Articles by Todd Bishop

Todd Bishop is GeekWire's editor and co-founder, a longtime business and technology journalist who covers beats including Microsoft, Amazon, AI, and startups, in addition to hosting GeekWire's weekly podcast. A native of Orland, Calif., he has worked as a reporter for publications including The Philadelphia Inquirer, Puget Sound Business Journal and the Seattle P-I.

AI, fungi, and the future of enterprise tech: Industry vet Bill Hilf on his debut novel, ‘The Disruption’

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Podcast

Microsoft Build decoded: Solara, Scout, AI models, GitHub’s woes and more with Mary Jo Foley

This week on the GeekWire Podcast, we break down the news from Microsoft Build from Project Solara and the Scout agentic assistant to Microsoft’s push to rely less on OpenAI and Anthropic, and the mounting pressure on GitHub. Read More

The big AI labs are eating the startup playbook — here’s where founders can still compete

Startup founders used to worry that tech giants would make their product obsolete. Now it’s even trickier: AI labs are not only encroaching on startup turf, they’re also offering tools for customers to attempt DIY solutions of their own. But there are approaches that work, and niches to be found, according to speakers and panelists at the Tech Alliance Seattle Investor Summit+Showcase this week. Read More

LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman to leave Microsoft board after nearly a decade

Reid Hoffman, the LinkedIn co-founder and Greylock investor, will not stand for re-election to Microsoft’s board, ending a tenure that began in 2017. He told Satya Nadella he’s returning to “founder mode” to focus on his cancer drug-discovery startup, Manas AI. Read More

Innovega’s smart glasses aim to improve sight for people with visual impairments

Innovega, a company known for its augmented-reality contact lens technology, has turned its focus to a different product for now: smart glasses for people who are visually impaired. Read More

Find it, fix it: Seattle startup Emphere raises $2.1M to automate software vulnerability patching

Emphere, a Seattle startup that emerged from the AI2 Incubator, raised $2.1 million in pre-seed funding to automatically fix vulnerabilities found in popular open-source distributions, catering to software companies that sell to regulated industries. Read More

Data center operator reveals plans for downtown Seattle facility as city weighs one-year ban

Digital Realty has filed permits to redevelop a downtown Seattle building into a six-story data center, lab and retail project, as the City Council moves toward a one-year moratorium on new data centers. Read More

Microsoft unveils seven homegrown AI models in new bid for ‘long term self-sufficiency’

Microsoft used its Build conference to unveil seven in-house AI models, including a reasoning model it says draws even with Anthropic’s Claude Sonnet 4.6 — part of a push to depend less on the AI partners it has invested billions in. Read More

Inside Microsoft’s Project Solara: A new platform for devices that run AI agents instead of apps

A team inside Microsoft has been quietly building a platform for devices that run AI agents instead of apps, based on Android instead of Windows. The first two concept devices, a desktop hub and a wearable badge, are headed to pilots with some big-name businesses. Read More

Allen Institute’s big new bet: $400M effort aims to go from mapping the brain to treating disease

The Allen Institute is launching a $400 million initiative, the Brain Health Accelerator, to develop gene therapies for neurodegenerative diseases including Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Huntington’s, and ALS. It marks the first time the Seattle research organization, founded by Paul Allen in 2003, has made treating disease its goal. Read More

Zuckerberg’s yacht leaves Seattle’s Lake Union, anchors in Elliott Bay

After several days docked on Lake Union, drawing crowds and hecklers, Mark Zuckerberg’s superyacht slipped back through the Ballard Locks and is now anchored in Elliott Bay. Why it’s in Seattle remains unclear. Read More

Rec Room’s final day: Fans say goodbye as social gaming platform comes to an end

The Seattle social gaming platform, once valued at $3.5 billion, shuts down at noon Pacific today after a decade and 150 million players. Fans are marking the end with tribute videos, yearbook-style goodbyes, and final virtual gatherings. Read More

Podcast

Zuckerberg’s yacht, Meta’s layoffs, a robot pizza flameout, and a reality check on AI expenses

On this week’s GeekWire Podcast: Mark Zuckerberg’s superyacht arrives in Seattle the same day Meta discloses nearly 1,400 local layoffs, robot pizza startup Picnic shuts down and sells its assets to a mystery buyer, and companies grapple with the rising cost of corporate AI. Read More

Still ringing a bell: F5 marks its 30th year in business

Seattle-based F5 marked 30 years in business Friday by ringing the Nasdaq opening bell. The application-delivery and security company has grown to $3.1 billion in annual revenue and outlived nearly all the marquee customers and the three investment banks listed in its 1999 IPO prospectus. Read More

Possible Finance rebounds, rebuilds, and reaches profitability as founders reunite for a new chapter

Seattle fintech Possible Finance hit a $125 million revenue run rate and its first annual profit after a pandemic-era stretch of flat growth and layoffs. The company is expanding its Seattle office and reuniting its founding team. Read More

