GeekWire

The FCC delivered a massive shakeup to the drone industry right before the holidays, adding foreign-made drones (most notably from industry giant DJI) to its "Covered List" of national security threats. While the move effectively bans the sale of future DJI models in the U.S., GeekWire’s Todd Bishop and John Cook explore why this might be a golden economic opportunity for the Pacific Northwest. Featuring highlights from a recent interview with Blake Resnick of Brinc, the Seattle-based maker of public safety drones, who lobbied for the U.S. policy change and supports the move. Related story: Drone capital of the world? Seattle could be a big winner in the U.S. crackdown on DJI and others Plus, the results are in. After ignoring John’s advice and deciding to retrofit his 2007 Toyota Camry with a modern infotainment system, Todd shares the verdict. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Todd Bishop and John Cook reflect on the top tech stories of 2025, a pivotal year defined by the AI boom's dual nature: massive infrastructure spending alongside widespread layoffs. We discuss Bill Gates' framing of AI as "intelligence becoming free," the tension between tech workers and corporate mandates to adopt AI, and the "best of times, worst of times" dichotomy playing out at Microsoft, Amazon, and across the industry. We also cover the top story of the year — UW rethinking its computer science curriculum — the Statsig acquisition by OpenAI, Seattle's competitive position, and the human side of tech through Ambika Singh's heartfelt speech at the GeekWire Awards. Featuring audio clips from Gates, Satya Nadella, Andy Jassy, Ken Jennings, and more. Audio editing by Curt Milton. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If you're looking for an uncommon thinker, how about a tech industry veteran developing and selling landline phones in 2025 — and selling out of them in the process. Chet Kittleson is the co-founder and CEO of Tin Can, a Seattle startup making Wi-Fi enabled landline phones designed to let kids talk to friends and family with just their voices. No screens, no AI. GeekWire recognized Kittleson as one of our Uncommon Thinkers for 2025, a program presented in partnership with Greater Seattle Partners honoring inventors, scientists, and entrepreneurs transforming their industries in unexpected ways. In this episode, he talks about the moment at school pickup that sparked the idea, why his own kids don't own devices, what happened when he eliminated screens on family road trips, and the $12 million seed round led by Greylock that will fuel the company's next chapter. Related stories: Tin Can dials up another $12M to meet soaring demand for landline-style phone for kidsUncommon Thinkers: Tin Can is Chet Kittleson’s calling, and a way to foster deeper connectionsUncommon Thinkers: Hope for the future from our 2025 honorees With GeekWire co-founder Todd Bishop; edited by Curt Milton. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On this special episode of the GeekWire Podcast, recorded backstage at the GeekWire Gala at the Showbox Sodo, we sit down with five of the inventors, scientists, and entrepreneurs selected as the Seattle region's 2025 Uncommon Thinkers, in partnership with Greater Seattle Partners. Jeff Thornburg spent years building rocket engines for Elon Musk at SpaceX and Paul Allen at Stratolaunch. Now, as CEO of Portal Space Systems, he's moved past chemical rockets to revive a concept NASA studied decades ago but never pursued — a spacecraft powered by focused sunlight. He calls it a "steam engine for space." Read the profile. Anindya Roy grew up in rural India without electricity, came to the U.S. with two suitcases and $2,000, and earned a spot in the lab of a Nobel Prize winner. Now, as co-founder of Lila Biologics, he's using AI to design proteins from scratch (molecules that have never existed in nature) to treat cancer. Read the profile. Jay Graber runs Bluesky, the decentralized social network that's become a leading alternative to X and other centralized platforms. But while most tech CEOs build moats to lock users in, Jay and the Bluesky team are building a protocol designed to let them leave. She sees the network as a "collective organism," and she's creating a tech foundation meant to outlive her own company. Read the profile. Read the profile. Kiana Ehsani came to Seattle from Iran for her PhD and spent four years at the Allen Institute for AI before becoming CEO of Vercept. She and the Vercept team are competing directly with OpenAI, Google and others in AI agents, building efficient agents that handle mundane digital tasks on computers so humans can spend less time on screens. Read the profile. Brian Pinkard spent six months after college flipping rocks and building trails because he wanted to do work that mattered. That instinct led him to Aquagga, where he's proving that the industry standard of filtering and burying "forever chemicals" is obsolete. Instead, he's using technology originally designed to destroy chemical weapons to annihilate PFAS under extreme heat and pressure. Read the profile. Eagle-eyed readers may have noticed we're missing one honoree — Chet Kittleson, co-founder and CEO of Tin Can, the startup making WiFi-enabled landline phones to help kids connect without screens. Chet wasn't able to join us, but we plan to speak with him on a future episode. With GeekWire co-founder Todd Bishop. Edited by Curt Milton. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Trevor Noah joins GeekWire's Todd Bishop for a bonus episode recorded after Noah taught a 5th grade class at Ardmore Elementary in Bellevue, Wash., for Code.org's Hour of AI during Computer Science Education Week. The former Daily Show host, comedian, author, and Microsoft "Chief Questions Officer" talks about learning AI alongside kids, the importance of maintaining unbridled curiosity, and how artificial intelligence may — or may not — reshape the craft of comedy. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Amazon is experimenting again. This week, we dig into our scoop on Amazon Now, the company's new ultrafast delivery service. Plus, we recap the GeekWire team's ride in a Zoox robotaxi on the Las Vegas Strip during AWS re:Invent. And in our featured interview, from the show floor, AWS Senior Vice President Colleen Aubrey discusses Amazon's push into applied AI, why the company sees AI agents as "teammates," and how her team is rethinking product development in the age of agentic coding. RELATED STORIES Stars on the ceiling, Cher on the speakers: Notes from our first ride in Amazon’s Zoox robotaxiGroceries in a flash: We tested ‘Amazon Now’ in Seattle — and got our delivery in 23 minutesAWS CEO Matt Garman thought Amazon needed a million developers, until AI changed his mind With GeekWire co-founders Todd Bishop and John Cook. Edited by Curt Milton. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What's the real value in AI tools — and what separates those who use them well from those who don't? Sam Ransbotham, professor of business analytics at Boston College and host of the "Me, Myself and AI" podcast from MIT Sloan Management Review, compares notes with GeekWire Podcast host Todd Bishop in a two-part collaboration between the shows. On this episode, they discuss the new digital divide emerging in the classroom, AI's measurement problem (and what Wikipedia teaches us about it), the "race to mediocre," how AI is democratizing startup creation, and the tension between AI productivity, time, and the moments that make us human. Find the rest of their conversation in the Me, Myself and AI podcast feed. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week: Jeff Bezos is back in startup mode (sort of) with Project Prometheus — a $6.2 billion AI-for-the-physical-world venture that instantly became one of the most talked-about new companies in tech. We dig into what his return to the CEO title really means, why the company’s location is still a mystery, and how this echoes the era when Bezos was regularly launching big bets from Seattle. Then we look at Amazon’s latest real-world experiment: package-return kiosks popping up inside Goodwill stores around the Seattle region. It’s a small pilot, but it brings back memories of the early days when Amazon’s oddball experiments seemed to appear out of nowhere. And finally…Todd makes the case for upgrading his 2007 Toyota Camry with CarPlay, Android Auto, and a backup camera — while John questions the logic of sinking thousands into a beloved older car. All that, plus a mystery Microsoft shirt, a little Seattle nostalgia, and a look ahead to next week’s podcast collaboration with Me, Myself and AI from MIT Sloan Management Review. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week: A glimpse of the AI frontier in workplace productivity through the eyes of David Shim — serial entrepreneur, Read AI co-founder and CEO, former Foursquare leader, and this year’s GeekWire Awards CEO of the Year. Shim spoke with GeekWire co-founder John Cook at a recent dinner event hosted in partnership with Accenture, in conjunction with our new Agents of Transformation editorial series, exploring AI, productivity, and the future of work. They discuss the rapid rise of workplace AI, why Shim believes today’s boom is fueled by real revenue rather than dot-com-style subsidies, and where he sees both hype and genuine value emerging. Shim offers insights on AI assistants, cross-team “multiplayer AI,” global adoption, and the controversial idea of “digital twins” built from employees’ work data. Recorded by Jessica Reeves; edited by Curt Milton. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Seattle’s consumer-hardware ambitions are once again colliding with economic reality. The struggles of Glowforge and Rad Power Bikes echo a long regional history of big raises, high hopes, and hard landings — shaped by the pandemic, VC, and the unforgiving nature of building real products. GeekWire co-founders Todd Bishop and John Cook recorded this conversation for the purpose of providing the audio to an AI tool that turned the conversation into a written column that was edited and reviewed before publication. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What’s it like to pitch your dream on Shark Tank, get rejected on national TV in front of eight million people — and then turn that failure into a company Amazon later buys for more than a billion dollars. Ring founder Jamie Siminoff did just that. A serial inventor and entrepreneur, Siminoff joins us to talk about his new book, Ding Dong: How Ring Went from Shark Tank Reject to Everyone’s Front Door (out Nov. 10), sharing the messy, high-stakes, and ultimately inspiring story behind the company. Now back at Amazon as a vice president leading Ring and the company’s home-security businesses, Siminoff reflects on failure, reinvention, and what comes next in the age of AI. Related links and stories Pre-order the book on AmazonGeekWire:Ring founder Jamie Siminoff rejoins Amazon in new VP roleBusiness InsiderAmazon VP says his division is hiring and promoting based on employees’ AI usageInc.:The tech founder who wants to fix small-town America With GeekWire co-founder Todd Bishop See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Why is Amazon laying off 14,000 people during a massive AI boom? Todd and John analyze the Seattle tech paradox, digging into Andy Jassy's 'startup' reasoning and debating whether the AI frenzy is a bubble. Then, they take on the Cascadia high-speed rail: a necessary connector or a misguided project? Related headlines from the week Amazon layoffs Amazon confirms 14,000 job cuts, says push for ‘efficiency gains’ will continue into 2026A tale of two Seattles in the age of AI: Harsh realities and new hope for the tech communityFiling: Amazon cuts more than 2,300 jobs in Washington state as part of broader layoffsAmazon layoffs hit software engineers hardest in WashingtonAmazon layoffs reaction: ‘Thought I was a top performer but guess I’m expendable’Amazon CEO says massive corporate layoffs were about agility — not AI or cost-cutting Amazon earnings Amazon stock soars 11% after topping Q3 estimates with $180B in revenue, $21B in profitsAmazon’s Anthropic investment boosts its quarterly profits by $9.5B‘Big Beautiful’ tax benefit: Amazon and other tech giants reap the rewards of new law, for now Microsoft Azure, earnings and OpenAI Microsoft’s Azure reports cloud outage, disrupting global customers including Alaska AirlinesMicrosoft beats expectations, reports nearly $35B in Q1 capital spending amid Azure outageMicrosoft gets 27% stake in OpenAI, and a $250B Azure commitment Seattle-Portland-Vancouver Slowly but surely, high-speed rail backers believe Cascadia mega-project will become a realityCascadia’s AI paradox: A world-leading opportunity threatened by rising costs and a talent crunchThe ‘enormous barrier’ that threatens economic growth in the Pacific NorthwestBeta’s unique electric airplane flies into Seattle to wow state officials and aviation experts With GeekWire co-founders John Cook and Todd Bishop See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From empty offices in 2020 to AI colleagues in 2025, the way we work has been completely rewired over the past five years. Our guest this week studies these shifts closely along with her colleagues at Microsoft. Colette Stallbaumer is the co-founder of Microsoft WorkLab, general manager of Microsoft 365 Copilot, and the author of the new book, WorkLab: Five years that shook the business world, and sparked an AI-first future, from Microsoft’s 8080 Books. With GeekWire co-founder Todd Bishop; edited by Curt Milton. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Veteran technology journalist Ed Bott has "seen things," after more than 30 years of covering Microsoft, and he recognizes a pattern in the company's latest AI features for Windows. It's part of a high-stakes effort to avoid missing the next big platform shift — attempting to avoid what happened to the company in the mobile revolution. Ed joins the GeekWire Podcast to analyze this big bet, digging into the new "Hey Copilot" voice commands, the promise and security risks of "Copilot Actions" that can work on your local files, and Microsoft's strategic shift to bring AI features to all Windows 11 PCs, not just the premium Copilot+ models. Plus, we discuss whether users will ever really want to talk to their computers and the timing of it all, right as Windows 10 support comes to an end. Ed Bott on ZDNet: Microsoft debuts its next big high-stakes feature in Windows — can you trust it?Windows 10 PC can't be upgraded? You have 5 options - and must act now Microsoft announcement: Making every Windows 11 PC an AI PC GeekWire coverage: Microsoft’s new AI features aim to give Windows a voice and mind of its ownA new era for Windows: Can Microsoft’s longtime engine power another tech revolution? Thanks to Buzz Bruggeman of ActiveWords for suggesting this episode. With GeekWire co-founder Todd Bishop See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Chris Pirillo, the longtime tech enthusiast and entrepreneur, joins the show this week to discuss how AI software development tools are opening up new possibilities for everyday users, as illustrated by his own experience going from commentator to creator, building nearly 100 apps and games. He’s launching a free, in-person event series called CTRL+ALT+CREATE Live, where anyone can build something real using AI and no-code tools. The first event takes place from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m on Thursday, Oct. 16 at the Amazon AWS Skills Center in Seattle. With GeekWire co-founder Todd Bishop. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week on the GeekWire Podcast: How artificial intelligence is changing the way companies are created, built, and operated. We're on location at Pioneer Square Labs in Seattle with investor and entrepreneur T.A. McCann, a managing director at the startup studio and venture capital firm. He explains how AI agents are automating complex business functions, allowing very small teams to manage tasks that once required significant human work. As AI makes product development easier, he says, the key strategic moat for many startups is now shifting to distribution and data. Other topics include: The wearable AI recorder that captures everything he says throughout the day. The rise of the "one-person billion-dollar company" powered by a suite of specialized AI agents. How AI-generated personas are replacing human focus groups for market research. The future of "agent-to-agent" conversations, where different AI systems negotiate with each other on behalf of their companies. With GeekWire co-founder Todd Bishop; Edited by Curt Milton. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The U.S. tech and startup community was stunned by an executive order last week imposing a $100,000 fee for employers seeking new H-1B visas for skilled foreign workers, a program heavily used by the technology industry. This move brings a longstanding debate back to the forefront: are skilled immigrants taking American jobs, or are they a vital engine for innovation and economic growth? Our guest this week has a strong point of view on this topic. Shirish Nadkarni is a serial entrepreneur and Microsoft veteran who founded companies acquired by BlackBerry and Rosetta Stone. An immigrant himself, he just released a timely new book, The Indian American Tech Success Story, which makes the case that immigrant founders, particularly from India, are one of America's greatest economic assets — creating far more jobs than they could ever be accused of taking. Related Links and Stories Startup leaders warn new $100K H-1B visa fee will hurt U.S. entrepreneurship and innovationNew TiE Seattle president on how the $100K H-1B fee could snuff out entrepreneurial flameWill new U.S. visa fee boost Canada’s tech sector? B.C. sees an opening against Seattle and Silicon Valley With GeekWire co-founder Todd Bishop; Edited by Curt Milton. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week on the GeekWire Podcast: How artificial intelligence is reshaping media and advertising, and what it says about the future of the creative process. Our guest is Jay Richman, an Amazon vice president of product and technology who leads the technology team developing AI tools used by sellers and brands to create and deploy ads across Amazon's platforms. His career has tracked the evolution of digital media, from early apps for the Palm Pilot to the first wave of streaming at NBC Universal, and the reinvention of podcast ads and monetization at Spotify. Richman, who's based in New York, was in town this week for Amazon's Accelerate seller conference, where he announced new agentic AI capabilities within Amazon's Creative Studio. Related Post: Amazon unveils new agentic AI tools for sellers amid heightened scrutiny With GeekWire co-founder Todd Bishop. Audio editing by Curt Milton. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week: Executive coach and AI strategist Mark Briggs explains why your "personal operating system" needs an upgrade, and how to use AI to get more time back in your day. He shares practical tips for turning scattered notes into a powerful knowledge base and discusses how AI can act as a collaborator to fight procrastination and provide instant feedback. Plus, we play a game of "Bot or Not" to see if you can tell the difference between a human and an AI assistant, and learn how better productivity can lead to achieving personal goals. With GeekWire co-founder Todd Bishop; Edited by Curt Milton. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week on the GeekWire Podcast: Former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and his NBA team, the Clippers, face scrutiny over an alleged salary-cap dodge tied to star Kawhi Leonard. We unpack the report and Ballmer’s emphatic denial, while reflecting on his history in tech and sports. Also: OpenAI's surprise $1.1 billion acquisition of Seattle startup Statsig, and what it says about the AI talent wars. Plus, the ironic role of Microsoft’s own antitrust past in the landmark ruling against Google’s search monopoly this week. Seattle journalist, radio host and bar owner Mike Lewis joins GeekWire's Todd Bishop for this episode, which also features a highlight from a segment with KUOW's Kim Malcolm. Related Stories OpenAI acquires Statsig for $1.1B, names CEO to key role in surprise exit for Seattle-area unicorn‘Absurd’: Steve Ballmer responds to report that Clippers funneled money to star player via endorsement dealon "Pablo Torre Finds Out."interviews Steve Ballmer.Google antitrust ruling gives Microsoft a shaky bridge over search giant’s competitive moatIs the Google antitrust ruling a ‘big whiff,’ or an advantage for rivals like Microsoft? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.