder and CEO of CO280, in a statement.

Microsoft is a leader in carbon removal, both in purchasing removal credits and in establishing marketplaces and removal standards.

Last year, the company was responsible for purchasing 80% of high-durability carbon dioxide removal credits worldwide, totaling 5 million metric tons, according to a report by Seattle-based Carbon Direct.

Those carbon offtake deals include U.S. agreements with Ebb Carbon to remove up to 350,000 metric tons of carbon from seawater off of Washington’s Olympic Peninsula, and a deal with a subsidiary of Occidental Petroleum to dispose of 500,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide at a site in Texas.

Internationally, Microsoft signed agreements in 2024 with companies in Norway and Denmark to removal a total of 4.3 million metric tons of carbon.

Microsoft teamed up with Carbon Direct last week to announce new science-based criteria for verifying impactful marine carbon dioxide removal.

Startup radar time! Our latest spotlight on burgeoning startups out of Seattle includes companies developing real estate software, AI for consumer packaged goods brands, and kid-focused smartphones.

Read on to learn more about the startups and their founders, and check out past startup radar spotlights here. Email us at tips@geekwire.com to flag other companies and startup news.

Elora

• Care teams are overwhelmed. AI can help. That’s the thesis behind Elora, a new company building software to support frontline caregivers. Its tools aim to improve the intake process, documentation, and monitoring, while providing resources across social and community needs. The company is working on a pilot with a healthcare organization and is in talks for a multi-year contract. Elora CEO Shawn Ramirez previously led data science efforts at Glue, Shelf Engine and FutureFit AI.

Evvi Aftercare

• Evvi wants to help ease the emotional process of saying goodbye to a pet. Founded by University of Washington alum and former Apple manager Sydney Dahl, the startup offers cremation services and a virtual funeral director that supports families and veterinarians. Evvi recently acquired Resting Waters Aquamation and is opening a new pet aquamation facility in Seattle’s Georgetown neighborhood this month. The company graduated from Techstars NYC last year and has raised $1 million to date.

Realtie

• Redmond, Wash.-based Realtie helps brokers, developers, and investors identify off-market redevelopment opportunities. It’s looking to ride momentum from House Bill 1110, new legislation in Washington that promotes development of “middle housing” in residential lots. The startup recently signed an exclusive partnership with Realogics Sotheby’s International Realty (RSIR) that gives 250 brokers in the Seattle region access to Realtie’s platform. Realtie is led by longtime real estate leader Tadashi Shiga and tech vet Ofer Avnery.

Zalpha Mobile

• There’s a lot of discussion about the impact of smartphones and social media on children. Zalpha Mobile has a unique solution: a “dumb phone” for kids that looks like a modern smartphone but has limited functionality. There’s no internet browser, no social apps, no app store — just music, texting, and calling. “As I spoke to hundreds of parents, it became clear there was huge unmet need for a kid-safe alternative to smartphones,” Zalpha CEO and founder AJ Rice said in a blog post. Rice, a former manager at Esri, recently wrote about his experience using Zalpha’s phone.

Zucca

• Can generative AI help food and beverage companies develop ideas for new products? Zucca is a new spinout from Pioneer Square Labs building software to streamline the ideation, formulation, and sourcing processes for brands and manufacturers. The company has raised $1.5 million to date. “Zucca was born from a love of great food products and the insight that AI can have a radical impact on CPG product development,” said Karen Huh, CEO of Zucca. Huh previously led teams at Starbucks, Bulletproof 360, and Joywell Foods, where she was CEO. Zucca co-founder Jesse Guzman was most recently a principal at PSL and also spent time at Rain, NerdWallet, and Prophet. Former Amazon engineer Carly Rector is Zucca’s acting CTO.

Seattle-based cybersecurity startup Dropzone AI just launched a new free tool that aims to give security analysts an AI co-worker in their browser.

The tool, called “Coach,” analyzes alerts from applications such as CrowdStrike and offers real-time summaries, hypotheses about potential threats, recommended next steps, and learning resources.

It’s built on the same technology behind Dropzone’s AI security agents that help companies triage alerts autonomously. The tool is a browser extension currently available for Chrome.

The idea is to help cybersecurity workers reduce the cognitive burden of constant triage and decision-making in a sector known for burnout and being understaffed.

The company also aims to address a broader concern that relying on generative AI tools — such as those from Dropzone — could shrink the pipeline of future cybersecurity leaders by replacing entry-level roles.

Dropzone launched Coach in part to counter that narrative, giving aspiring analysts a way to learn and grow alongside AI.

“A junior or Tier 1 security analyst is part of the right of passage for most future security leaders,” said Dropzone CEO Edward Wu.

Anne Gotay, vice president of growth, said Dropzone isn’t trying to replace human workers.

“We never see ourselves as replacing the practitioner, but really augmenting their work and letting them focus on what matters,” she said.

Wu said he sees AI’s impact on cybersecurity more broadly as a rare “win-win” scenario.

“There’s so much additional capacity that cybersecurity teams need,” he said.

Wu previously spent eight years at Seattle-based security company ExtraHop before launching Dropzone in 2023.

Dropzone has raised more than $21 million from investors including Theory Ventures, Decibel Ventures, Seattle-based Pioneer Square Ventures, and In-Q-Tel. The company has 23 employees and more than 100 customers.

In the face of new tariffs, many of Washington state’s tabletop, board, and card game developers have sounded alarms over what may prove to be an existential threat to their industry.

Washington is one of the biggest, if not the biggest, states for American tabletop gaming. Several large companies like Wizards of the Coast, Green Ronin Publishing, and Paizo are based in Washington, as well as dozens of indie developers. The state’s tabletop industry is estimated to be worth $2 billion and has steadily grown in the last few decades.

The tariffs, as proposed, could significantly curb that growth.

President Trump on Wednesday placed a 90-day pause on targeted tariffs for most countries after initially announcing the new policies on April 2. Increased tariffs remain in place for China, where many U.S. board game companies manufacture their products, and China has mounted retaliatory tariffs of its own.

Mike Selinker, owner of Renton, Wash.-based Lone Shark Games, told GeekWire that he and his fellow tabletop business owners are wondering how they are going to survive the new tariffs.

Selinker said “there’s not a lot of wiggle room” for companies to absorb manufacturing cost increases.

“Prices will definitely go up,” Selinker said.

Many modern tabletop games include components that require custom manufacturing, such as special dice or tokens, plastic figurines, wooden blocks, or complex game boards.

“American factories simply do not have the right equipment or expertise,” wrote Chris Pramas, president of Seattle-based Green Ronin Publishing, on Bluesky. “Spinning up factories in the U.S. will take years.”

That’s led most developers to have their board games printed in China, because it can’t be done as well and/or as cheaply anywhere else.

“Here are the numbers: A product we might have manufactured in China for $3.00 last year could now cost $4.62 before we even ship it across the ocean,” wrote Meredith Placko, CEO of Steve Jackson Games (Munchkin), on the company’s official blog.

Placko continued, “Add freight, warehousing, fulfillment, and distribution margins, and that once-$25 game quickly becomes a $40 product. That’s not a luxury upcharge; it’s survival math.”

If the tariffs persist in their current state, it would likely lead to a series of major shifts for U.S. board game development. Many studios may simply have to shut down, while others may switch to making smaller games or a print-your-own model.

It’s also possible that some companies take their print needs to other markets, such as South Korea or Vietnam, or use a European intermediary to get around the U.S. tariffs. Right now, it’s difficult to tell what will happen.

“I expect we will survive this,” Selinker said. “We’re a resilient bunch. Some things that we have planned will change. But most of Washington’s game creators are in this because they love it. We’re not sure what else we’d do. So, we’ll figure out a way to survive even this catastrophe.”

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is the seller of a $63 million mansion in Hunts Point, Wash., just east of Seattle, the Puget Sound Business Journal reported Thursday.

The newspaper, which first reported on the sale Wednesday, noted that the sale shattered the state’s previous home sale price record. The Journal cited an industry source in confirming Bezos as the onetime owner.

Bezos acquired the sprawling waterfront estate at 4053 Hunts Point Road in 2019 for $37.5 million, which also broke the state record, set in 2018 when a Medina mansion sold for $26.75 million.

The sale this week was to a buyer called Cayan Investments LLC, according to the Journal. It incorporated in Delaware in March and has a post office box in Medina. The seller is Hunts Point Properties Trust whose trustee is attorney Kristine Wilson.

The 9,420-square-foot home was designed in 2003 by Seattle architect Jim Olson, of the firm Olson Kundig, and was once owned by the late Barney Ebsworth, a luxury travel magnate and prominent art collector who died in 2018.

The Olson Kundig website describes the property as an “understated house on the shore of Lake Washington” with a design that “weaves art and nature together.”

Hunts Point is a wealthy enclave that’s home to other prominent billionaires and business elite, such as former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and Costco co-founder James Sinegal.

In a “peek inside” the mansion in 2019, The Seattle Times said the three-bedroom, four-bath home sits on 300 feet of west-facing Lake Washington shoreline. It features a rooftop deck with a fireplace, elevator, catering kitchen, two-story guesthouse, and a glass-enclosed shower that juts into a walled Japanese garden.

Bezos, who announced in November 2023 that he was leaving Seattle for Florida, is the second richest person in the world with a net worth of $198 billion, according to Forbes.

The Journal reported that Bezos still owns two properties as part of a portfolio he originally amassed in the Hunts Point and Medina areas: a 30,000-square-foot Tudor-style mansion acquired in 2010 for $45 million; and adjacent property in 1998 for $10 million.

Business Insider reported in 2023 on Bezos’ real estate spending spree after his 2019 divorce from MacKenzie Scott. The site also spoke to Hunts Point residents about what kind of neighbor Bezos was, and some reportedly said he was notably absent from community events such as “Cleanup Day.”

In the exclusive South Florida community where he moved with fiancèe Lauren Sanchez, Bezos has purchased mansions next door to one another for $79 million and $68 million.

• The Chicago-based wireless company agreed to be acquired by T-Mobile in a $4.4 billion deal announced in May 2024. It plans to slash about 4,100 positions nationally.
• Many affected employees may be offered new jobs with T-Mobile, according to messages from U.S. Cellular to government officials.
• The acquisition, which also includes select spectrum assets, still needs regulatory approval. The deal will help Bellevue, Wash.-based T-Mobile expand its coverage in rural areas.

