Melanie Roberts, executive director of the Washington State Academy of Sciences. (WSAS Photo) At the risk of sounding terribly reductionist, one could describe the Washington State Academy of Sciences as a super precise AI agent, ready to provide lawmakers and state officials with scientific...
The Rubin Observatory’s LSST Camera is about the size of a small car. (Credit: Rubin Observatory / NOIRLab / SLAC / NSF / DOE / AURA / F. Munoz) The Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile has begun generating test images of the night sky, thanks to the Simonyi Space Telescope and its giant camera as...
Joseph Williams is being honored as this year’s Public Policy Champion for Innovation at the GeekWire Awards. (Washington Dept. of Commerce Photo) Joseph Williams is uniquely equipped to help guide and grow Washington’s tech industry. With a career that spans academia, corporate tech, and...
A political committee backed by Airbnb mailed flyers to voters in Washington state about its opposition to a proposed tax on short-term rentals. (GeekWire Photo / Taylor Soper) A proposed tax on short-term rentals in Washington state that drew opposition from Airbnb did not move forward in the...
From left: Ankit Anand, Nick Bedbury, Ilya Veil, Jaisav Bajoria, and Fargol Araghi. (Photo via UW) It’s not easy figuring out the ins and outs of venture capital without founding a startup or landing a gig inside an investment firm. That’s what makes a class at the University of Washington’s...
Fatima Kamal, an education program supervisor at the Pacific Science Center, works on digital content. (PacSci Photo) The COVID pandemic in 2020 shuttered school classrooms and extracurricular activities, but kids’ brains were plenty active, leaving teachers and parents scrambling to find...
Many companies invest heavily in leadership meetings but lack an effective system to capture, organize, and leverage the resulting insights and decisions. (BigStock Illustration) Are you getting more out of your meetings than ever before? You should be. Meetings remain an inevitable practice...
Get caught up on the latest technology and startup news from the past week. Here are the most popular stories on GeekWire for the week of April 13, 2025. Sign up to receive these updates every Sunday in your inbox by subscribing to our GeekWire Weekly email newsletter. Most popular stories on...
A fan uses a smartphone to capture video of Seattle band Deep Sea Diver during a recent show at the Sunset Tavern in Ballard. (GeekWire Photo / Kurt Schlosser) Earlier this year I saw an amazing flamenco show in southern Spain. The memory is still vivid. I can hear the sharp staccato of tap...
Marcus Fontoura, Microsoft technical fellow and CTO for Azure Core, with his new book, A Platform Mindset, during a recent conversation at the company’s Redmond campus. (GeekWire Photo / Todd Bishop) This week on the GeekWire Podcast, our guest is Marcus Fontoura, technical fellow at Microsoft...
Billionaire Jeff Bezos takes questions in front of Blue Origin’s mock-up for the New Shepard spaceship’s crew capsule in 2017. (GeekWire File Photo / Kevin Lisota) Editor’s note: This guest post is written by Aaron Cohen, a longtime PR and brand executive. Cohen originally wrote about this topic...
An artist’s conception shows Interlune’s robotic regolith harvester on the moon. (Interlune Illustration) Seattle-based Interlune has won a grant of up to $4.84 million from the Texas Space Commission to open a center of excellence at NASA’s Johnson Space Center that would focus on simulated...
From top left, clockwise: Trellis Health CEO Estelle Giraud, SelfFull CEO Anya Smith; Eve Wealth CEO Sadie Raney; Tursio CEO Alekh Jindal; and Omnivista CEO Anand Tyagi. From AI to crypto, to voice agents and pregnancy apps — our latest startup radar features another intriguing batch of early...
Mason CEO Jim XIao. (LinkedIn Photo) Seattle startup Mason is seeing impacts from the tariff chaos on multiple levels. The company, which sells customized mobile devices for businesses with frontline workers, is one of many hardware makers rethinking their overseas manufacturing...
Pratima Arora. (Smartsheet Photo) — Pratima Arora has been named chief product officer at Smartsheet, a new senior executive role at the Bellevue, Wash.-based enterprise software giant. A longtime product and technology leader, Arora will be responsible for Smartsheet’s product management,...
Science teacher Scott McComb with students at Raisbeck Aviation High School. (Raisbeck Aviation Photo) Of all their inquiries, there’s one question the students at Raisbeck Aviation High School never ask science teacher Scott McComb. And that is, “When am I going to use this in real...
An audio-enabled crosswalk button in Seattle’s South Lake Union neighborhood was altered to sound like Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. (GeekWire Photo / Taylor Soper) The audio enhancement feature at public crosswalks is normally meant to assist the visually impaired by providing notifications to...
