Geekwire

The naming of Chipotle CEO Brian Niccol as the new Starbucks CEO on Tuesday gives the Seattle-based coffee giant a new leader from the restaurant and fast casual industry with experience leading a digital transformation. We discuss what that could mean on this special mid-week episode of the GeekWire Podcast. Related Coverage: Starbucks’ new CEO brings extensive digital experience from prior role leading ChipotleSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week on the GeekWire Podcast, we look at the implications of the Google antitrust ruling for Microsoft Bing, and conclude that they probably aren't as rosy for the Redmond company as they might have appeared initially. Plus, a rural community offers a window into Amazon's relationship with the independent companies that deliver its packages around the world. And finally, the City of Seattle gets support from Amazon and resistance from workers in response to its decision to bring them back to the office for three days a week, up from two days previously. Related coverage ‘Google is a monopolist’: Tech giant loses antitrust suit over search business in huge victory for DOJ City of Seattle increasing in-office work to three days for more than 13,000 employees Driven away: Overloaded by Amazon, rural delivery companies reach the end of the road With GeekWire co-founder Todd Bishop and editor Taylor Soper.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Zillow Group named a new CEO, longtime company executive Jeremy Wacksman, announcing that co-founder and two-time CEO Rich Barton will be shifting to the new role of co-executive chair of the real estate media and technology company, joining co-founder Lloyd Frink in the role. Barton and Wacksman join GeekWire co-founders John Cook and Todd Bishop to talk about the transition on this special episode.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week on the GeekWire Podcast, we take a closer look at the earnings reports from Microsoft and Amazon this week, as a litmus test for artificial intelligence demand and the state of the economy. We also consider the implications of Boeing's new CEO being based in the Seattle region, discuss a new AI tool that aims to streamline marketing tasks, and weigh in on the backlash to Google's Olympics ad for its Gemini AI chatbot Microsoft capital spending soars to $19B, betting big on AI, as Azure growth underwhelms Wall Street Amazon sales come up short, profits nearly double Amazon looks to reduce costs to compete more aggressively on price as consumer habits shift Boeing chooses its next CEO — and he will reportedly be based back in Seattle Seattle tech vets launch 'Spok,' an AI copilot that aims to streamline marketing tasks – GeekWire CNBC: Google pulls AI ad for Olympics following backlash With GeekWire co-founder Todd Bishop and editor Taylor Soper.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week on the GeekWire Podcast, our guest is entrepreneur and investor Ben Gilbert,  co-founder and co-host of the hit podcast Acquired. Ben and his colleague David Rosenthal have developed a huge following for their deep-dive, long-form podcasts telling the stories behind some of the most successful companies in the world, and they recently released Microsoft Volume II, the second installment in their epic exploration of the Redmond-based technology giant.  We talk about Microsoft's misunderstood era, with help from some archival highlights from GeekWire co-founder Todd Bishop's interviews with Bill Gates over the years. It’s a timely topic given Microsoft’s 50th anniversary in 2025 and the company's resurgence as one of the most valuable and relevant companies in the tech industry with the rise of AI.  Before we jump in, we ask Ben to catch us up on all things Acquired. The podcast is the talk of Silicon Valley and Wall Street, as documented in a Wall Street Journal profile. Acquired just announced a liv

This week: the aftermath of the CrowdStrike outage, the larger forces at play, the future of cybersecurity, and where the world is headed long-term. Our guest is Erik Moore, a veteran of the cybersecurity field and program director for the online Master of Science Program in Cybersecurity Leadership at Seattle University's Albers School of Business and Economics. Moore says cybersecurity companies are facing faster and more complex threats due to factors including AI, and geopolitical and financial forces, requiring quicker responses. Current testing and deployment processes need to be overhauled handle these new challenges effectively. But long-term, he's optimistic about where the field and the world are headed. Related Links  GeekWire News Coverage: ‘A little frightening’: CrowdStrike outage puts Microsoft’s role in global IT back in the spotlight  CrowdStrike Blog Post: Technical Details on Today’s Outage Microsoft: Helping our customers through the CrowdStrike outage Seattle University: Master of Scien

This week on the GeekWire Podcast, we catch up on the latest twist in the New York Times' lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft over the alleged use of its reporting to train GPT-4 and other large language models. The NYT is fighting OpenAI’s request to turn over reporters’ notes, interview memos, and other materials used to produce stories, to prove they were worthy of copyright.  On a related topic, we take a closer listen to Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman's comments about AI and fair use at the Aspen Ideas Festival, which were more nuanced than some of the coverage might have made them appear. Watch Suleyman's full conversation with Andrew Ross Sorkin here. Turning to the Seattle startup scene, an entrepreneurial supergroup has quietly formed a new electric vehicle charging startup, Juicer Energy, that appears poised to create a marketplace connecting homeowners and others with personal EV charging stations to EV owners in need of places to charge up their vehicles. In the return of our "My AI" segment,