This story originally appeared on Real Estate News.

In a move designed to “create an even playing field,” real estate listings that are publicly promoted to consumers but not made widely available via the MLS will be barred from Zillow.com starting in May.

“Our belief is that, if a listing is going to be marketed to a buyer or a subset of buyers, it really needs to be made available to all buyers,” Errol Samuelson, Zillow’s chief industry development officer, told Real Estate News on April 10. “This is our implementation of the Clear Cooperation Policy.”

The CCP, instituted by the National Association of Realtors, requires listings to be submitted to the multiple listing service within 24 hours of being publicly promoted. 

After months of contentious discussion and debate, NAR announced on March 25 that Clear Cooperation would continue — with an important addition: Multiple Listing Options for Sellers. This new policy will let a seller temporarily keep their home off the Internet Data Exchange, which allows agents, brokers and home search sites — such as Seattle-based Zillow, Realtor.com and Homes.com — to display MLS property listings.

A conflict with ‘delayed marketing exempt listings’?

Zillow’s new standards are “not in direct response to any recent CCP update,” Samuelson said. “This is really about any status of listing.”

But it’s the Multiple Listing Options for Sellers policy, with its provision for “delayed marketing exempt listings,” that could be most affected by Zillow’s action.

NAR, in a frequently asked questions section of its page about the new policy, says that during the delayed marketing period a seller and a listing broker can “advertise their delayed marketing exempt listing on other websites, portals, social media, or elsewhere on the internet in addition to the listing broker’s website.”

Samuelson confirmed that Zillow considers social media, email blasts and even yard signs to be the kind of public marketing that could keep a listing off Zillow forever if that listing is not submitted to an MLS within 24 hours and made widely available to the places buyers search for homes.

“It’s really up to the listing agent and their seller to decide how they’re going to market the listing,” he said. “But if they choose, regardless of the status — including delayed marketing status — to say, for example, ‘I’m only going to market this listing on my own brokerage website,’ there isn’t fair access to all other buyers.”

And Zillow “would not show that listing when it eventually came out on the MLS,” he added.

Why eXp is supporting Zillow’s move

Zillow’s new standards will launch with the endorsement of eXp, which is “deeply committed to giving our clients the most transparent, comprehensive access to property listings in the market,” eXp Realty CEO Leo Pareja said in a statement. “Our new agreement with Zillow ensures that every eXp Realty listing has maximum visibility, creating a more efficient, trustworthy, and open marketplace.”

Samuelson said Zillow is “hopeful” that others will get on board as well.

“We’ve talked to a number of brokerages, and our observation is that the vast majority of brokerages in this country support equal access,” Samuelson said. They “recognize what is special about this notion of the open marketplace” and the MLS as “a cooperative where people can exchange listings.”

It’s also a place where the data says that consumers benefit. Research by Zillow and Bright MLS has found that off-MLS listings can cost sellers thousands of dollars per home, with sellers in communities of color disproportionately harmed by the practice.

In his 2024 Letter to Shareholders, released Thursday morning, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy introduces a new concept: Amazon’s “Why Culture,” or “YQ,” as he calls it.

That’s his phrase for natural curiosity — a willingness to challenge the status quo by asking why things are the way they are, and why they can’t be different.

One place this is playing out: Jassy’s campaign to reduce bureaucracy inside the company. He says he has received nearly 1,000 emails from employees since September, when he asked them to send messages to his “Bureaucracy Mailbox” with examples of excessive process and rules inside the company.

In response, he writes, Amazon has made more than 375 changes to cut inefficiencies — especially those slowing down decision-making and innovation.

Jassy also writes about progress on AI inside Amazon, saying that there are now more than 1,000 generative AI applications being developed inside the company, building on its work in AI foundation models and platforms.

“Generative AI is going to reinvent virtually every customer experience we know, and enable altogether new ones about which we’ve only fantasized,” Jassy writes, answering the question of why AI is so important.

All of this gave me an idea for my own “why” questions:

• Why not ask Amazon’s homegrown AI model, Amazon Nova, to compare and contrast this year’s annual letter with past installments?
• Why not get Nova to assign letter grades to Jassy’s annual letters?
• Why not include Jeff Bezos’ final letter to shareholders in the mix?

Here’s how Amazon’s Nova Pro model responded to my questions.

The annual letters to shareholders from 2021 to 2024 under Andy Jassy’s leadership provide insights into Amazon’s strategic responses to various challenges and its evolving approach to innovation and customer experience.

In 2021, Amazon grappled with the impacts of the pandemic and geopolitical events, which strained its fulfillment network and increased costs. The company’s response was characterized by rapid expansion of its network and investment in new technologies like AWS Graviton2 chips and Kuiper satellites. The letter highlighted the importance of iterative innovation and the role of AWS in helping businesses adapt to the changing landscape.

By 2022, Amazon had stabilized and shown significant growth in its consumer and AWS businesses. The company continued to invest in its fulfillment capabilities and introduced new services like Amazon Bedrock and Amazon Q. The letter emphasized the need for long-term thinking and investment in customer experiences, even in the face of macroeconomic uncertainties.

In 2023, Amazon focused on cost optimization and AWS expansion, while also addressing the challenges of a complex and dynamic market. The company introduced new AI chips and services, and made strategic investments in Prime Video and Kuiper. The letter underscored the importance of a customer-centric approach and the role of AI in driving future growth. The concept of “primitives,” foundational building blocks that enable rapid innovation, was discussed, reflecting a strategic approach to technology development.

In 2024, Amazon’s strategic investments in AI and generative AI services began to yield results, with significant revenue growth across all segments. The company launched new AI silicon and expanded its generative AI offerings. The letter highlighted the transformative potential of AI and the company’s commitment to making customers’ lives better and easier. The “Why Culture,” which encourages constant questioning and innovation, was prominently featured as a key driver of its success.

The evolution of themes across the letters suggests a shift from immediate crisis management in 2021 to a more strategic focus on long-term growth and innovation in 2024.

Amazon is positioning itself for a future where AI and machine learning are integral to its business model. The company’s investments in AI chips, generative AI services, and its fulfillment network suggest a strategic pivot towards technologies that can deliver more personalized and efficient customer experiences.

The letters also reveal a company that is increasingly aware of its own scale and the need to manage it effectively. The focus on cost optimization and the introduction of new services indicate a balance between maintaining operational efficiency and pursuing growth opportunities. However, the company’s size and the associated bureaucracy present ongoing challenges, as evidenced by its efforts to streamline processes and reduce costs.

Overall, the letters paint a picture of a company that is not only responding to immediate challenges but is also actively shaping its future through strategic investments and a culture that encourages continuous innovation and questioning. The company’s approach to technology development, suggests a long-term strategy for sustainable growth and innovation, even as it grapples with the complexities of managing a large-scale operation.

I’ve read all the letters, including the one today, and that seems on the mark to me.

So let’s get to the grades. Nova seemed a little hesitant to weigh in on this question — maybe it’s aware of who’s paying for its GPUs — but in the spirit of constructive feedback, it agreed to play along.

Assigning letter grades to annual letters to shareholders is a subjective exercise, but here’s an assessment based on the content and strategic focus of each year:

2021: C

The letter reflects a company grappling with immediate challenges posed by the pandemic and geopolitical events. While Amazon demonstrated resilience by expanding its network and investing in new technologies, the focus was more on crisis management than strategic growth. The letter lacked a clear vision for the future beyond addressing current issues.

2022: B

The 2022 letter showed a stronger strategic focus, with significant growth in consumer and AWS businesses. The company continued to invest in fulfillment capabilities and introduced new services. However, the letter still emphasized the need for long-term thinking and investment in customer experiences, indicating a transition phase.

2023: A-

The 2023 letter presented a more mature strategic approach, with a focus on cost optimization, AWS expansion, and the introduction of new AI chips and services. The discussion of “primitives” indicated a deeper commitment to building foundational technologies for long-term innovation. The letter also addressed the challenges of managing a large-scale operation.

2024: A

The 2024 letter showcased a company that had successfully navigated through crises and was now reaping the benefits of its strategic investments in AI and generative AI services. The letter highlighted significant revenue growth and the transformative potential of AI. The “Why Culture” was prominently featured, indicating a strong commitment to making customers’ lives better and easier. The letter demonstrated a clear vision for the future and a balanced approach to managing its size and bureaucracy.

These grades are based on the clarity of strategic vision, the effectiveness of crisis management, the depth of innovation, and the company’s ability to balance growth with operational efficiency.

Here’s the comparison between Jassy’s letters and Bezos’ 2020 letter, his final one.

Tone and Style:

• Jeff Bezos: Bezos’ final letter is characterized by a reflective and somewhat nostalgic tone. He reminisces about the early days of Amazon, the exponential growth in value, and the impact on shareholders. The letter is personal, with anecdotes about his family and a focus on the long-term vision of Amazon.
• Andy Jassy: Jassy’s letters, particularly the 2024 letter, adopt a more direct and pragmatic tone. While he acknowledges the company’s history and success, his focus is on current and future strategic initiatives, particularly in AI and customer experience.

Strategic Focus:

• Jeff Bezos: Bezos emphasizes Amazon’s mission to be Earth’s Most Customer-Centric Company and introduces new initiatives like Earth’s Best Employer and Earth’s Safest Place to Work. He also discusses the Climate Pledge and the importance of differentiation and originality.
• Andy Jassy: Jassy’s letters show a shift towards a more operational and technology-driven focus. The 2024 letter highlights the transformative potential of AI and generative AI services, while the 2023 letter discusses “primitives” as foundational building blocks for innovation.

Innovation and Technology:

• Jeff Bezos: Bezos talks about the importance of innovation in a broad sense, including new business models and sustainability initiatives. He mentions the Climate Pledge and the company’s efforts to become a zero-emission platform by 2040.
• Andy Jassy: Jassy’s letters place a stronger emphasis on specific technological innovations, particularly in AI and machine learning. The 2024 letter discusses the launch of new AI silicon and generative AI services, while the 2023 letter introduces the concept of “primitives.”

