GEEK News
June 05, 2015 - 01:04 PM
Seattle-based sales tech company Outreach to move HQ to Adobe’s campus in Fremont neighborhood
701 N. 34th St. in Seattle’s Fremont neighborhood, where Outreach plans to move its HQ early next year. (GeekWire Photo / Todd Bishop) Outreach confirmed plans to move its headquarters from Interbay to Seattle’s Fremont neighborhood early next year, joining a campus that Adobe has anchored since the late 1990s. The sales technology company, which was valued at more than $4.4 billion in a...
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Seattle outranks major global cities to land at No. 4 in report that cites economy, quality of life, and more
The Seattle skyline and waterfront along Elliott Bay. (GeekWire Photo / Kurt Schlosser) Seattle, take a bow. You’re officially trailing only New York, London, and Paris on the world stage. The Emerald City landed at No. 4 overall in the newly released Oxford Economics Global Cities Index 2026, which scored 1,000 major urban centers across economics, human capital, quality of life,...
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Nimbus Aerospace tests quarter-scale prototype in Oregon as hybrid-electric race ramps up
Nimbus Aerospace’s NX1, a one-quarter size prototype in a test flight this summer near the Pendleton Airport UAS Range in Oregon. (Nimbus Photo) The team at Seattle-based Nimbus Aerospace had planned to finish testing its quarter-scale prototype earlier in the summer, but struggled to schedule one of the few pilots skilled in remote-controlled flight. “Not many people wanted to fly this...
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‘It’s not a lost cause’: Seattle Aquarium CEO Meg McCann on saving the ocean one visitor at a time
Seattle Aquarium President and CEO Meg McCann. (Seattle Aquarium Photo) At first glance, Meg McCann would not be the obvious choice to run the Seattle Aquarium, one of the city’s top attractions, drawing 1 million annual visitors to the waterfront and supporting critical research in marine conservation. McCann, a trial lawyer by training, has overseen an organization serving survivors of...
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An ethicist’s take: What philosophy teaches us about the limits we should be setting on AI agents
What an off-limits list might look like, before the agents start working. (GeekWire Illustration / GPT-5.6 Sol) It’s difficult, to put it mildly, to figure out just what we ought to be concerned about today in AI’s widespread adoption given the expanding list of recent warnings around its potential harms. At this point, just from the last few weeks, we have the former Anthropic researcher...
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Week in Review: Most popular stories on GeekWire for the week of Sept. 20, 2026
Get caught up on the latest technology and startup news from the past week. Here are the most popular stories on GeekWire for the week of Sept. 20, 2026. Sign up to receive these updates every Sunday in your inbox by subscribing to our GeekWire Weekly email newsletter. Most popular stories on GeekWire Amazon says it has cut off Meta’s new Muse personal AI agent from shopping on Amazon.com,...
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Live show: Amazon, Meta and the fight over the future of AI; Plus, is Seattle still the place to build?
GeekWire co-founders Todd Bishop, left, and John Cook open the GeekWire Podcast and VIP dinner, presented by Northern Trust, at Daniel’s Broiler in downtown Seattle. (Photo by Tanya Srisuthisuriya) This week: Amazon is blocking Meta’s new Muse AI assistant from shopping on Amazon.com, saying the agent doesn’t identify itself and violates the site’s conditions of use. We explain why the...
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‘Seattle’s answer to YC Demo Day’: 25 startups pitch investors from across the country at AI House
Prabha Dublish, CEO of Hubble, lays out the startup’s vision to become the “Plaid for medical records” at AI House Demo Day on Wednesday. (Photo by Dan DeLong for AI House) AI House brought investors from as far as Boston, New York, Colorado and the Bay Area to Seattle this week for something the city’s startup scene has rarely tried: a demo day meant to help bring outside money to local...