Podcast

How ‘Lean Startup’ author Eric Ries redefines profit in his new book

“Lean Startup” author Eric Ries discusses his new book “Incorruptible” and his new definition of profit on this special episode of the GeekWire Podcast, recorded behind the scenes at Seattle Flow Startup Day. Read More

Snowflake commits $6B to Amazon Web Services over 5 years in latest AI infrastructure deal

Snowflake committed to spend $6 billion on AWS over five years, including the use of Amazon’s custom Graviton processors. The deal adds to a growing list of large-scale AI infrastructure commitments on AWS from Anthropic, OpenAI, and Meta. Read More

Amazon offers its AI shopping tech to outside retailers in new phase of agentic commerce race

AWS is releasing the Agentic Shopping Assistant, a tool that lets retailers build AI shopping experiences using the same technology behind Amazon’s Alexa for Shopping, which drove nearly $12 billion in incremental sales last year. Read More

Watch: Zuckerberg’s superyacht arrives in Seattle just as Meta cuts 1,400 local jobs

The Meta CEO’s 387-foot Launchpad passed through the Ballard Locks toward Lake Union on Tuesday, the same day the company disclosed nearly 1,400 layoffs in Washington state. Read More

Meta cuts nearly 1,400 jobs in Seattle area, 20% of local workforce, in sweeping AI revamp

A new state filing shows Meta is eliminating nearly 1,400 positions across its Seattle, Bellevue and Redmond offices, about 20% of its local workforce, as part of a companywide restructuring impacting 8,000 jobs. Read More

New tune for Code.org’s Hadi Partovi: CEO of piano education venture with unique method and big ambitions

The Code.org founder, who earlier this year handed off the CEO role at the nonprofit, announced this weekend that he is the new CEO of Payam Music, a Bothell, Wash.-based piano school that he plans to expand nationally with backing from a prominent group of investors. Read More

Podcast

SpaceX IPO filing reveals Starlink’s impact, Bezos sounds off on CNBC, and Gemini owes John a beer

SpaceX’s IPO filing includes new details about the Starlink satellite factory in Redmond. Jeff Bezos talks wealth, inequality, and AI on CNBC. And John turns to ChatGPT and Gemini when FIFA’s ticketing support falls short. Read More

A ‘final season’ at Microsoft for Yusuf Mehdi: Longtime exec plans to leave after one last year

Yusuf Mehdi, one of Microsoft’s best-known and longest-serving business leaders, whose tenure has spanned 35 years from Windows 3.1 to… Read More

CEO of Paul Allen’s $3.1B science and tech fund steps down less than a year after launch

Dr. Lynda Stuart is departing as the first CEO of the Fund for Science and Technology, the foundation created under late Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen’s instructions. The change comes amid broader shifts in the Allen philanthropic ecosystem, including the departures of top AI researchers from the Allen Institute for AI. Read More

SpaceX is churning out 70 Starlink satellites a week in Redmond, and other tidbits from its IPO filing

SpaceX disclosed in its S-1 filing that its Redmond, Wash., facility produces approximately 70 Starlink satellites per week, putting hard production numbers on the operation for the first time. The filing also reveals Starlink’s financials and names several Pacific Northwest companies as competitors. Read More

AI is not your strategy: Author and business advisor Brian Evergreen explains why vision comes first

Brian Evergreen, a former Microsoft AI leader and author of Autonomous Transformation, argues that most companies are approaching AI backward — starting with the technology instead of a vision for what they want to create. In a live GeekWire Podcast recording, he explains how leaders can adjust their approach. Read More

At Tech Alliance annual luncheon, a stark analysis and a call to action

A McKinsey analysis presented at the Technology Alliance’s State of Technology luncheon warns that Washington’s nation-leading economic growth is projected to slow to the national average, driven by negative domestic migration, rising costs, and heavy reliance on a handful of giant employers. Read More

Jeff Bezos describes his $38B startup Prometheus for the first time: ‘Nothing to do with robotics’

In a CNBC interview, Jeff Bezos offered the most detailed public description yet of Project Prometheus, calling the secretive startup an “artificial general engineer” building next-generation design tools for physical objects. Read More

S. ‘Soma’ Somasegar, 1966-2026: Microsoft and Madrona leader was a champion of developers and startups

Friends and colleagues remembered S. “Soma” Somasegar, the longtime Microsoft developer leader and Madrona managing director, as a generous mentor to developers and founders, and a fixture of Seattle’s tech community. Read More

Expedia at 30, the inside story: Online travel giant navigates its third tech disruption

Expedia Group CEO Ariane Gorin, founder Rich Barton, chairman Barry Diller, and former CEO Dara Khosrowshahi tell the story of Expedia’s 30-year evolution from a small project inside Microsoft to a global travel conglomerate navigating the age of AI agents. Read More

StitcherAI emerges from stealth with $3M and a different take on the AI spending problem

StitcherAI, founded by a pair of Seattle enterprise tech veterans, launched Tuesday with $3 million in pre-seed funding and a platform that pushes cost data into the tools where spending decisions are made, rather than relying on traditional dashboards. Read More

Articles by Todd Bishop

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