Customer Experience:

• Jeff Bezos: Bezos consistently emphasizes the importance of customer experience, but his approach is more holistic, considering the broader impact of Amazon on society and the environment.
• Andy Jassy: Jassy’s letters focus more on the technological aspects of improving customer experience, particularly through AI and machine learning. The “Why Culture” in the 2024 letter reflects a deeper commitment to questioning and innovation in this area.

Employee Focus:

• Jeff Bezos: Bezos discusses the importance of being Earth’s Best Employer and Earth’s Safest Place to Work. He highlights initiatives like WorkingWell and the increase in minimum wage.
• Andy Jassy: Jassy’s letters, while acknowledging the importance of employees, place a greater emphasis on the technological and operational aspects of the business. The focus is more on how technology can drive better customer experiences and operational efficiency.

Conclusion:

• Bezos’ final letter provides a broad and visionary perspective on Amazon’s future, emphasizing the company’s impact on society and the environment.
• Jassy’s letters, particularly from 2023 onwards, show a more focused and operational approach to innovation and customer experience, with a clear emphasis on AI and machine learning.
• Both leaders demonstrate a commitment to Amazon’s core mission, but their approaches reflect the different challenges and opportunities they faced during their tenures.

This isn’t entirely fair. As Jassy wrote in his first annual letter, Bezos as Amazon’s founder set a high bar for writing annual letters to shareholders. They were so widely read and referenced that they ended up being compiled into a book.

That said, the comparison does illuminate the differences in their leadership styles and the evolution of the company’s focus under Jassy as CEO.

I could (and did) keep asking Nova questions about the 2024 letter, but that’s probably enough “whys” for this post.

But just to turn the tables on Amazon’s AI model, I asked for an assessment of Nova’s analysis from OpenAI’s ChatGPT 4o, which for the moment is the gold standard of AI chatbots in my own day-to-day work.

I thought this take from ChatGPT was on the mark: “It’s missing a little spark. If this is Nova’s response, it could use just a bit of style — a confident, observant tone that implies, ‘I’ve read every letter. I’ve seen the throughline.’ “

ChatGPT also put together this great chart. (Click to enlarge.)

Read Andy Jassy’s full 2024 letter to shareholders here.

Seattle startup Avalanche Energy plans to open a first-of-its-kind facility for commercial-scale testing of radioactive fusion technologies in Eastern Washington.

The envisioned center, called FusionWERX, is a public-private partnership offering shared resources to universities, companies, and government labs in an effort to support fusion power producers and the sector’s supply chain. It aims to be one of the most advanced private-sector operations for handling tritium, a radioactive hydrogen isotope.

Robin Langtry, co-founder and CEO of Avalanche, compares the idea to the shared Lockheed Martin high-speed wind tunnel that he had access to when testing aerodynamic designs as a Blue Origin employee.

“There’s a really interesting model here,” Langtry said, that can spread costs among participants.

And the Pacific Northwest could be a good spot for such a resource. The region has established itself as a fusion hub with companies that include Avalanche, Zap Energy, Helion Energy, Kyoto Fusioneering, Altrusion and ExoFusion in Washington state, and General Fusion in British Columbia.

Fusion energy is created by smashing atoms together that fuse and release power — it’s the same reaction that fuels the Sun. Engineers can create fusion, but the challenge is capturing more energy from the system than it takes to generate the conditions needed for fusion to happen.

Avalanche is developing compact fusion devices that use tritium as a fuel, with a focus on space applications, driven in part by a Pentagon contract to develop nuclear-powered prototypes.

“We always thought of ourselves as a space and defense fusion approach first, and then, as we perfect the technology, we’re going to move into clean energy,” Langtry said. “You’re seeing a huge amount of interest and funding go into defense and space companies.”

FusionWERX will take over an existing facility in the Tri-Cities town of Richland, Wash., which is home to Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and the Hanford Nuclear Reservation. The building was previously licensed for tritium operations and the new effort’s plans include blanket and shielding test beds, hot cells for handling radioactive materials, and systems for extracting, purifying and recycling tritium.

The site could also be used to produce radioisotopes for medical and space applications.

Langtry said they’re putting together private and public funding to build out the site, and expect to start construction this summer. He did not share cost estimates. About 15 Avalanche employees will be involved in the effort.

Axios on Thursday reported that Avalanche plans to begin raising a Series B round of up to $100 million. The news outlet cited unnamed sources. When asked by GeekWire, the company declined to discuss any future fundraising plans.

Avalanche has raised $50 million to date from investors that include Chris Sacca’s Lowercarbon Capital, Founders Fund, Toyota Ventures, Azolla Ventures and others. It has received $8 million in government grants and contracts, and has 50 employees.

The region’s leaders are welcoming the new facility.

“Just as the United States chose the Tri-Cities to build the first fission reactor in 1943, we are overjoyed that Avalanche Energy will build the first-of-a-kind FusionWERX commercial-scale testbed in our region,” said Karl Dye, president and CEO of the Tri-Cities Development Council, in a statement.

The startup is looking for customers and partners whose work will compliment Avalanche’s research. The cost for using the facility could be an hourly fee.

Editor’s note: Story updated on 4/11 to add information from Axios regarding Avalanche’s potential funding round.

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy’s total compensation reached $40.1 million in 2024, due largely to strong gains in the company’s stock price that boosted the value of the shares he vested during the year.

The compensation figure, disclosed Thursday morning in the company’s annual proxy statement, was up 37% from $29.2 million the prior year. 

Although Jassy vested fewer shares — 211,000 in 2024 compared to 225,340 in 2023 — the value of those shares rose sharply to $38.5 million, up from $27.8 million the year before, because of Amazon’s stock gains.

Other components of Jassy’s total compensation: 

• Base pay was unchanged at $365,000.
• Company 401(k) contributions totaling $6,900.
• Personal security costs of $1.12 million, up from $986,164 in 2023.
• $105,000 for a required Hart-Scott-Rodino (HSR) Act filing fee, which Amazon paid on Jassy’s behalf.

Amazon’s stock jumped more than 40% in 2024, outpacing the broader market. The gains coincided with strong growth in its cloud business, and progress in AI.

(The company’s shares are down more than 13% so far this year — including a plunge and partial recovery along with the rest of the market after recent tariff announcements from President Trump.)

Jassy’s decline in vested shares in 2024 reflected the vesting schedule for a 10-year equity grant awarded to him when he became Amazon’s second CEO in 2021, succeeding founder Jeff Bezos in the role.

That grant, originally valued at $212 million, vests through 2031 regardless of Amazon’s performance — a structure that has drawn scrutiny from some shareholders and proxy advisory firms.

The number of shares scheduled to vest each year declines, by design, to balance out the company’s goal of long-term gains in the share price.

Jassy did not receive any new stock grants in 2024, according to the proxy, and he has not received any since the 2021 stock grant.

Under a pay ratio disclosure in the proxy filing, using an SEC formula, Amazon said Jassy’s base pay and other compensation (primarily security) of $1,596,889 for 2024, compared with a median employee compensation of $37,181 (for all full- and part-time permanent and temporary employees worldwide, except the CEO).

That translated into a reported pay ratio of 43:1, compared with a ratio of 37:1 a year earlier. The increase in the ratio was largely due to the increased security costs and the new HSR filing fee. In the U.S., the company’s median annual total compensation rose to $47,990, up from $45,613 a year earlier.

By comparison, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella’s take-home pay was $51.9 million for fiscal 2024, excluding the value of stock grants scheduled to vest in the future. On the same basis, Walmart CEO Doug McMillon’s take-home pay was $34.9 million, and Alphabet/Google CEO Sundar Pichai’s take-home was $164.2 million.

Long before the stock market ups and downs and the global economic uncertainty caused by President Donald Trump’s ever-changing tariff policies, Seattle-based laser engraver maker Glowforge made a decision to move some of its production back to the U.S. from Mexico.

The switch to a production facility in Seattle’s SoDo neighborhood is looking especially smart not just because of the uncertainty around what Trump will do next — on Wednesday he instituted a 90-day pause on reciprocal tariffs for most countries. But the 10-year-old startup can now better control how it innovates around manufacturing, including through the use of AI.

“An old mentor of mine said, ‘Strategy is the explanation you give for why everything you did was smart all along,'” said Glowforge co-founder and CEO Dan Shapiro during a GeekWire tour of the production facility and discussion about tariffs.

Founded in 2015, Glowforge originally made its laser engravers in California before switching to a major contract manufacturer in Mexico five years ago. Shapiro said that through periods of major change and swings in demand, a lack of flexibility in the structure of mass production in Mexico made it challenging to ramp unit production up or down.

“So we started talking about what seemed crazy at the time: What if we actually brought manufacturing home?” Shapiro said, adding that one of the company’s investors based in Washington, D.C., was offering strong advice about considering manufacturing domestically rather than in other countries. “No crystal ball, but just that the winds were turning.”

Glowforge, which has raised $183 million to date and is No. 133 on the GeekWire 200 startup index, went through a rough patch in 2023 and 2024, laying off employees after a funding round fell through. The company gave up on existing SoDo headquarters space to consolidate steps away in a warehouse building on Occidental Avenue South.

With a little over 90 full-time and contract employees in total, Glowforge now employs 15 production workers to assemble its highest-end machines — the $7,000 Glowforge Pro HD and the $5,000 Plus HD. The Glowforge Aura and Spark are still made in Mexico.

“The folks that we’re hiring are people who built airplanes, satellites, medical equipment — technicians who’ve been working on the kind of products that are made here in Seattle,” Shapiro said.

The first laser cutter made in the city rolled off the production line two months ago. But instead of conveyor belts, machines move from station to station on rolling carts. And instead of a traditional Henry Ford assembly line where each person does one thing, Glowforge technicians work with their product from start to the end.

Glowforge isn’t sharing actual production numbers, but right now Shapiro said Pro HD and Plus HD production is at about a quarter of where it was in Mexico. Hiring and training another wave of technicians will bring production to full speed over the course of the next two months, he said, and the finances are working out.

“We’re able to produce these for a cost that’s just slightly under what we were at our original factory in Mexico, despite paying Seattle wages, something we’re really proud of,” he said.

AI as a support tool

Beyond avoiding some of the costs and uncertainty related to tariffs, Glowforge was keen to experiment with how artificial intelligence could be implemented into its production process. But to innovate with speed and ease, it had to be a process owned by the company rather than one being facilitated elsewhere.