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Tech vet takes a fresh swing at the country club with a golf and social hub in old Seattle industrial space
Shankar Sundaram in front of a golf simulator at East West Club, the golf, social and wellness club he is building inside an old industrial building in Seattle’s Queen Anne neighborhood. (GeekWire Photo / Kurt Schlosser) Inside a sprawling former industrial building just a chip shot from the Lake Washington Ship Canal, a Seattle tech veteran and his longtime friend are building the kind of...
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Tech Moves: Microsoft AI exec joins Niantic Spatial; Allen fund names first investment chief; Zillow AI leader heads to Stripe
Dave Citron. (Photo courtesy Niantic Spatial) — Niantic Spatial hired Dave Citron as chief product officer. He joined from Microsoft AI, where he was corporate vice president of product on the Superintelligence team and helped build and launch Microsoft’s first frontier foundation models. San Francisco-based Niantic Spatial, spun out of Pokémon Go maker Niantic, builds spatial AI models and...
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Microsoft unveils all-in-one Copilot app, taking on Anthropic and OpenAI in new push to boost adoption
Jacob Andreou, the Microsoft executive vice president who leads Copilot, presents the app’s new Home, Code and Autopilot sections at a company event this week. (Microsoft Photo) Microsoft on Friday morning unveiled its long-promised Copilot “super app” — without officially calling it that — combining AI chat, coding and long-running agents into a unified app for business and personal...
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Artists, game designers and producers hit hard as Microsoft cuts 277 jobs in Washington state
(GeekWire File Photo / Todd Bishop) Microsoft cut 277 jobs in the Seattle region as part of its latest round of layoffs, with artists, game designers and producers making up a large share of the affected roles, a new filing shows. The filing was made public Thursday afternoon under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act. Microsoft gave approximate numbers earlier this...
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Startup Spotlight: Marketing vets launch Kompeld to measure if a company’s story is actually working
Kompeld founders Ryan Morel, left, and Adam Kapel, right, believe many go-to-market problems are actually messaging problems. After working together for years — including at Seattle logistics startup Flexe — Adam Kapel and Ryan Morel reunited this spring to launch Kompeld, a Bainbridge Island startup focused on helping companies build better narratives. Kompeld has developed a system for...
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Internal memos: Microsoft shakes up communications as Nadella makes a push to build in public
Microsoft Chairman and CEO Satya Nadella speaks onstage at Microsoft Build 2026 in San Francisco. (Photo by Dan DeLong for Microsoft) Microsoft is moving its communications function out of its marketing group and into the corporate, external and legal affairs organization led by Brad Smith, its vice chair and president, according to internal emails Thursday from Smith and Microsoft CEO Satya...
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Amazon delivery drone noise sparks resident revolt in Texas: ‘It’s like a beehive up there’
An Amazon Prime Air MK30 package delivery drone flying over a neighborhood. (Amazon Photo) While Amazon touts its autonomous drone fleet as the ultimate convenience for rapid doorstep drop-offs, residents of one Texas neighborhood report a very different reality on the ground — complaining of lost privacy, non-stop outdoor disruption, and an incessant overhead hum that disrupts peaceful...
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Seattle startup Row Zero acquired by Databricks to bring enterprise spreadsheets to AI platform
(Image via Databricks) Row Zero, the Seattle-based startup behind high-performance spreadsheet software built for massive enterprise datasets, has been acquired by data and AI giant Databricks. Databricks plans to integrate Row Zero directly into its platform and Genie AI assistant, giving non-technical teams a familiar grid interface to analyze datasets without leaving their data...
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Amazon will let sellers manage Walmart, eBay, Shopify and TikTok sales from their Amazon dashboards
Mary Beth Westmoreland, Amazon’s VP of Worldwide Selling Partner Experience, speaks Tuesday morning at Amazon Accelerate at the Seattle Convention Center. (GeekWire Photo / Todd Bishop) Amazon is introducing tools to let independent sellers manage their sales on four of its biggest rivals — eBay, Shopify, TikTok and, yes, even Walmart — from Seller Central, the same dashboard they use to run...
