GEEK News
June 05, 2015 - 02:04 PM
T-Mobile exec Mike Katz exits after 28 years, as carrier reshuffles top ranks and taps ex-AT&T leader
Mike Katz speaks at a T-Mobile event in 2025. (GeekWire File Photo / Todd Bishop) T-Mobile’s longest-tenured Un-carrier architect just Un-carriered himself. Mike Katz, who started selling VoiceStream phones at Circuit City 28 years ago and rose to help T-Mobile go from an also-ran into the wireless industry’s most formidable competitor, is leaving the Bellevue, Wash.-based carrier as part...
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Tech Moves: Seattle tech exec named Dropbox CPO; Xbox VP among layoffs; C-suite changes at T-Mobile
Mike Torres. (LinkedIn Photo) — Mike Torres, a former executive at Amazon, Microsoft and Google, has joined Dropbox as the company’s first chief product officer. “As a product leader, joining a company that helped pioneer product-led growth is energizing…” Torres said on LinkedIn. “In this role, my focus will be simple: help Dropbox ship the right things at the right time for our...
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The drive to make a better golf app: Former pro athlete bets big on ‘Barkie’ and AI as a caddie
Dane Renkert, co-founder and CEO of Barkie, an AI-powered app for golfers. (Barkie Photo) Perhaps the only downside to building a golf-focused startup is that it leaves less time to actually play golf. Dane Renkert will take that tradeoff, for now, as he works on something that he says will change the way people play and interact around the game. Renkert is co-founder and CEO of Barkie,...
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This startup lets companies teach AI about their brands — and the chatbots are listening
Optimly founder and CEO Apurva Luty pitches at the Tech Alliance’s Seattle Investor Summit + Showcase in Redmond. (GeekWire Photo / Todd Bishop) Seattle startup Optimly, which helps brands manage what AI understands and says about them, went into the Flywheel Investment Conference in Wenatchee, Wash., in May as a last-minute entrant, and walked out with a triple crown. The company won a...
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Former GitHub CEO’s startup Entire unveils its answer to the crush of AI coding agents
Thomas Dohmke’s startup Entire is offering a solution to what he calls “the strain of billions of agents and developers hammering a central server.” (Photo by Vaughn Ridley/Web Summit Rio, May 2023, via Sportsfile, CC BY 2.0) Former GitHub CEO Thomas Dohmke‘s startup Entire is rolling out a distributed network for mirroring code repositories, making the case that centralized platforms like he...
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10 new startups emerge from the University of Washington, with healthcare dominating the lineup
Leaders of startups recently spun out of the UW, top row, from left: Hilco Boerlage of Precision Cognition Labs; Jan Whittington of Climate Solutions International; Elena Cant of DetellaDx; Sura Alwan of PEAR-Net Society; and Min Sun of Colleague AI. Bottom row, from left: Jingcong Zhao of KeenSight Health; Vigneshwar (Viggy) Sakthivelpathi of Nanosync Labs; Chris Norn of Skape Bio; Joelle Tudor...
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Former Impinj CEO Bill Colleran tapped to lead Seattle AI coding startup Adronite
Bill Colleran is the new CEO of Adronite. Bill Colleran, a veteran technology executive who previously led Impinj and sold Innovent Systems to Broadcom, has joined Seattle-based AI coding startup Adronite as CEO. Edward Rothschild, who co-founded Adronite in 2023 and served as its first CEO, is transitioning to chief technology officer, where he’ll continue leading the company’s product...
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Chicago software company plants flag in Seattle area as new leadership team seeks AI talent
LogicGate CEO Diego Panama. (LinkedIn Photo) Enterprise software company LogicGate is establishing a Bellevue, Wash., office and rapidly expanding its Seattle-area executive team, betting on the region’s deep technology talent pool as it embarks on a new chapter under newly appointed CEO Diego Panama. The Chicago-based governance, risk and compliance software company recently signed a lease...