Greg Fyke is president and CEO of ecobee, the Toronto-based smart home company known for its pioneering smart thermostat and a growing ecosystem of devices, including security systems and smart doorbells. A former Amazon Alexa executive, he’s personally based in Seattle, exemplifying how remote work has transformed the geography of the tech industry. Fyke succeeded ecobee founder Stuart Lombard as the company's CEO last fall upon Lombard's retirement.  On this episode of the GeekWire Podcast, Fyke discusses the emerging "golden age" of smart home technology; ecobee's focus on simplicity, long-term functionality, and integration across ecosystems; its competition with Amazon and Google; and its approach to automation and artificial intelligence. Other topics include ecobee's November 2021 acquisition by Generac, and their broader focus on energy management solutions, leveraging components like home batteries, solar energy, and intelligent control systems. The Verge: How Ecobee is becoming the smart home compa

This week on the GeekWire Podcast, we get a deeper understanding of ADHD and neurodivergence in the tech industry and the workplace. Our guest is Brett Greene, a tech community leader in the Pacific Northwest who specializes in this field in his work with companies and individuals as an executive coach. Related links Find a list of ADHD Resources on Brett Greene's website, brettgreenecoaching.com. Upcoming event: ADHD Strategies for Tech Founders and Investors: Understanding and Leveraging Neurodivergent Team Members for Maximum Success, July 18 in Bellevue, Wash. Brett Greene is founder and CEO of New Tech Northwest. With GeekWire co-founder Todd Bishop; edited and produced by Curt Milton.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

As the creator and host of the "Startup Project" podcast, Seattle-area tech senior product manager Nataraj Sindam talks with a wide range of investors and entrepreneurs, contributing to his broad perspective on the future of artificial intelligence, investing, startups, and business technology. He's also author of the Above Average email newsletter, and venture partner with Incisive Ventures. Our topics this week include:  The opportunity to apply the power of large language models and generative AI to the larger world of business-to-business applications, including services tailored to workflows in specific industry verticals.  How AI will drive a massive increase in data centers in the next 5-10 years to meet increased demand for compute and storage, and will require new "intelligence layers" in cloud infrastructure. The opportunities and challenges for startups to compete with large tech companies in developing foundational AI technologies, and where tech investors are focusing when it comes to AI startup

It was a big week for cybersecurity for Seattle's tech giants. Microsoft President Brad Smith was in Washington D.C., testifying before the U.S. House Homeland Security Committee about the Redmond company's security challenges. Listen for highlights at the end of the show.  Meanwhile, Amazon held its annual AWS re:Inforce cloud security conference in Philadelphia.The rise of AI has added some big new wrinkles to the issue of cybersecurity, and AI was one of the main topics in a conversation that I had a few weeks ago with one of the people who keynoted the AWS event this week, Steve Schmidt, Amazon's chief security officer. Hosted by Todd Bishop; edited by Curt Milton.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Our guest this week on the GeekWire Podcast is Léonard Boussioux, an assistant professor in the Department of Information Systems and Operations Management at the University of Washington's Foster School of Business, and adjunct assistant professor at the UW Allen School of Computer Science and Engineering. Boussioux received his doctorate in operations research from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His research combines areas including machine learning and AI with a focus on healthcare and sustainability. Last year he launched a class called "Generative AI in the Era of Cloud Computing" at the Foster School. Foster School: A New Era Of AI And Human Ingenuity In The Classroom Boussioux's website, including photography and AI art: www.leobix.us TEDxMIT Salon presentation: Let Art Be Your Superpower TEDxBoston: How to Solve the UN's Sustainable Development Goals in 5 mins. Related Story: How a photo of OpenAI’s Sam Altman, enhanced by AI, sparked a journalistic debate at GeekWire With GeekWire co-fo