The production space has been outfitted with cameras and microphones to harness generative AI to improve efficiency and safety.

“We have created a system where we have the equivalent of 12 efficiency inspectors and 12 safety inspectors on site all the time,” Shapiro said, adding that the backend system measures real-time data against established best practices and provides feedback that can lead to useful adjustments, even if processes and people change.

When GeekWire entered the facility this week, Shapiro received an alert via Slack on his phone. A camera picked up that we were not yet wearing eye protection or sanitary smocks. The AI also sends a wrap-up of advice that it’s accumulated from the entire day and the Glowforge team can also proactively ask questions looking for things that may have happened on video.

Shapiro showed one video example of worker lifting a laser engraver part improperly. The worker had previously sought advice about how to avoid aggravating a shoulder injury. The AI searched its database to identify how a machine designed to lift and turn the component was not being used, and managers were able to go to the worker and solve the problem.

Production workers can also treat the AI as an “Alexa for the factory.” Speaking to Lumina, as Glowforge calls its disembodied tech, workers can ask questions or share ideas that are routed to a suggestion box.

“That idea of really placing the technicians first and building the AI as a support tool for them, rather than as a nanny, has been what I think has made this additive rather than something that’s frustrating,” Shapiro said.

The idea of being watched at work can be a tricky one, as a recent survey showed Amazon and Walmart employees taking some issue with the use of surveillance tech in warehouses. Asked if Glowforge employees are OK with cameras in the factory, Shapiro said feedback shows technicians embracing AI as a tool to improve safety, quality and speed.

Total cost for all the cameras and networking was under $5,000, according to the company, and the AI bill is in the hundreds of dollars a month.

While AI is changing the game for Glowforge in Seattle, the partial production move has not insulated the company from Trump’s tariff shocks entirely as some products and components still come from outside the U.S. Shapiro said the model of overseas manufacturing remains attractive for companies making low-cost, large-scale items that are identical every time, where one person does one thing and passes it to the next person.

When it comes to the manufacturing of Glowforge’s largest, most expensive and most popular product, Shapiro now believes there’s nothing that would happen politically that would send the production back to another country.

“It is very difficult to run a business when the rules of the game are changing so rapidly,” Shapiro said. “The thing that’s really unique about this is that by controlling our manufacturing, we also get to control the innovation, and that’s been the significant payoff that we’ve seen.”

Kelly Smith is making another startup leap as the founder of Hedfirst, a new telehealth company aiming to help patients that need migraine medication.

Hedfirst offers specialized prescription medication for different migraine treatments that are tailored to a patient’s needs. It works with licensed providers in most U.S. states and delivers medication within 2-to-3 business days.

Smith, a longtime Pacific Northwest entrepreneur and tech industry vet, said Hedfirst is “just the start” of a broader health tech roadmap.

“We’ll expand into other disease states, adding prescription medications, supplements, and non-prescription products,” he wrote on LinkedIn. “Soon, we’ll launch AI tools to tackle hard-to-diagnose conditions. Patients often face a ‘diagnostic odyssey,’ seeing eight doctors before answers — it’s costly and impacts all stakeholders. Our AI will cut through faster, arming patients with insights.”

The company is coming out of Curious Office, the startup incubator Smith launched in 2007.

Hedfirst uses back-end software powered by another new company that Smith is helping lead called Teligant.

Smith is bootstrapping Hedfirst and Teligant. “We’ve seen startups stumble by raising too much, too fast,” he wrote. “Staying lean keeps us sharp. We may raise capital later, but for now, our money keeps us focused.”

Smith, who is based in Idaho, was most recently chief digital officer at nutritional supplement beverage company Athletic Greens. He held the same role at Hagerty, a classic car insurer, and MGM Resorts International. Smith also helped lead Starbucks’ digital and mobile app expansion.

Smith founded several Seattle startups, including RocketVox (sold to ThePlatform), ImageKind (sold to CafePress) and Zapd (sold to RealSelf). 

He’s teaming up on Hedfirst with the company’s chief medical advisor Dr. Alexander Mauskop, founder of the New York Headache Center and a neurology expert, and Daria Smith, co-founder and COO at both Hedfirst and Teligant.

Hedfirst competes against various telehealth startups, including those focused on migraines such as Cove, as well as other players including Ro, Lyra, and Amazon One Medical.

Researchers say they’ve accomplished a feat that was said to be impossible 46 years ago: mapping the cells in a cubic millimeter of brain tissue and tracing their activity.

The achievement, documented today in a set of research papers published by the Nature family of journals, is being compared to the Apollo moon shots that were launched more than 50 years ago, and to the drafts of the human genome that were released more than 20 years ago.

Scientists from Seattle’s Allen Institute played a key role in the $100 million effort known as the Machine Intelligence from Cortical Networks program, or MICrONS. More than 150 researchers worked together through MICrONS to create a detailed 3D map of a cubic millimeter taken from a mouse’s brain — and figure out how the 200,000 brain cells in a speck the size of a coarse grain of sand work together.

“It really has been one of the holy grails of the field from the beginning,” Clay Reid, a senior investigator at the Allen Institute, told GeekWire. “There are many thousands of neuroscientists who study the cerebral cortex, and pretty much everyone who studies the cerebral cortex would like to be able to know what are the sources of inputs to any given cell within the cortex, and what are the outputs of that cell. That’s what such a complete data set allows one to study.”

The origin story for this particular holy grail goes back to 1979, when Francis Crick, the co-discoverer of DNA’s double-helix structure, mused about the promise of neuroscience — and about the field’s limitations. “It is no use asking for the impossible, such as, say, the exact wiring diagram for a cubic millimeter of brain tissue and the way all its neurons are firing,” Crick wrote in Scientific American.

That challenge struck a chord with Reid, who was a college student at the time. He set out to prove Crick wrong, and succeeded. “That’s exactly the experiment that we just finished up,” Reid said.

The project’s first steps were taken at Baylor College of Medicine in Texas, where scientists used specialized microscopes to record the brain activity from a cubic millimeter’s worth of a mouse’s visual cortex as the animal watched movies and YouTube clips. That bit of tissue was then sent to the Allen Institute, where it was sliced into more than 25,000 thin layers. About 95 million high-resolution images of the tissue slices were recorded using an array of electron microscopes. Finally, researchers at Princeton University used artificial intelligence tools to turn the images into a 3D reconstruction of the tissue sample on a cell-by-cell basis.

The wiring diagram and its supporting files amount to 1.6 petabytes’ worth of data. The map traces more than 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) of tangled-up axons, the fibers that serve as the “wiring” for brain cells. It pinpoints 523 million synapses, which are the connection points between cells. Just as importantly, the map provides a guide to the activity patterns recorded by the Baylor team.

Over the years, MICrON’s researchers have provided progress reports on the project, but the studies published today in Nature and its sister journals serve to sum up their work. The papers present findings about the structure of the visual cortex, the assortment of cells found in the sample and how those cells function.

One of the more significant findings has to do with how inhibitory cells control the activity of other cells in a neural circuit. “They’re certainly not on-off switches for the entire circuit,” Reid said. “Different types of inhibitory neurons inhibit different elements within the circuit. They’re switches, but they’re very carefully wired. They don’t turn on and off every light in the building.”

In the years ahead, neuroscientists could use the freely available MICrONS data set to fine-tune their models of brain structure and function. It might also be possible to track down the causes of, and potential treatments for, neurological conditions ranging from Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease to schizophrenia and autism.

“If you have a broken radio and you have the circuit diagram, you’ll be in a better position to fix it,” MICrONS team member Nuno da Costa, an associate investigator at the Allen Institute, said in a news release. “We are describing a kind of Google map or blueprint of this grain of sand. In the future, we can use this to compare the brain wiring in a healthy mouse to the brain wiring in a model of disease.”

The data set could also point the way to innovations in artificial intelligence — perhaps including a new generation of neuromorphic computers that would process data the way biological brains do.

Reid pointed out that MICrONS was funded by the federal government through the BRAIN Initiative and the Intelligence Advance Research Projects Activity, or IARPA, partly to seek out new strategies for AI. “The goal of this was, why don’t we use the most complete and detailed characterization of a cortical circuit perhaps as inspiration for new architectures for machine learning?” he said.

David Markowitz, the former IARPA program manager who coordinated the MICrONS program, characterized the funding as a “moonshot investment.” He said the research papers published today mark “a watershed moment for neuroscience, comparable to the Human Genome Project in their transformative potential.”

As was the case for the Human Genome Project, it will take years for the MICrONS data set to settle into its final form. “Yes, we have the morphology for all of the neurons,” Reid said. “Yes, machine learning has located and identified all of the synapses. But the final step of having humans verify every connection in that wiring diagram has not been done. … In order to get there, we will need advances in machine learning.”

The National Institutes of Health is already looking ahead to future frontiers in brain mapping with a program called BRAIN CONNECTS. (That’s a tortured acronym that stands for BRAIN Initiative Connectivity Across Scales.) Two of the goals of that program are to generate a detailed wiring diagram for the complete mouse brain, and to map long-distance connections between different areas of the human brain.

So, what about mapping the entire human brain? “Because of the size of the human brain, it is unimaginable, and I would say impossible in any reasonable future, to map the entire human brain at the level that one did for this cubic millimeter for the MICrONS project,” Reid said.

When he was reminded that Francis Crick said the same thing about mapping that cubic millimeter back in 1979, Reid expanded upon his remarks.

“Crick never set an expiration date for his pronouncement,” he said. “It is possible that we could do this for the human brain, but from this viewpoint, it still is unimaginable. A lot can happen in 46 years. Certainly a lot has happened in the 46 years since Crick said that something was impossible.”

Nature has set up a landing page for research papers related to the MICrONS project. Other papers are being published in Nature Communications and Nature Neuroscience. The MICrONS consortium includes scientists and researchers from the Allen Institute, Baylor College of Medicine, Princeton and many other institutions. The Allen Institute has created a multimedia presentation that traces the history of the project.

The Allen Institute for AI (Ai2) released a new tool that links AI-generated text to training data, aiming to improve transparency and accountability in artificial intelligence by addressing one of the biggest mysteries in the field.

Ai2 says the project, OLMoTrace, goes further than any other tool to show how the data used to train large language models may influence what they generate.

