GeekWire

This week on the GeekWire Podcast : A conversation with Daniel Rausch , Amazon’s vice president of Alexa and Echo, recorded at the company’s Seattle headquarters. Rausch explained the company’s vision for  Alexa+ , Amazon's next-generation voice assistant, in advance of its upcoming rollout through an early access program. Alexa+ promises more fluid conversations with users,...

On this special episode of the GeekWire Podcast , as part of our Microsoft@50 special series, former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer reflects on his remarkable tenure at the company he helped shape for more than three decades.  We talk about his early days working alongside Bill Gates and Paul Allen, the biggest mistake during his tenure, and his take on the company these days as its largest shar...

This week on the GeekWire Podcast: A conversation with Microsoft President Brad Smith, on stage at GeekWire’s Microsoft@50 event this week at Town Hall Seattle, discussing the company’s anniversary and what’s next for the industry and the world. Related Links Microsoft@50 recap: Company faithful mark first 50 years and look to future at GeekWire event Microsoft president: Propose...

This week on the GeekWire Podcast, we discuss the big real estate technology news of the week: Rocket Companies, the mortgage, real estate and personal finance giant, is buying Redfin , the Seattle-based tech-powered real estate company that has been a longtime disrupter in the world of buying and selling homes.  Joining us to assess the implications are  Stephanie Reid-Simons , who over...

This week:  Michael Levin  and  Josh Lowitz  of  Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIRP) discuss the state of Amazon's Alexa and Echo business, and what the recently announced Alexa+ service means for the company and users. CIRP studies consumer behavior to provide insights for investors and industry leaders. Related links and coverage CIRP :  Amazon Report on...

This week on the Geekwire Podcast:  Google prepares to say goodbye to Seattle's Fremont neighborhood , we get ready to say farewell to Skype ; and we take a quantum leap with one of Microsoft's top technical leaders in the field: Chetan Nayak , technical fellow and corporate vice of quantum hardware for the company. Related stories and links: End of an era: Microsoft to shut down Skype, shift...

This week on the GeekWire Podcast, we discuss Microsoft's quantum computing breakthrough; a Washington state bill that targets Uber and Lyft surge pricing; the latest update to the GeekWire 200 ranking of Pacific Northwest startups; and Amazon's move to take creative control of the James Bond movie franchise. Related Links Microsoft quantum breakthrough promises to usher in the next era of computi...

A new book,  The Insider's Guide to Innovation at Microsoft , finds universal business lessons in the company's successes and also its failures, through case studies about different products and teams in various scenarios and stages of evolution.   The book was written by two Microsoft business strategists and innovation leaders: Dean Carignan , who now focuses on AI in the company's off...

It has been a wild few weeks and eventful few months in AI: DeepSeek, OpenAI, Stargate, Microsoft, Meta, Amazon, Salesforce, Google, Elon Musk, and more. In all of this, there's a heightened focus on what it takes to train AI models and the importance of open-source AI. This week on the GeekWire Podcast, we get insights from Ali Farhadi , CEO of the  Allen Institute for AI (Ai2) , the Se...

For this latest installment in our Microsoft @ 50 series, we talk with Bill Gates about the company's 50th anniversary, parallels between AI and the early days of the PC, and where he sees the next big opportunities for innovation. This is part of a wide-ranging interview coinciding with the release of his new book, Source Code: My Beginnings . We published Part 1 of the interview last week, focus...

Our guest this week is Corey Quinn , the chief cloud economist at  The Duckbill Group , the host of the  AWS Morning Brief  and  Screaming in the Cloud  podcasts, and the curator of  Last Week in AWS , a weekly newsletter. Apart from his newsletter and podcasts, Quinn's day job involves helping AWS customers understand and manage their bills. Amid all the AI hype and...

In advance of the release of his new memoir, Source Code: My Beginnings , Bill Gates sat down with GeekWire for a wide-ranging conversion on topics including his extraordinary upbringing in Seattle, the key people and influences in his life, the remarkable circumstances and luck that led to his work in software, and his outlook on the world today. RELATED: Bill Gates’ book ‘Source Code...