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Etzioni on AI: Does AI bolster or undercut democracy?
An aerial view of Shasta Dam in California. After a July 4 visit, computer scientist Daphne Koller argued that America’s signature achievement is taking what was scarce and making it abundant: water into power at Shasta, electricity into a grid anyone could plug into, computation into a pocket. AI, she reasons, is the next chapter, “making abundant one of the world’s scarcest resources: powerful...
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An agent in the empty chair: Amazon vets launch Primitive Labs, using AI to model customer behavior
Primitive Labs co-founders, from left: CTO Jean Farmer, CEO Rohit Talluri and COO Gabriel Fong. (Primitive Labs Photo) Rohit Talluri learned the tradition at Amazon: always keep an empty chair in the room to represent the customer — a reminder of the people who will ultimately use whatever gets built. Now, with AI coding tools creating software faster than ever, Talluri and his co-founders,...
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Filing shows Amazon cut 57 tech jobs in Washington state in recent weeks
Amazon’s headquarters buildings and the Spheres in Seattle’s Denny Triangle neighborhood in September 2024. (GeekWire Photo / Kurt Schlosser) Amazon has cut a total of 57 jobs in Washington state across various teams, including roles at the director and senior manager levels, according to a filing made public Monday morning. People impacted by the cuts include 16 software engineers as well...
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Seattle’s Cascade PBS spins out Local Public, a tech platform that builds streaming apps for stations
A screengrab of the Cascade PBS streaming app as built by Local Public. (Local Public Image) Seattle’s Cascade PBS has spun out its streaming app technology into a standalone company called Local Public, which is now building connected-TV and mobile apps for public media stations across the country. The goal is to provide local PBS stations nationwide their own branded, station-curated...
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A ‘painful’ reset for Xbox: 3,200 job cuts, studio spinoffs, and a vow to return to growth in 2027
(Microsoft Image) Xbox CEO Asha Sharma laid out a wide-ranging plan to overhaul Microsoft’s gaming division Monday, calling it the most significant restructuring in Xbox history and disclosing that the business has been losing 64 cents on every dollar invested in its game studios. As detailed in a memo to employees, the changes include roughly 3,200 job cuts through the fiscal year — about...
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Microsoft cuts 4,800 jobs, about 2% globally, revamps salesforce and launches massive Xbox overhaul
Microsoft’s Redmond headquarters. (GeekWire File Photo) Microsoft is cutting 4,800 jobs, just over 2% of its global workforce, citing a need to revamp its sales and consulting division to keep pace with a rapidly changing tech industry, while overhauling its Xbox business in a push for long-term growth and profitability from gaming. The cuts include about 600 jobs in Washington state, home...
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Etzioni on AI: Elon Musk promised humanoid robots, but China delivered
The UWORLD U1 humanoid robot at its launch event in Shenzhen, China, on June 30. (UBTech Photo) On Tuesday in Shenzhen, the Chinese company UBTech unveiled the U1, a full-sized humanoid robot with silicone skin, blinking lashes, manicured nails, and an AI tuned to read your mood. It comes in male and female versions, and racked up more than 13,000 orders by the end of launch day, with...
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Week in Review: Most popular stories on GeekWire for the week of June 28, 2026
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 June 28, 2026. Sign up to receive these updates every Sunday in your inbox by subscribing to our GeekWire Weekly email newsletter. Most popular stories on GeekWire GeekWire spoke with several longtime Microsoft employees who are taking the company’s...
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Xbox at a crossroads: 25 years later, Microsoft is done playing around
Xbox at a gamescom briefing in 2014. Microsoft is pressing its games division to turn a profit. (Microsoft Photo) In 2007, Microsoft’s Xbox 360 consoles started dying — overheating until three lights on the front blinked red, a defect gamers came to call the “red ring of death.” Microsoft’s response was to extend the warranty on every machine and take a charge of more than $1 billion to fix...