It converts “a black box to a glass box,” said Ali Farhadi, CEO of the Seattle-based nonprofit, during a briefing with reporters at Ai2’s headquarters.

OLMoTrace highlights phrases from the AI’s responses that appear verbatim in training data, and links users to the sources. The idea is to support fact-checking and improve understanding of how AI is influenced by training data.

The tool, announced Wednesday in conjunction with the Google Cloud Next conference, builds on Ai2’s open approach to AI development, which includes releasing training data, code, model weights, and other components of AI models. Ai2 is making OLMoTrace open-source so others can use, adapt, and build on it.

The question of exactly how AI models generate their responses has loomed over AI since the original release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in November 2022.

So what has Ai2 learned from peering into the black box?

While they’ve yet to reach sweeping conclusions, researchers so far have seen examples of AI models repeating patterns the models have seen in training, rather than coming up with answers through reasoning.

In some cases, what looks like problem-solving is really just the model copying an example it was trained on. 

For example, Ai2 researchers looked into a math problem that Anthropic, maker of the Claude chatbot, analyzed in a recent blog post: 36+59. While Anthropic traced the answer to complex internal processes inside the model, Ai2 found that the same problem and answer (95) appeared multiple times in its training data. 

Because many AI models are trained on similar datasets, this means it’s possible (or maybe even probable) that the model didn’t solve the problem on its own — it simply repeated an answer it had seen before.

It’s the AI equivalent of looking over someone else’s shoulder during a quiz.

In some ways, revealing how the “trick” works might make AI seem less mysterious or magical, Ai2 researchers acknowledged. But they said it’s also impressive to see how much information AI models can retain from training, and how much knowledge is embedded in their weights.  

Can this approach explain AI hallucinations? Yes, at least in some cases. Ai2 researchers are finding that AI mistakes or false claims can sometimes be traced back to bad information in the training data.

“Some documents just contain wrong things, non-factual things, that went into the training pipeline of the model and ended up misleading the model,” said Jiacheng Liu, the lead researcher behind OLMoTrace at Ai2, and a Ph.D student at the University of Washington.

Ai2 researchers say OLMoTrace does not prove a direct causal link between a document and a model’s output. Instead, it suggests that the model probably drew from that language during training. 

“Scientifically, we won’t say this is the cause, but intuitively, it makes sense. When it has been seen in the training data, it makes sense,” said Hanna Hajishirzi, senior director of NLP research at Ai2, and a UW Allen School associate professor of computer science. 

To access OLMoTrace, users can generate a response from one of Ai2’s open-source language models in the Ai2 Playground. A “Show OLMoTrace” button appears below the output.

When clicked, the tool highlights any phrases that appear verbatim in the model’s training data. A panel to the right links to the original documents where those phrases were found.

Ai2 researchers say OLMoTrace could be helpful in areas like healthcare, finance, and science, where people and companies need to know where information comes from and be able to check it. 

In some cases, the tool could also make it easier to comply with rules and regulations by showing which data may have shaped an AI’s answer.

Ai2 says OLMoTrace is different in its approach from other tools that link to source materials. Perplexity.ai, for example, finds documents first and uses them to help the AI write its answer.

OLMoTrace takes the opposite approach — it reviews the model’s answer after it’s generated, then checks to see if any parts are reflected in the training data. The goal isn’t to guide the model, but to help people understand where its answers might be coming from.

Ai2, founded in 2014 by the late Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, is funded by the Allen estate and other donors.

Earlier this week week, Ai2 announced a partnership with Google Cloud to distribute Ai2’s models. OLMoTrace is hosted on Google Cloud. The nonprofit developed and released 111 artificial intelligence models in 2024, and announced its participation in the AI Cancer Alliance last week. 

Longtime Seattle-area investor Brianna McDonald is leading a new organization called Ecosystem Venture Group that blends startup investment funds with services for entrepreneurs and investors.

McDonald has spent nearly two decades leading the Northwest chapter for Keiretsu Forum, a global investment community of accredited investors. She more recently launched startup investment firm NW Angel with her husband, Nathan McDonald.

Ecosystem Venture Group “really brings together all the best things we’ve done,” Brianna McDonald told GeekWire. The firm plans to launch a new fund later this year and invest in startups across various stages, verticals, and geographies.

Ecosystem also offers advisory and training services for entrepreneurs, and has a similar set of products targeted at investor education and deal analysis support.

Part of the mission behind the new group is to fill gaps between different stakeholders in the tech ecosystem. McDonald cited recent comments from former WTIA leader Michael Schutzler, who spoke to GeekWire about the lack of cohesion within the tech community in Seattle and Washington state.

“It operates a lot in silos, with angel investors only caring about themselves, VCs only caring about themselves — everybody only cares about themselves,” she said. “Ecosystem Venture Group works to bridge that together, because when the ecosystem works together, everyone benefits.”

McDonald describes the group’s structure as a mix of venture capital, private equity, and angel investing. She said she’s not focused on finding the next unicorn to emerge from Seattle.

“I am looking to help support great businesses get to a path of profitability, and [help] companies buy companies that are profitable,” she said.

McDonald added: “If a company needs to go raise $100 million, we are not the fund for you.”

Many founders don’t have enough guidance and support to grow their companies effectively, she said. “It’s not just about the next valuation inflection point,” McDonald said. “It’s actually about execution.”

Ecosystem is based in Seattle but will work with companies and clients across the U.S., taking advantage of its national network of partners.

Ecosystem, which also plans to generate revenue from events, is working out of the WRF Venture Center, part of the Washington Research Foundation in Seattle. It has six employees.

— Grant Goodale is jumping back into trucking. The Convoy co-founder announced Tuesday that he is now chief product and technology officer at Ryder, a Florida-based logistics giant.

Goodale previously served as CTO at Convoy, the Seattle trucking marketplace startup valued at nearly $4 billion before it shut down in 2023.

Goodale said he was contacted by Andrew Berberick, co-founder of Baton, a logistics tech startup that Ryder acquired in 2022.

“The team was looking for someone to fill Andrew’s sizable shoes,” Goodale wrote on LinkedIn. “So I’m back doing what I love — working at the intersection of the latest technology and the business that makes all of modern life possible.”

Goodale, who remains based in Seattle, co-founded Convoy in 2015 with his former Amazon colleague Dan Lewis. He began as CTO and later moved into a chief experience officer position before stepping down in 2023. The startup built software to match truckers and shippers, and raised money from the likes of Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos. Flexport acquired Convoy assets.

Lewis, who was CEO of Convoy, earlier this year joined Microsoft in a chief product officer role.

Ryder established a Silicon Valley office in 2023 after acquiring Baton, which aimed to help trucking companies boost efficiency. Ryder reported $12.6 billion in revenue last year, up 7%.

Other key personnel changes across the Pacific Northwest tech industry:

— Seattle e-commerce startup Shipium promoted Geoff Tamman to chief financial officer. After more than 12 years at Amazon, Tamman joined Shipium in 2022 and was previously vice president of finance and operations.

— Seattle venture firm Graham & Walker hired Ryan Hughes as its new chief of staff. Hughes, who is based in New York City, previously spent nearly five years at Goldman Sachs. Leslie Feinzaig, founder of Graham & Walker, previously wrote about the “old school hiring process” the firm used during its search for the role.

Proprio, a Seattle startup using artificial intelligence for improved surgical precision, received its second major clearance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to include measurements taken during operations, the company announced Tuesday.

The company’s technology platform, called Paradigm, captures high-definition images of the operating field from above and fuses them with images of pre-operative 3D scans. The system relies on advances in light field imaging, computer vision, machine learning, robotics and augmented reality.

Surgeons can assess progress against their pre-operative plans in real time during surgery, and make data-informed decisions during a procedure, reducing the need for revision surgeries, and improving patient outcomes.

“Evolving from highly educated guesswork to data-driven certainty with intraoperative measurements is game-changing,” said Gabriel Jones, CEO and co-founder of Proprio, in a statement.

The technology has been used in hundreds of surgical cases, including at leading healthcare institutions and spine centers such as UW Medicine and Duke Health.

“We’ve been using navigation in spine surgery for a while, but what this technology allows us to do is precisely find the right angle without intraoperative radiation and navigate it,” said Dr. Rick Bransford, a UW Medicine orthopedic surgeon at Harborview Medical Center. “The system can kind of tell us the trajectory and guidance to place screws with zero radiation. This is a big deal, as almost all other forms of navigation require some component of intraoperative radiation.”

Founded in 2016 and spun out of the University of Washington, Proprio employs more than 50 people and has raised $84 million to date. The company is No. 17 on the GeekWire 200 ranked index of Pacific Northwest startups.

Proprio received a previous 510(k) clearance from the FDA in 2023. The company declined to share revenue metrics.

Seattle-based Brinc announced $75 million in new funding and a strategic alliance with Motorola Solutions, aiming to expand production and accelerate deployment of its emergency response drones for police and other U.S. public safety agencies.

Under the alliance, Motorola will become a distributor of Brinc’s products. The companies will also integrate elements of their hardware and software — for example, allowing Motorola radios to dispatch drones from citywide Brinc 911 response drone networks. 

Motorola, the mobile tech pioneer, is a major player in public safety technology, significantly expanding its business in recent years.

Brinc’s new funding round was led by its existing investor Index Ventures, with significant participation from Motorola, according to the company. Other investors in the round included Mike Volpi and Figma CEO Dylan Field.

The funds will support increased manufacturing capacity, next-generation drone research, and expansion of its workforce. The company currently has 116 employees.

Total funding is now $157.2 million. Sam Altman, the OpenAI CEO, was Brinc’s first outside backer, and he remains an investor in the company.

Founded in Las Vegas in 2019 by Blake Resnick, and now based in Seattle’s Fremont neighborhood, Brinc develops drones and related technologies for police, fire, and emergency response agencies. 

The funding comes at a time of heightened tensions between the U.S. and China over tariffs and trade. Brinc is one of the drone makers that China recently placed on its “unreliable entity” list. 

However, a company spokesperson notes that Brinc was already sanctioned by the Chinese government in late 2024, a move that the company says has had little impact on its operations. 

“There are no meaningfully different restrictions with being on this new list,” said David Benowitz, Brinc VP for strategy and marketing communications. “We have put a ton of resources, effort and time into making our drones with components sourced from the U.S. and allied nations, and that has made us resilient.”