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With NASA’s backing, Starfish Space is getting ready for the orbital debut of its flagship Otter spacecraft
An artist’s conception shows Starfish Space’s Otter spacecraft in orbit. (Starfish Space Illustration) Tukwila, Wash.-based Starfish Space is ready for the first launch of its full-size Otter space servicing vehicle, following two orbital tests of scaled-down prototypes. Otter is due to lift off from California’s Vandenberg Space Force Base no earlier than Oct. 1, riding into orbit...
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Alaska Air sustainability director lays out strategy for low-carbon flying at Climate Week NYC
Lauren Kiel, left, global head of community innovation for Bloomberg Media, and Ryan Spies, managing director of sustainability for Alaska Air Group. (GeekWire Photo / Lisa Stiffler) NEW YORK — With 2.8% profit margins and the harsh reality of aviation physics, Alaska Air Group needs to be strategic when betting on low-carbon technology. That includes partnering with Bill Gates’ Breakthrough...
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Hubble Network raises $200M to reach $1.6B valuation as startup expands satellite Bluetooth network
An artist’s conception shows one of Hubble Network’s satellites in orbit. (Hubble Network illustration) Seattle-based Hubble Network has reached a $1.6 billion valuation after raising $200 million in new funding to power its satellite-based Bluetooth connectivity network. The fresh capital propels the startup into unicorn territory as it works to connect billions of everyday, off-the-shelf...
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Amazon opens its seller tools to outside AI agents, starting with Anthropic’s Claude
A seller’s account checkup in Anthropic’s Claude app, using Amazon’s new selling partner plugin. (Amazon Image) Amazon announced new AI tools for its independent sellers Wednesday, led by a plugin that lets them run their Amazon businesses from Anthropic’s Claude or Amazon’s own Quick assistant. The idea is to let sellers check inventory, adjust prices and update listings without opening...
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Former Amazon and Opendoor leaders raise $3M to give every key business metric its own AI agent
Augmeta co-founders, from left: Arslan Jamali, Salman Jamali and Nitin Bhaskaran. (Augmeta Photo) Augmeta, a startup that assigns an AI agent to monitor, investigate and act on each of a company’s key business metrics, has raised $3 million in seed funding to speed up customer deployments and expand what its agents can do. The idea is to have software keeping watch over every key metric...
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Expedia Group laying off 58 employees in Washington state in latest cuts at travel giant
Inside Expedia Group’s waterfront headquarters in Seattle. (GeekWire Photo / Todd Bishop) Seattle-based travel giant Expedia Group plans to lay off 58 Washington state-based employees according to a filing sent to state officials on Tuesday. The cuts, detailed in a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) letter to the Employment Security Department, are expected to take effect...
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Facing ‘seismic shifts’ in tech sector, Seattle mayor freezes JumpStart tax rates in new budget
Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson delivers her proposed budget at Seattle Central Library. (YouTube screenshot via Seattle Channel) Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson on Tuesday proposed a budget that closes the city’s inherited deficit largely through spending cuts and rules out new taxes on big business. That includes any increase to the JumpStart payroll tax she helped create, a decision that comes amid a...
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Amazon’s fight with Meta: Who owns the customer relationship when an agent does the buying?
Amazon and Meta are at odds over AI agents that shop on customers’ behalf. (GeekWire Illustration / GPT 5.6 Sol) Amazon blocked Meta’s Muse AI agent from its store Sunday night, and leaders across the tech industry have spent the past two days debating the bigger questions raised by the move. Among them: whether the big platforms will agree on rules for agents crossing into each other’s...
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Solo founder uses AI as backing band to build a music licensing platform for small businesses
John Boyle, founder of Music for Business Finder, and a screenshot of notifications on his phone from the autonomous AI agent helping to run his startup. (Images courtesy of John Boyle) For small business owners playing Spotify over their shop speakers, the threat of hefty copyright fines is very real. John Boyle‘s new startup might be music to their ears. Boyle, of Kirkland, Wash., is the...