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Overland AI lands Marine Corps deal worth nearly $20M to build self-driving military vehicles
Overland AI’s autonomous ground vehicles lined up at the company’s proving grounds. (Overland AI Photo) Seattle-based Overland AI has landed a U.S. Marine Corps contract to produce autonomous ground vehicles, a milestone the defense-tech startup says makes it the first ground autonomy company to serve as the prime contractor on a military production deal. The nearly $20 million agreement —...
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Pet project: Seattle startup studio’s new app connects neighbors through their dogs
Sniff founder Amish Patel and Chewie, his standard poodle. (Photo courtesy of Amish Patel) Amish Patel knows his neighbors by their dogs’ names before he knows their own. It’s a pattern he noticed in his Seattle neighborhood — and one he’s now built an app around. Patel’s newest pet project — born out of his Conduit Venture Labs startup studio, is Sniff, an iOS app that turns the everyday...
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Meet the 17 startups that took part in Creative Destruction Lab’s latest Seattle accelerator
Emer Dooley, site lead for Creative Destruction Lab in Seattle, moderates an accelerator program session alongside mentors and startup founders. (CDL Photo) Startups innovating across advanced manufacturing and computational health made up the latest cohort of the Seattle accelerator run by Creative Destruction Lab (CDL). The nine-month, nonprofit program based at the University of...
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Nvidia recruits longtime Microsoft sales leader Nick Parker with $40M+ pay package
Microsoft executive Nick Parker at a conference in 2018. (Microsoft Photo) Nick Parker, a 26-year Microsoft veteran who led the company’s worldwide commercial sales business, is leaving to become Nvidia’s new sales chief — a high-profile talent shift between two of the biggest players in the AI boom. Parker will join Nvidia as executive vice president of worldwide field operations,...
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Amazon Leo says its latest launch gives it enough satellites to start broadband internet service
An Atlas 5 rocket lifts off from its Florida launch pad, sending 29 Amazon Leo satellites into orbit. (United Launch Alliance Photo) Amazon says the overnight launch of 29 satellites should clear the way for its Amazon Leo network to start offering commercial high-speed internet service from space this year, in direct competition with SpaceX’s Starlink network. United Launch Alliance’s...
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Inside the race to power AI data centers with fusion energy — and the surprise detours along the way
Zap Energy’s fusion device creates a purplish glow from its hydrogen plasma. (Zap Photo) Subscribe to Positive Charge: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, All Episodes AI data centers face mounting community backlash and local moratoriums, while surging power demands knock tech giants off course from their climate ambitions. Could fusion be the solution to both problems,...
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Steamboats to software: Microsoft’s Brad Smith mines America’s founding for tech insights
As the country marks its 250th birthday this week, Microsoft is rolling out an unlikely summer project: a six-part series of short videos, hosted by Microsoft President and Vice Chair Brad Smith, that look to American history for lessons relevant to technology and innovation today. The premise is that every technology debate of the moment — over such issues as patents, privacy, and who...
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Zoom snaps up Seattle startup Common Room to bolster AI-powered sales tools
Common Room’s co-founders, from left: Tom Kleinpeter; Viraj Mody; Francis Luu; and Linda Lian. (Common Room Photo) Common Room, the fast-rising Seattle startup that built an AI-powered platform to help sales and marketing teams track buying signals across their customers, is being acquired by Zoom. Terms of the deal were not revealed in a news release on Thursday. “When we founded Common...
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KredosAI raises $7M, led by BMW’s venture arm, to use AI to help companies collect late payments
KredosAI co-founders Balaji Sridharan, left, and Dave Thoms, who previously worked together at T-Mobile. (KredosAI Photo) KredosAI, a Seattle-area startup that uses AI and behavioral science to help companies chase down late consumer payments, raised $7 million in a new funding round led by BMW i Ventures, the independent venture capital arm of automaker BMW Group. The company, founded in...