He added, “We think the tariffs might actually help us as they make competitive drones much more expensive.”

The company says its products are used by more than 600 public safety agencies, including more than 10% of SWAT teams in the U.S.

Brinc’s Lemur 2 drone includes features such as glass-breaking capability, onboard communication, and low-light navigation. 

The company last year unveiled its Responder drone, designed to serve as a first responder, in some cases resolving calls without the need to dispatch officers, such as delivering medical supplies.

The company’s LiveOps platform enables livestreaming, incident coordination, and digital evidence storage for first responders. The software provides real-time visibility to commanders and support teams, in addition to drone operators.

What happens when the AI senses the frustration or joy in your voice?

A new speech-to-speech AI model from Amazon, called Nova Sonic, unifies speech recognition and generation to deliver more natural voice interactions — part of the Seattle tech giant’s broader effort to develop human-like intelligence in competition with Google, OpenAI, and others.

Among other advances, Amazon says Nova Sonic picks up on tone of voice, adapting to the style and emotions of users. An angry customer on a support call might hear a calm, steady voice in return, while someone sounding excited could get a more upbeat response.

“I think of intelligence as inseparable from context,” said Rohit Prasad, Amazon’s senior vice president of artificial general intelligence, who leads a central team working on the company’s most advanced AI technology. 

“If you’re excited about Hawaii, it will be excited about it,” he explained, as an example. “If you’re not, then it will suggest a separate destination.”

Nova Sonic will be available to third-party developers through Amazon’s Bedrock service. Amazon is already using components of the model internally, in products including its newly released Alexa+ voice assistant. 

Unlike traditional voice systems that stitch together separate models for speech recognition, language processing, and text-to-speech, Nova Sonic combines all three in a single architecture, according to the company. 

Amazon says this integration allows the model to preserve the full context of a conversation — including intonation, pacing, and intent — making interactions feel more conversational and responsive. 

It can also take action in the middle of a conversation, like pulling up flight options or checking an account, without breaking the flow of the interaction.

Amazon is making Nova Sonic available via a new streaming API built for real-time voice applications. It currently supports English with a few different voices and accents. Amazon says it’s working on support for more languages.

Nova Sonic enters a growing field of voice and multimodal AI models, as companies race to build more human-like digital assistants. OpenAI recently launched GPT-4o, its own real-time speech model, while Google has added conversational voice capabilities to its Gemini assistant. 

Based on its testing, Amazon says Nova Sonic outperforms these rivals on speed and cost, with lower latency and better pricing.

For example, Amazon says Nova Sonic responds in just over a second on average — faster than both OpenAI’s GPT-4o and Google’s Gemini Flash 2.0 in tests run by the research firm Artificial Analysis. The company says Nova Sonic is nearly 80% cheaper to use than GPT-4o for real-time voice interactions.

Prasad, previously Alexa’s chief scientist, now oversees Amazon’s AGI group, reporting to Amazon CEO Andy Jassy. 

The long-term goal, Prasad said in an interview, is to create unified models that can handle any kind of input and respond in the most natural way — delivering the “general” in artificial general intelligence.

“I actually think you’re merging the powers of the human and machine together,” Prasad said of AGI initiatives. “That’s why this is so important.”

He called Nova Sonic “a huge step” in that direction. 

Companies testing Nova Sonic include ASAPP, for customer service calls; Education First, applying it to language learning tools; and Stats Perform, which is using it to deliver real-time sports insights through voice.

Amazon says Nova Sonic is designed to integrate with company systems to access real-time information such as pricing, availability, or schedules. The model can also be used to carry out tasks mid-conversation, including making reservations or offering alternative options.

Nova Sonic is the latest addition to Amazon’s Nova line of AI models, introduced by Jassy at AWS re:Invent in December, which includes AI for generating and understanding text, images, and video. It follows Amazon’s recent release of a research preview of Nova Act, for building web-based AI agents. 

Astound Broadband is bringing high-speed internet connectivity to a rural county along the Oregon Coast for the first time thanks to a 108-mile fiber construction project partially funded by Amazon Web Services.

The underground project along Oregon’s Route 6 in Tillamook County will serve more than 270 homes.

The fiber route runs from a submarine cable landing station located south of Pacific City to Hillsboro, passing through Tillamook, bringing fiber-based internet service to an area along the highway that previously had limited connectivity.

The project is partially funded by AWS’ investment in the Bifrost submarine cable system.

“Bringing high-speed fiber internet to the rural Highway 6 corridor is a significant milestone, as it provides much needed connectivity for underserved area residents and sets a foundation for other organizations and agencies to further expand,” said Matt Updenkelder, Astound VP of Infrastructure Development for Oregon, in a news release on Tuesday.

Cellular service is very limited along much of Route 6. The availability of high-speed, high-capacity wired service may make the process of installing antennas and establishing cellular service easier than before, according to Astound.

Astound is the sixth largest cable operator in the U.S.

“This project underscores our commitment to investing in the long-term success of local communities, ensuring that residents, businesses, schools, and government facilities have equitable access to the online resources they need to prosper,” Courtney Lee, senior manager of public policy at AWS, said in a statement.

Editor’s note: Astound Business Solutions is title sponsor of the GeekWire Awards.

Avante officially launched Tuesday, hitting a milestone in the startup’s journey to shake up how companies manage spending on employee benefits.

GeekWire initially covered Avante as it emerged from stealth made in early 2024. The company has now grown to 25 employees and is working with a handful of enterprise clients, including Datavant, OneDigital, Real Chemistry, and Zscaler.

Avante’s software aims to help companies decrease HR administration workload and reduce overall benefits program costs. It also offers an AI assistant designed to provide benefits guidance to employees.

The company declined to share revenue metrics.

Avante competes against a number of benefits management software companies, including the likes of Workday, ADP, Deel, Rippling, and others.

Avante is led by CEO Rohan D’Souza, former chief product officer for health care automation company Olive AI; and epidemiologist Carly Eckert, MD, Ph.D., Avante’s head of innovation and impact, who was executive vice president at Olive AI, which shut down in 2023 after selling its key business units.

Kabir Shahani, a serial entrepreneur who was CEO of Seattle-based marketing tech startup Amperity before exiting without public explanation two years ago, is Avante’s executive chairman.

Seattle-area VC firm Fuse led a $10 million seed round for Avante last year. Other backers include Ascend, HighSage Ventures, and angel investors. The company is ranked No. 172 on the GeekWire 200, our list of top Pacific Northwest tech startups.

[Editor’s Note: This story has been updated to reflect the circumstances under which each employee’s employment ended.]

Microsoft fired a software engineer who disrupted the Friday event in Redmond where the company launched new Copilot features and marked its 50th anniversary, according to a CNBC report.

The company also moved up the effective date for the resignation of a second employee who disrupted the event.

Both employees stood up separately to condemn the use of Microsoft’s AI technology by the Israeli military.

One called Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman a “war profiteer” and said he had blood on his hands. Another stood up to protest while Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella was on stage with his predecessors, Steve Ballmer and Bill Gates.

The internal protests coincided with a demonstration outside the event by the group No Azure for Apartheid, which is made up of Microsoft employees and other tech workers.

The group identified the now-former employees as Ibtihal Aboussad and Vaniya Agrawal. In a companywide message, posted on Medium, Aboussad wrote, in part:

My name is Ibtihal, and for the past 3.5 years, I’ve been a software engineer on Microsoft’s AI Platform org. I spoke up today because after learning that my org was powering the genocide of my people in Palestine, I saw no other moral choice. This is especially true when I’ve witnessed how Microsoft has tried to quell and suppress any dissent from my coworkers who tried to raise this issue. For the past year and a half, our Arab, Palestinian, and Muslim community at Microsoft has been silenced, intimidated, harassed, and doxxed, with impunity from Microsoft. Attempts at speaking up at best fell on deaf ears, and at worst, led to the firing of two employees for simply holding a vigil. There was simply no other way to make our voices heard.

According to CNBC, Microsoft told Aboussad in a message that she could have addressed concerns privately through management or Global Employee Relations instead of disrupting Suleyman’s speech.

The company told Aboussad it “has concluded that your misconduct was designed to gain notoriety and cause maximum disruption to this highly anticipated event,” according to the report.

Agrawal resigned from the company, effective April 11, but the company made the resignation effective immediately, according to the CNBC report.

[Update: A Microsoft spokesperson confirmed that one employee resigned and another employee was let go. The company offered no further comment.]

The protests at Microsoft’s internal event mirrored similar actions by members of the group at GeekWire’s independent Microsoft@50 event in Seattle in March.

Two other organizers, Abdo Mohamed and Hossam Nasr, said they were fired by Microsoft last fall for pro-Palestinian actions on the company’s Redmond campus.

— Rathi Murthy, former chief technology officer for Expedia, is now CTO for Varo Bank, a digital financial institution based in San Francisco.

Murthy was previously a CTO at Verizon Media, and held executive roles at Gap, American Express, eBay, and Yahoo.

“I’ve been deeply inspired by Varo’s mission to make financial inclusion and opportunity a reality for all — empowering everyone with the tools to move their lives forward,” Murthy said on LinkedIn.

Murthy was at Expedia for three years, helping the Seattle-based travel juggernaut integrate AI into its platform.

She left Expedia last year in May, due to what the company described as a “violation of company policy.” Sreenivas Rachamadugu, a senior vice president in engineering, was dismissed at the same time.

Murthy defended her performance, saying in a statement to GeekWire at the time: “Throughout my career, I’ve conducted myself with a commitment to the highest level of integrity.”

— Jordan Selig left her role as executive vice president of Seattle’s Martin Selig Real Estate. Selig’s father launched the prominent firm in 1958. The business once claimed to own one-third of the city’s downtown offices, but has struggled since the COVID pandemic drew tenants out of downtown.

Martin Selig Real Estate has seven properties in receivership that are being operated by a third-party management company, according to the Seattle Times. Last week it laid off 86 workers.

“As I turn the page to my next chapter, I’m excited to pursue a long-held vision at the intersection of real estate and technology — reimagining how urban environments evolve and how innovation can play a role in shaping more sustainable, adaptive cities,” Selig said on LinkedIn.