This week on the GeekWire Podcast, we dive deep into DeepSeek, the AI project that shaking up the tech world, to better understand the underlying technical advances and the long-term implications for the industry. Joining us is Bill Howe , an associate professor at the University of Washington's Information School and the co-founding director of the UW Center for Responsible AI Systems and Experie...

This week, we delve into the Project Stargate announcement by OpenAI, Oracle and Softbank, in conjunction with President Trump, and assess the implications for OpenAi's relationship with Microsoft. We explain what Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella really meant with his CNBC zinger about the Stargate investment, and consider how Elon Musk's involvement in the new administration could play out in the tech...

For this installment in our  Microsoft @ 50 series , GeekWire revisited Bill Gates’ classic book from the mid-1990s, The Road Ahead, with the benefit of three decades of hindsight. We found in its pages a vision for technology that was essentially on the mark — foreseeing pervasive access to information, the rise of smart devices, and the central role of the internet in busin...

This week on the GeekWire Podcast: An inside look at Amazon's classic process for strategic thinking and decision-making, with a former Amazon product and technology director who has written new book about the documents used by the company to determine its direction. What can others learn from its approach? Plus, we break down this pivotal moment in Amazon's history, as employees return to the off...

This week, Seattle-area software developer and AI entrepreneur Patrick Husting of Ghostwriter AI and the Equestrian App returns to the show to talk about the evolution of artificial intelligence over the past two years, how people are using the technology today, and where things are headed in 2025. Related links Can Microsoft avoid the ghost of Clippy? Familiar theme emerges in Copilot rollout for...

What happens when you mix modern AI with a piece of vintage technology and the musical stylings of a very amateur guitarist? You might be surprised.  That's the subject of this week's episode. GeekWire co-founder Todd Bishop's fun holiday project, revisiting a favorite gadget from his youth, illustrated some bigger themes about the AI that has emerged in the past two years, and the role it ca...

Michael Schutzler , the newly retired CEO of the Washington Technology Industry Association (WTIA) , joins us on this episode of the GeekWire Podcast to reflect on his 11 years running the not-for-profit trade association, assess the state of the tech industry in Seattle and Washington state, and discuss what's next for him. Schutzler, who has been succeeded as WTIA's CEO by Kelly Fukai , previous...

This week on the GeekWire Podcast , we sit down with some of the Seattle region’s “Uncommon Thinkers” — inventors, scientists, technologists and entrepreneurs transforming industries and driving positive change in the world. We recorded the episode on location, backstage at the GeekWire Gala, where we recognized five Uncommon Thinkers through this annual awards program , pr...

Amazon's AI strategy came into focus this week with the unveiling of Amazon Nova, its new family of homegrown AI models, a new AI model marketplace for Amazon Bedrock, and other news from the AWS re:Invent conference in Las Vegas.  It turns out we've seen this before. As the company's AI strategy emerges, there are numerous similarities to its e-commerce business  including low cost, broad selecti...

This week on the GeekWire Podcast, our guest is Sam Schillace , a deputy CTO at Microsoft and author of the new book,  "No Prize for Pessimism," the first title from Microsoft's new publishing imprint , 8080 Books. Schillace discusses the importance of optimism in innovation, drawing parallels between the early cloud era and the current AI revolution. He also shares his past experiences as one of...

This week on the GeekWire Podcast, we discuss Elon Musk's lawsuit against OpenAI , which now includes Microsoft, and assess the complexities of the OpenAI-Microsoft partnership, as illustrated by early email exchanges revealed in the lawsuit. We also consider the latest update to the  GeekWire 200 , our ranked index of Pacific Northwest technology startups, including the rise of Highspot to the to...

This week on the GeekWire Podcast, we dive into Amazon's launch of a new discount storefront called Amazon Haul, and explore what it says about the future of e-commerce and generational shifts in shopping. Guests  Michael Levin and Josh Lowitz of Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIRP) provide insights into the long-term trends around Amazon Prime membership and consumer behaviors on the pl...

This special edition of the GeekWire Podcast is the first in a four-episode series that we’ll be publishing in the months ahead as part of our year-long Microsoft @ 50 project , recognizing the company’s 50th anniversary in April 2025.  On this episode, we’ll take a fresh look at Microsoft’s startup story with tech historian and author Margaret O’Mara of the University of Washington, author of The...