Graze co-founders Peat Bakke (left) and Devin Gaffney. (Graze Photo) Graze, a Portland startup looking to capitalize on the growth of Bluesky, raised $1 million in a pre-seed round led by Betaworks and Salesforce Ventures. Founded less than a year ago, Graze offers tools to help Bluesky...
An audio-enabled crosswalk button in Seattle’s South Lake Union neighborhood that’s been altered to sound like Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is speaking. (GeekWire Photo / Taylor Soper) Editor’s note: This story was updated with comment from the Seattle Department of Transportation. Don’t cross...
(TrueMedia.org Image) TrueMedia.org, the nonprofit founded in Seattle that built AI tools to identify and combat deepfakes, is being revived. Researchers at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy will take over development of TrueMedia’s technology, according to an...
A Seattle-based activist group that has been taking part in protests aimed at Elon Musk and Tesla showrooms in the city has produced a new spoof commercial to drive home how it thinks owners of the electric vehicles might be feeling these days. Troublemakers calls the condition “Tesla...
The 2025 GeekWire Awards Geeks Give Back honorees, from left: Chaitra Vedullapalli, Aviel Ginzburg and Emer Dooley. Being part of a community is what the GeekWire Awards are all about — the chance to come together to celebrate Pacific Northwest tech innovators and entrepreneurs and their...
Aircall CEO Scott Chancellor. (Aircall Photo) Aircall has opened its newest office in Bellevue, Wash., marking the company’s ninth global location as it looks to boost its AI-related innovation. The enterprise communications company established the office in downtown Bellevue earlier this year...
Stepchange co-founders Anay Shah, left, and Ben Eidelson. (Stepchange Photo) Seattle-based venture firm Stepchange announced that it closed its first fund, raising $7 million to invest in climate-focused startups. The fund is targeting four sectors: consumer and commercial transportation; the...
(Bigstock Photo) A new bill proposal would increase Washington’s capital gains tax by adding a 2.9% surtax on annual investment profits over $1 million, increasing the effective rate for high earners. The legislation is part of various new tax increase proposals meant to address the state’s...
The Microsoft campus in Redmond, Wash. (GeekWire File Photo / Todd Bishop) Microsoft is intensifying its opposition to proposed taxes in Washington state with additional funding. The Redmond, Wash.-based tech giant has pledged $1 million to a new PAC called Washington Coalition for...
Ascend founder Kirby Winfield. (GeekWire File Photo / Taylor Soper) Seattle venture capital firm Ascend is raising its third fund, according to new SEC filings made public Tuesday. Ascend founder Kirby Winfield declined to comment. Ascend, which backs early stage tech startups primarily...
Loti CEO Luke Arrigoni. (Loti Photo) Public figures see both opportunity and threats from generative AI. Seattle startup Loti is helping them navigate both. The company on Tuesday announced a $16.2 million Series A round led by Khosla Ventures. Loti helps celebrities, politicians, and...
Potato co-founders Nick Edwards, left, and Ryan Kosai. (Potato Photo) With $4.5 million in fresh funding, Seattle-area startup Potato is sprouting big plans to disrupt scientific research with a fully automated experimental process. The 2-year-old company has released a platform that serves...
Cameras mounted on IUNU’s Trolley Mast Imaging System capture daily images inside a greenhouse where tomatoes are being grown. (IUNU Photo) IUNU, a Seattle startup using AI and machine vision to monitor greenhouse efficiency, raised $20 million in new funding, the company announced...
Some of the Friday Harbor team, from left: Montana Gau, Ciro Chang, Dan Goldman, Jesse Collins, Paddy Quinn, and Theo Ellis. (Friday Harbor Photo) Mortgage giants such as Rocket and United Wholesale Mortgage have thousands of employees and technical staff. Seattle startup Friday...
(Tableau Image) A new Salesforce survey released today reveals that most U.S. business leaders feel increased pressure to back their arguments with data — but their trust in that very data has declined dramatically since 2023. Salesforce is using the survey findings to pitch...
Melinda French Gates’ new book, “The Next Day,” describes major challenges the philanthropist has confronted over the course of six decades. (Photo of Gates by Jason Bell) Yes, Melinda French Gates has an estimated net worth of nearly $30 billion, runs an organization with ambitious goals to...
CoStar Group CEO Andy Florance. (CoStar Photo) This story originally appeared on Real Estate News. CoStar CEO Andy Florance says Zillow’s move to ban certain private listings is self-serving and that the leading home search site has “overplayed its hand.” The comments came in a letter sent...
T-Mobile’s Daniel Drobac. (LinkedIn Photo) — Daniel Drobac has been promoted to chief accounting officer at T-Mobile, effective May 1, according to a regulatory filing. Drobac has been with the Bellevue, Wash.-based wireless carrier for almost eight years, serving as vice president, accounting...