— Point B, a Seattle-based tech consulting firm, appointed David Hanfland as its new CEO. Hanfland was previously at global consulting firm Kearney for more than 32 years, most recently as global vice-chair of strategy and corporate development.

Hanfland said on LinkedIn that he looks forward to working on Point B’s tech-enabled offerings, and that the company’s “commitment to combining industry expertise with cutting-edge technology is unmatched.”

— Seattle cannabis software company Leafly said Alan Pickerill resigned from its board, according to a regulatory filing.

— Nordstrom said Randy Kanai has taken the title of interim chief accounting officer, according to a new regulatory filing. He has been serving in the role of VP controller. Kanai joined the Seattle apparel company in 2001, beginning as an accountant.

— Microsoft AI added Yuki Zhu to its team as a principal product manager. Zhu joins the company from Instacart, and previously worked at Uber and Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

— Brianna McDonald, a longtime Seattle startup and investing vet, is CEO of Ecosystem Venture Group, a new investment organization backing early stage companies that describes itself as a bridge between traditional VC and private equity.

— After nearly three decades at Wizards of the Coast, Christopher Perkins is retiring from the Renton, Wash.-based company behind “Dungeons & Dragons,” “Magic The Gathering,” and other games.

Perkins’ career included writing a blog that include tips on “dungeon mastering,” and roles as Wizards’ game design architect and creative director.

“With D&D’s 50th anniversary wrapping up and the revised rulebooks doing gangbusters, this is the perfect fairytale ending for me,” he said on Bluesky. “I can’t wait to enjoy D&D purely as a fan again, knowing the game is in good hands. See you in the Feywild!”

— Former Google and Dropbox legal counsel Amy Pitelka launched Deer Harbor Group, a Seattle real estate development effort focused on creating “sustainable, well-designed middle housing in Seattle,” she said on LinkedIn. The vision is to take underutilized lots and homes, and convert them into denser, environmentally friendly housing that can include renovations and accessory dwelling units (ADUs).

She is also the managing partner of the Barker Pitelka law and policy practice, and was a legal consultant for Executive Office of the President for President Biden.

President Trump’s recent tariff announcements have roiled global markets and left companies scrambling to adapt, including online retailers that ship products across borders.

Seattle startup FlavorCloud is meeting the moment.

The cross-border shipping and compliance startup, which helps e-commerce companies manage duties, taxes, and global logistics, is experiencing a surge in demand as brands grapple with rapidly changing rules and rising costs.

“Suddenly, we’re very popular,” said FlavorCloud CEO Rathna Sharad, who won Startup CEO of the Year honors at the GeekWire Awards last year.

Sharad said the current moment is exactly what the company was built for — helping brands navigate the complexities of international trade and compliance across dozens of markets. But even with three decades of experience in global trade, she described the speed and scale of the recent changes as “unprecedented.”

“We’re built for this,” she said. “But what is really different here is just the pace at which it is happening.”

The tariff plan last week wiped out more than $6 trillion in U.S. market value, with stocks continuing to fall Monday.

Sharad said every brand is impacted in some way. “It’s sweeping across all consumer goods categories,” she said.

One key change is the elimination of the “de minimis” exemption for imports from China, effective May 2. The U.S. trade rule allowed shipments valued under $800 to avoid tariffs. It’s described as a loophole for cheap products from China, fueling the rise of low-cost platforms like Shein and Temu.

“It allowed for a lot of these sellers to really take advantage of that model — and that model no longer exists,” Sharad said.

The elimination of “de minimis” could impact Seattle tech giant Amazon, which recently launched discount storefront Amazon Haul, its answer to rising competition from Chinese e-commerce giants.

There are also millions of third-party sellers on Amazon — which make up more than 60% of the company’s store sales — who source products from China and other countries.

“Amazon sellers are going to now pay tariffs,” Sharad said.

Trump on Monday threatened an extra 50% tariff on China.

Sharad advised companies to develop new strategies to avoid customs-related delays or fees; focus on creating localized market pricing; and consider alternative manufacturing locations.

Ultimately, Sharad said signs point to increased costs for consumers.

Sharad previously led online boutique startup Runway2street and worked for UPS and Microsoft.

Founded in 2017, FlavorCloud has raised $19 million to date and employs more than 50 people. The company is ranked No. 130 on the GeekWire 200, our index of top Pacific Northwest tech startups.

Earth Finance, a Seattle-area company that helps businesses reduce their climate impacts, acquired Climate Engine, a startup that provides analysis and visualizations of satellite, meteorological and other climate data. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Climate Engine’s five employees will join Earth Finance, bringing its total headcount to more than 40.

Nevada-based Climate Engine launched in 2014 as a research and academic tool that was developed by researchers from Reno’s Desert Research Institute and the University of California Merced. 

In 2020 it spun off a commercial venture focused on bridging planetary change and Earth sciences with economic and financial systems. The company partnered with Google Cloud and became a founding member of the Google Cloud Sustainability Ready initiative. 

Climate Engine created a platform called Spatial Finance technology (SpatiaFi) that incorporates environmental and economic data to help users reduce their business and investment risks, determine the vulnerability of assets to natural disasters, and increase resiliency to climate impacts. Earth Finance will incorporate SpatiaFi into its operations.

“We are making this important acquisition because of the quality of the technology, the team, and because every sector — aviation, maritime, trucking, utilities, finance and banking, technology, built environment, consumer and retail — must understand how global environmental data can be used to make better business decisions,” said Reuven Carlyle, co-founder and executive vice president of Earth Finance, in a statement.

Earth Finance launched in 2023 and its other co-founders are climate policy expert Garrett Kephart and Bryan Weeks, former leaders at Russell Investments. Reuven is a past Washington state senator.

Earth Finance raised a $14 million seed round, and previously acquired Water Foundry, which helps clients manage water scarcity and quality, and Molecule, a firm with expertise in the transportation sector and renewable fuels.

Editor’s note: Story updated to clarify the origins of Climate Engine.

When investors assess a potential startup, they examine the business model, the total addressable market, the competitive moats, and many other factors.

But especially for early stage companies just getting off the ground, investment decisions often hinge heavily on the founders themselves.

A trio of Seattle venture capitalists shared insights last week on panel discussion at Founder Day, an event hosted by Seattle-based investment firm Graham & Walker to help train early stage founders.

They offered pointers on founder characteristics and behaviors that give them pause when considering an investment. The discussion was moderated by Grin Lord, founder and CEO at Seattle startup mpathic.

Lack of growth mindset: Founders who are unwilling to listen to feedback or appropriately adjust their thinking are a no-go.

• “Obviously you have to have your own opinions as a CEO and as the founder — you’ve got to stand your ground when you believe in something,” said Sabrina Wu, an investor with Madrona. “But if you’re not willing to take advice and listen, then that’s often a red flag for sure.”
• Jason Stoffer, partner at Maveron, said founders can be incredibly difficult to work with — and sometimes that’s OK. But he draws the line if they can’t adapt to facts or listen to good advice from others.

Customer obsession: Wu also said it’s concerning when founders don’t think deeply enough about the customer.

• She said it’s a concern if founders are “too siloed in their thought process and not thinking beyond that.”

Storytelling: Aviel Ginzburg, general partner at Founders’ Co-op, said he’s turned off by unremarkable pitches.

• In fact, he doesn’t mind bad storytelling. “Maybe there’s something here — you’re so inside your head, you have such a unique perspective in the market,” he said. “But if you’re just like ‘meh’ — I can’t work with that.”
• Ginzburg, who helped run Techstars programs in Seattle, said he noticed a similar pattern when working with accelerator startups. “The ones who came in that were just talking gibberish, you could help them. And the ones who came in, they never needed you, those were the successful ones,” he said. “The ones who were right in the middle just never made it.”
• Stoffer added that he looks for founders who can fluidly switch between visionary storytelling and detailed operational thinking.

If you’ve already tried everything to reduce the amount of time you spend scrolling on social media, perhaps a Portland startup has the motivator to finally get your attention, or, more accurately, limit your attention — money.

Dayo officially launched a new app Monday that rewards people for staying off those others apps — Facebook, Instagram, X, TikTok, Snapchat, etc. By limiting social media use to 30 minutes per day, users can earn financial rewards redeemable for special pricing on products from participating brand partners.

The app runs in the background and monitors a user’s social media consumption, sending reminders to encourage “mindful engagement.” If you can keep social time under a half hour, it’s good for $5 toward products from such brands as JBL, Rumpl, Ruff, and Yeti. Earned rewards accumulate in a Dayo wallet and can be applied toward purchases within the app’s marketplace, up to 40% off on selected products.

Users who go over 30 minutes will start to see money deducting from the $5 daily total.

It’s all an answer to limiting the effects of apps and algorithms designed to keep us hooked for countless hours, and Dayo launches during an increased time of concern over excessive screen time and social media use by young people. The startup cites research from the American Psychological Association that suggests limiting social media use to 30 minutes per day can have neutral to positive effects on mental health.

“We’re witnessing the first generation raised entirely on social media, and the consequences are devastating,” Dayo co-founder and CEO Corey Scholibo said. “These platforms weren’t designed to connect us — they were designed to extract maximum profit from our attention, regardless of the societal cost. At Dayo, we’re aiming to reduce that trend by rewarding folks for staying offline.”

Dayo generates revenue from its brand partnerships.

The startup, co-founded by COO Patrick Triato, is bootstrapped and the founders have funded most of the work. Dayo received two institutional investments as winners of the Oregon Entrepreneur Network’s 2024 Tech Prize and the City Of Beaverton 2024 Startup Challenge.

Future updates for the platform are expected to include additional features such as peer-to-peer rewards and a Dayo debit card designed to enhance user earnings.

Dayo employs eight people.

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On this episode of the GeekWire Podcast, we talk with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella about the company’s 50th anniversary, and where it’s headed from here.

Plus, highlights from Microsoft’s 50th anniversary event in Redmond, which featured a rare joint appearance by Nadella alongside former leaders Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer.

The day also reflected Microsoft’s role in an increasingly complex global landscape, with a CNBC interview focusing in part on the impact of tariffs on the company and the global economy, and a protest outside the event condemning the use of the company’s technologies to support Israel in the ongoing war in Gaza.

Subscribe to GeekWire in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.