This week on the GeekWire Podcast, we explore the frontier of crowd-augmented cognition, the concept of humans working together with the help of technology, including new ways that artificial intelligence is changing the field. Our guest is Aniket (Niki) Kittur, a professor in the Human-Computer Interaction Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, where his research focuses on new methods of augmenting human intellect using crowds and computation. We also talk about a related project that Kittur and his colleagues developed called Skeema, a browser tab manager that helped users organize their work, projects, and ultimately their brains in the process.  With GeekWire co-founder Todd Bishop. Edited by Curt Milton.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Microsoft and major PC makers this week announced a plan to incorporate artificial intelligence directly into personal computers, adding on-board neural processing units (NPUs) as part of a new architecture that promises better performance, longer battery life, and local AI processing that unlocks new capabilities and features. We discuss the new Copilot+ PCs with our guest on this week's GeekWire Podcast, Stefan Weitz, an investor and entrepreneur who worked at Microsoft for 18 years in groups including Microsoft Bing and MSN. He is the founder of the new HumanX conference on AI taking place in March 2025 in Las Vegas. Weitz is bullish on the potential for Copilot+ PCs to improve the overall computing experience and motivate Windows PC users to upgrade their machines, a long-awaited milestone for Microsoft's flagship operating system. The new Copilot+ PCs have also raised security and privacy concerns, focused primarily on the "Recall" feature that takes regular screenshots of user activity on the machine, c

This week's episode features an interview with Loretta Napoleoni, conducted by Ross Reynolds, the longtime public radio host and occasional GeekWire Podcast guest host, in an event presented by Town Hall Seattle on April 18, 2024. Loretta Napoleoni is an Italian economist and journalist whose books include "Rogue Economics" and "Insurgent Iraq." Her newest book is “Technocapitalism: The Rise of the New Robber Barons and the Fight for the Common Good." In this interview, she explains the concept of the "present future." This refers to the disorienting era in which we're living, characterized by rapid technological change that creates anxiety and a feeling of being constantly behind. She also discusses the control of technology by a few powerful entrepreneurs, whom she calls "technocapitalists," and the failure of society and the state to direct technological innovation for the common good.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week, we go inside the GeekWire Awards, our annual recognition of the top people, companies and innovations in Seattle and the Pacific Northwest, which drew a sold-out crowd to the Showbox Sodo on Thursday May 9 in Seattle. We talk with finalists about AI, the economy and key trends in their industries, and we hear from some of the winners on stage during the program. RELATED Photos: Inside the GeekWire Awards, with the big winners, musical numbers and surprise guests GeekWire Awards 2024 revealed: Winners bask in momentum of AI and potential of region See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week on the GeekWire Podcast, we discuss Amazon's efforts to compete with Trader Joe's, and the related tactics revealed in "The Everything War," the new book by Dana Mattioli of the Wall Street Journal. We also revisit last week's episode with Mattioli and share some of the reactions to the discussion. Plus, the FTC probes Amazon's internal use of Signal's disappearing messages feature, a newly disclosed email shows how Microsoft scrambled to catch up in artificial intelligence, and a new report says that Bill Gates is still a highly influential figure inside Microsoft, especially when it comes to the company's AI strategy. Finally, we go inside the Seattle courtroom where a prominent figure from the cryptocurrency world, Binance founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, received a controversial prison sentence this week. Other stories discussed on the show: Amazon stock rises as Q1 earnings top estimates with $143.3B in revenue; AWS sales up 17% DoorDash rips Seattle over minimum wage law; reports record quarterly

A conversation with Dana Mattioli, Wall Street Journal reporter and author of the new book, "The Everything War: Amazon’s Ruthless Quest to Own the World and Remake Corporate Power." With GeekWire co-founder Todd Bishop.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week on the show, we get a sneak preview of the GeekWire Awards, coming up at the Showbox SoDo in Seattle on Thursday, May 9. We look back at the past winners of the Next Tech Titan title in the awards, and consider the event's track record in predicting major companies to emerge from Seattle and the Pacific Northwest. We also contemplate the evolution of the "Workplace of the Year" category through the rise of remote and hybrid work. And finally, we consider the impact of migration on another part of state: Spokane, Wash., and the Inland Northwest. See more GeekWire Awards coverage, and learn more about the event, which is presented by Astound Business Solutions. With GeekWire co-founders Todd Bishop and John Cook. Edited by Curt Milton.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week on the show, we sit down with Werner Vogels, the Amazon chief technology officer, at Amazon in Seattle. We talked about the evolution of artificial intelligence, the promise of AI in healthcare and the environment, his broader tech predictions for the year, and one of his most iconic traditions at the company's annual cloud conference. Read more on GeekWire: Amazon CTO Werner Vogels on the rapid progress of AI, and its impact on society Werner Vogels - All Things Distributed Archive of Now Go Build episodes AWS re:Invent 2023 - Keynote with Dr. Werner Vogels Tech Predictions for 2024 and beyond @Werner on X. With GeekWire co-founder Todd Bishop; Edited by Curt Milton.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.