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Microsoft cuts hundreds more jobs, shifts next ‘Halo’ game to Activision in Xbox overhaul
Microsoft cut hundreds of additional jobs Tuesday, including 268 across its Xbox game studios. (GeekWire File Photo / Todd Bishop) Microsoft is making hundreds of additional layoffs on Tuesday morning, continuing the Xbox restructuring announced in July but also extending beyond it with job cuts in areas including cloud, AI, marketing and research. The company said the total reductions...
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Bungie apologizes to fans, unseals ‘Destiny’ content vault, tries to convince the world it’s still Bungie
(Bungie press image) Bungie, the Bellevue, Wash.-based video game studio behind Destiny and Marathon, began its week with an apology from its new studio head, as it tries to win back its audience after several recent missteps. On Monday morning, in a blog post and video entitled “The Next Chapter for Bungie,” new studio head Poria Torkan and Josh Deane, Bungie’s head of product, directly...
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Former Seattle City Council president launches AI-powered site to track and report on City Hall
Sara Nelson launched the CivicTide website Monday. (Sara Nelson Campaign Photo) Sara Nelson, the former Seattle City Council president, is making her debut as a publisher and commentator, with an eye toward boosting civic engagement, and a little help from AI agents. CivicTide, which Nelson launched Monday at civictide.org, tracks and reports on Seattle City Council legislation from...
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Ex-Zillow VP’s startup Truelist acquired by Mainstay in $18M expansion of real estate AI
Truelist founder and CEO Carey Armstrong. (LinkedIn Photo) Seattle-based real estate tech startup Truelist has been acquired by San Francisco-based Mainstay as part of an $18 million growth funding round aimed at expanding AI-powered tools across the residential property market. Founded in 2024, Truelist built an AI-powered listing platform to help real estate brokers and agents manage,...
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Seattle startups DexCare and Mila Health combine to expand AI patient scheduling
Matt Blosl, left, CEO of DexCare, and Shailu Verma, co-founder and CEO of Mila Health. (LinkedIn Photos) Seattle health-tech startup DexCare today announced it’s acquiring Mila Health, a fellow Seattle-area company that has built AI agents to call and text patients seeking medical appointments. The startups did not disclose the terms of the deal. DexCare, which spun out of Providence’s...
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Plug and Play Seattle picks 11 startups for 4th cohort, from space robotics to biotech
Startup founders who pitched for Plug and Play’s batch four cohort take part in a selection day at UW’s CoMotion Labs. (Plug and Play Photo) Plug and Play Seattle selected 11 startups for the fourth batch of its accelerator program, bringing together a group of founders building everything from space-servicing robotic arms and data-center optical links to opioid-countering antibody...
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Amazon blocks Meta’s Muse AI assistant in new standoff over agentic shopping
Meta’s promotional images show Muse comparing strollers and asking for approval before placing an order. (Meta Images) Amazon says it has cut off Meta’s new Muse personal AI agent from shopping on Amazon.com on behalf of customers, after attempting unsuccessfully to get the Facebook parent company to voluntarily exclude the e-commerce site from the experience. The problem, Amazon says, is...
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Week in Review: Most popular stories on GeekWire for the week of Sept. 13, 2026
Get caught up on the latest technology and startup news from the past week. Here are the most popular stories on GeekWire for the week of Sept. 13, 2026. Sign up to receive these updates every Sunday in your inbox by subscribing to our GeekWire Weekly email newsletter. Most popular stories on GeekWire Neuramill is building software that captures how experienced machinists decide to make a part,...
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AI meets real estate: Zillow engineering SVP Toby Roberts on the future of buying and selling homes
Scenes from the live GeekWire Podcast recording at Atmosphere Seattle, with Zillow Senior Vice President of Engineering Toby Roberts, Real Estate At Work host Leka Devatha, and GeekWire co-founders John Cook and Todd Bishop. (GeekWire Photos / Curt Milton) Zillow launched 20 years ago, and we’ve been covering the Seattle-based company since before it had a name. This week,...
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