Related coverage:

• Inside Microsoft’s 50th: Iconic moments, strong memories, and the realities of the outside world
• Interview: Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella on the tech giant’s 50th anniversary — and what’s next
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Microsoft@50 is an independent GeekWire editorial project supported by Accenture.

More: Microsoft@50

REDMOND, Wash. — It had been eleven years since Microsoft’s three CEOs had appeared together on stage, and the public reunion Friday of Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer, and Satya Nadella for the company’s 50th anniversary brought back brought a flood of memories for all three.

“The thing that’s so amazing about both Steve and Satya is how great they are with people,” said Gates, Microsoft’s co-founder and first CEO. “I wrote more code than either of these guys … but when it comes to picking people, motivating people, thank God for Steve and Satya.”

“Bill was Copilot for me,” said Ballmer, Microsoft’s CEO from 2000 to 2014, referencing the company’s current AI assistant in crediting Gates for teaching him the ropes of the tech industry after Ballmer joined Microsoft in 1980.

Earlier in the event, Ballmer had reprised his iconic “developers, developers, developers!” chant at the urging of the event’s host, actress Brenda Song. Then, on his own, Ballmer led the crowd in a new chant — “50 more, 50 more, 50 more!” — looking ahead to Microsoft’s next half-century.

Nadella, the current Microsoft CEO, paid tribute to both of his predecessors.

“I feel like all of us who grew up in the company they built, it just made us better,” he said. “The standards they set for how you get prepared, the work you do. … it gives me goosebumps.”

Watching from the audience, along with Microsoft employees in-person and via live stream, was a large group of current and former Microsoft executives from across the decades.

Among them: Phil Spencer, CEO of Microsoft Gaming; Amy Hood, Microsoft CFO; Craig Mundie, former Microsoft chief research and strategy officer; Bob Muglia, former Microsoft Server & Tools president; Kevin Johnson, former Microsoft platforms chief who went on to serve as Starbucks CEO; and Kazuhiko Nishi, the Japanese business leader who was a key figure in Microsoft’s early global expansion.

During the first portion of the event, focused on new Copilot features, Mustafa Suleyman, Microsoft’s CEO of AI, told his own story of his history with the company’s products: When he was 11 years old, he persuaded his parents to buy a PC with a Pentium processor and 8 megabytes of RAM.

“That RAM was critical, because it let me install Windows 95,” said Suleyman, the British AI entrepreneur who joined Microsoft last year after co-founding Inflection AI and previously leading applied AI at DeepMind. “It’s no exaggeration to say that that machine completely transformed my life.”

Listening in the audience was Brad Silverberg, who led the development of Windows 95. Later, Silverberg said he was “very proud” to know that the work the team did back then inspired someone who would become one of Microsoft’s key leaders.

“We had big dreams, and this is even bigger,” Silverberg said. “The part that I really like about it is that it was worldwide. That was our goal from the beginning — it was aimed at everybody around the world.”

Later, as Nadella, Gates and Ballmer spoke, the drumbeat of a protest could be heard in the distance on the company’s Redmond campus. Two minutes later, the event inside was interrupted for the second time by an employee standing up and condemning the use of the company’s technologies to support Israel in the ongoing conflict in Gaza.

The demonstrations by the group No Azure for Apartheid, made up of Microsoft employees and other tech workers, mirrored similar protests at GeekWire’s independent Microsoft@50 event in Seattle two weeks ago. In the context of the Microsoft employee event Friday, the protests contrasted sharply with the reflective and celebratory mood.

Interrupted during the first portion of the event, Suleyman acknowledged from stage that he heard the protest, as the person was ushered out. Gates, Ballmer, and Nadella, being interviewed on stage by YouTuber Cleo Abram, waited without acknowledging the second protester, and continued their conversation after the disruption ended.

At the end of the event, Gates demonstrated his underrated knack for using humor to break tension when Abram asked the trio to imagine what Microsoft might be like in another 50 years, on its 100th anniversary.

“Well,” Gates said, “I hope Copilot’s a good CEO.”

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Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture has been awarded $2.4 billion in the U.S. Space Force’s latest round of procurement for future national security launches.

“It’s an honor and huge responsibility to team with the U.S. government to launch our nation’s most important assets,” Jarrett Jones, Blue Origin’s senior vice president for New Glenn, said today in a news release. “Through this partnership, we’re looking forward to delivering on a number of critical national security priorities.” 

The newly announced round — which is known as National Security Space Launch Phase 3 Lane 2 — also allotted $5.9 billion in contracts to SpaceX, and $5.4 billion to United Launch Alliance.

The launch contracts will cover about 54 missions, with contracts to be awarded between now and the end of fiscal year 2029. The launches themselves are expected to take place during a period running from fiscal year 2027 to 2032. SpaceX is expected to get 28 missions, ULA would get 19 missions, and Blue Origin would be awarded seven missions starting next year.

Blue Origin would use its New Glenn rocket, which had its first test launch in January and is due for its second launch by the middle of this year. For what it’s worth, New Glenn hasn’t yet been officially certified for national security launches, but the Space Force expects that to happen by next year. SpaceX would use its Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets, while ULA would use its Vulcan rocket.

The National Security Space Launch program is designed to widen the commercial options available to the Space Force for its missions.

“A robust and resilient space launch architecture is the foundation of both our economic prosperity and our national security,” Gen. Chance Saltzman, the Space Force’s chief of space operations, said in today’s news release. “National Security Space Launch isn’t just a program; it’s a strategic necessity that delivers the critical space capabilities our warfighters depend on to fight and win.”

Today’s announcement follows up on the Space Force’s Phase 3 Lane 1 procurement process, which is meant to apply to commercial-like space missions that can accept more risk. Last year, Kent, Wash.-based Blue Origin joined SpaceX and ULA on the list for $5.6 billion in Lane 1 mission contracts — and last week, Kent-based Stoke Space and California-based Rocket Lab USA were added to that Lane 1 list.

A team of students from the University of Washington is developing self-charging drones that use AI to survey electrical lines to look for potential threats that could knock out power or spark a fire.

The group is the winner of the $15,000 grand prize at the UW’s annual Environmental Innovation Challenge. Team Voltair competed against 22 student-created startups from around the Pacific Northwest in the final pitches held Thursday at Seattle Center.

The students are tackling the challenge of energy grid reliability as demand is increasing thanks to the electrification of transportation, building heating and cooling, data center expansions, industrial manufacturing and other uses.

But grid outages are increasing due to issues such as extreme weather events, while line workers who maintain the infrastructure are retiring at rising rates.

“If you are considering getting an EV or installing a heat pump on your house or any sort of electrification, it doesn’t make a lot of sense if your power goes out every month. So ensuring 100% uptime of the power grid is a huge unlock for consumer electrification,” said Ronan Nopp of Voltair.

Voltair’s drones are designed to monitor thousands of miles of power lines, particularly in rural areas. The drones will initially survey for vegetation growing into the lines, with future plans to look for the degradation of insulators and other hardware. Their technology will use AI to analyze the videos and other data collected to identify problem areas, pinpointing sites for crews to check out.

The team developed the technology that allows the drones to take breaks and recharge directly from the power lines, saving the need to recall the devices — an important feature considering the distances spanned by utility lines.

The drones currently can operate semi-autonomously, but Voltair aims to make them fully autonomous.

The students have bootstrapped their effort so far. They’re talking to utilities about potential partnerships to test their system, and team member Hayden Gosch has been an intern at Seattle City Light for nearly two years.

“We interviewed over a dozen local utilities trying to find out what their pain points are, and what kind of product they’re looking for to help them with maintenance inspections,” Gosch said.

The next steps for Voltair are “working pretty rapidly towards a functional, minimum viable product,” Nopp said, and prepping for the UW’s upcoming Dempsey Startup Competition.

Other members of Voltair are Aryan Sharma, Hunter McKay, Andy Legrand and Isabella Crosby.

This is the 17th year of the student competition hosted by the Buerk Center for Entrepreneurship in the Foster School of Business.

Additional prize winning teams:

Metallyze (University of British Columbia, Electrical Engineering, Business, Computer Science, Environmental Engineering, Finance, Commerce)

• $10,000 second-place prize, presented by Kathryn Gardow
• Metallyze is targeting pollutants in wastewater with an IoT sensor network that can detect heavy metals in real time.

JanuTech (UW, Chemical Engineering)

• $5,000 third-place prize, presented by Alaska Airlines
• JanuTech is engineering a novel battery material to enhance the performance of drones used for deliveries.

EnviroTect (UW, Applied Bioengineering)

• $5,000 Climate Action Prize presented by the UW Clean Energy Institute
• EnviroTect is developing a device that filters the volatile gasses that are released into the environment during surgical procedures.

Elementrailer (UW, MS in Entrepreneurship, Mechanical Engineering, Accounting and Entrepreneurship, Technology Management MBA, Environmental Science)

• $2,500 Reimagine Prize presented by Meliorate Partners
• Elementrailer is working on an electric-powered utility trailer that can address range anxiety for EV owners worried about the extra juice needed while towing, and also provide more a energy-efficient towing option for gas-powered vehicles.

Subvision Robotics (Simon Fraser University – British Columbia, Mechatronic Systems Engineering)

• $2,500 Leo Maddox Innovation in Oceanography Prize, with support from the Leo Maddox Family Legacy
• Subvision Robotics is building an autonomous marine rover for cleaning the hulls of ships that uses UV light and avoids the costs of hauling out a vessel for maintenance.

Solar IndusTrees (UW)

• $1,000 Connie Bourassa-Shaw Spark Award
• Solar IndusTrees is developing a low-cost, sustainable solution that enhances solar cell performance.

CureXsco (UW)

• $1,000 Connie Bourassa-Shaw Spark Award
• CureXsco is creating a cost-effective and sustainable solution for regenerating filters that are saturated with PFAS or “forever chemicals.”

A record 43 teams entered the contest this year. Other participating schools included UW Tacoma, the Global Innovation Exchange, Portland State University, Gonzaga University, and the University of Idaho.

Past contenders have launched startups to commercialize their technology. They include PFAS destroyer Aquagga; beanless coffee maker Atomo; wastewater membrane innovator Membrion; and sustainable beverage producer NoWhere Foods.

RELATED: University student entrepreneurs pitch planet-protecting ideas in annual ‘Environmental Innovation Challenge’