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Microsoft unveils $2.5B ‘Frontier Company’ to embed AI engineers inside customers
Satya Nadella says the industry shouldn’t “cede value to a few models that eat everything they see.” (GeekWire File Photo / Kevin Lisota) Microsoft is launching a new AI “company.” It won’t be a separate legal entity, and most of its 6,000 people already work at Microsoft. But the $2.5 billion behind it is real, and the stakes are big, given how many of its AI partners and rivals are racing to...
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K2 Space sets up an engineering office in the Seattle area to support big plans for big satellites
Engineers prepare a high-power satellite for testing at K2 Space’s manufacturing facility in Torrance, Calif. (K2 Space via PRNewswire) California-based K2 Space is establishing a satellite engineering hub in the Seattle area, adding to a thriving regional ecosystem of satellite ventures. The Pacific Northwest operation will support the company’s drive to build large, high-power satellites...
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No discs, more problems: What Sony’s all-digital PlayStation means for gamers and the industry
Sony’s PlayStation 5. (Sony press image) Sony announced on Wednesday morning that it plans to phase out physical media for future PlayStation games, which is a massive market disruption for an already reeling games industry. It ends trade-ins and lending, raises the overall price of entry for the PlayStation ecosystem, and turns your shelf full of games into licenses that can potentially...
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Private AI: Venice.ai, led by crypto vet Erik Voorhees and Seattle’s Jesse Proudman, raises $65M
The Venice.ai leadership team, from left: Austin Virts, VP of marketing; Jesse Proudman, president and CTO; Erik Voorhees, CEO; Jonathan Shapiro, head of strategy; Tim Shakarian, head of engineering; and Johanna Tseng, VP of business operations. (Venice Photo) Venice.ai, a privacy-focused AI startup with strong Seattle ties, has raised $65 million in its first outside funding, valuing the...
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Taiwanese AI startup sets up North American HQ in Bellevue, with potential for 500 employees
eNeural Technologies gets the lay of the land in Bellevue during a Greater Seattle Partners Spinoff program reception at Amazon’s Everest building in Bellevue. Pictured from left: Tom Florino, director, Worldwide Economic Development, Amazon; Rebecca Lovell, COO, Greater Seattle Partners; David Kou, SVP sales and marketing, eNeural Technologies; Lynne Robinson, City of Bellevue councilmember;...
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Tech Moves: Amazon Music names VP; Microsoft departures and a Copilot shakeup; Veeam adds exec
Hrishikesh Aradhye. (Noah Berger Photo) — Hrishikesh Aradhye has joined Amazon Music as vice president of product and tech for the streaming service. He spent nearly 19 years at Google, most recently as senior director of engineering leading YouTube Music and Podcasts. “The music industry is going through a tectonic shift that will unlock entirely new kinds of customer experiences through...
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The cost of the AI boom: Amazon emissions jump 16% as company stands by net-zero pledge
Wind Wall, a wind farm in California’s Tehachapi Mountains, produces renewable energy for Amazon Web Services. (Amazon Photo) Amazon’s carbon footprint jumped 16% last year after several years of little or no increase. The company emitted nearly 80.9 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2025. By comparison, that’s slightly higher than the nation of New Zealand’s...
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Ballmer Group launches ‘MoveUp Washington’ as part of broader philanthropic restructuring
MoveUp Washington will be led by Andi Smith, who currently heads Ballmer Group’s Washington state regional office. (Ballmer Group Photo) Ballmer Group, the Bellevue, Wash.-based philanthropy founded by former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and his wife Connie, is spinning out its Washington state work into an independent organization, one of three new regional groups launched Wednesday as part of...
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Opinion: Governor’s new economic council snubs startups, forgets AI
Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson. (Flickr Photo via Governor’s Office) Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson last week announced an Economic Development Council to “identify practical actions that strengthen Washington’s economy, expand opportunity and help more Washingtonians succeed.” To Ferguson’s credit, he may finally be recognizing that Washington’s business climate is deteriorating. While he...
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