Elon Musk's Mars illusion: In a special report, journalist Dominic Gates looks at the science behind Musk's goal of putting a million-person city on Mars — the long-term goal of the newly public SpaceX — and explains why planetary scientists say terraforming the planet to make it habitable would take centuries, if it's possible at all. The key source of funding is Starlink, the satellite network SpaceX designs and builds in the Seattle area. Read more.
On the pod: This week's GeekWire Podcast was recorded live at our annual founder open house. We dig into Microsoft's layoffs and Xbox shakeup, then sit down with startup leaders to talk about how AI is changing the way they build. Read more and listen here, and subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen.
What's Howard's end? Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz is taking aim at Washington state again, penning his second Wall Street Journal op-ed in 60 days to call Seattle's mayor "inept" and ding the governor's economic development council for lacking startup representation. The catch: Schultz moved to Miami earlier this year. Read more.
First fusion stock. British Columbia-based General Fusion closed its $1 billion SPAC merger on Friday, becoming the first publicly traded fusion energy company. Shares are expected to begin trading Monday on Nasdaq under the ticker GFUZ. Read more.
Data nerd, Super Bowl champ. Seahawks coach Mike Macdonald calls himself a "psycho data guy" — but he's clear that analytics support his in-game decisions, not drive them. Case in point: ignoring the model that said go for it on 4th-and-1 in last season's opener, kicking a field goal, losing the game, and winning the Super Bowl six months later. Read more.
Awkward timing, Xbox edition. Xbox CEO Asha Sharma was named to co-lead a new Federal Reserve task force on AI's impact on jobs — three days after announcing plans to cut 3,200 gaming positions, roughly 20% of the division's workforce. The gaming press noticed, and not in a favorable way. Read more.
Recapping some of the big storylines from this week:
Microsoft trims 2% of workforce, hits reset button on Xbox: Microsoft is cutting 4,800 jobs — just over 2% of its global workforce — as part of a sales and consulting revamp, with about 600 of the cuts in Washington state. The move comes alongside a major Xbox restructuring: 1,600 of the cuts hit the gaming division, with additional layoffs expected to bring total Xbox job losses to around 3,200 (20% of that workforce) this fiscal year, as Microsoft also spins off four game studios to operate independently.
Auger raises $50 million: Auger, the Bellevue supply chain startup led by former Amazon operations chief Dave Clark, raised $50 million in Series B funding led by Eclipse, bringing total funding to $150 million. The company, which counts Meta, Fanatics, and Kimberly-Clark among its customers, aims to automate supply chain decisions that Clark says most software just flags for humans — with a goal of getting half of U.S. GDP flowing through its platform by 2030.
Echodyne cuts ribbon on $40 million radar plant: Echodyne opened a new 86,350-square-foot manufacturing facility in Woodinville, Wash., aiming to eventually produce 30,000 radars a year for its drone-detection and airspace-monitoring systems. The company, backed by Bill Gates among others, says the expansion is driven by demand tied to drone warfare in Ukraine and the growing "low altitude economy" of commercial drone use.
AI's power hunger pushes Microsoft's carbon output up 25%: Microsoft's 2025 emissions jumped as data center expansion for AI drove electricity consumption up, putting the company further behind its 2030 carbon-negative goal even as it insists it remains committed to that target. The report lands amid scrutiny of Microsoft's recent moves, including a new natural gas deal in Texas and reports it may be scaling back a pledge to match its energy use with carbon-free power around the clock.
Washington ticks up in business rankings, still off its old highs: Washington state climbed three spots to No. 11 in CNBC's 2026 America's Top States for Business rankings, up from No. 14 last year — though still well below its No. 1 ranking in 2017. The bump comes despite business leaders' vocal frustration over new state taxes. Other rankings, like the Tax Foundation's, painted a less-flattering picture of Washington's competitiveness.
Startup highlights:
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Former GitHub CEO Thomas Dohmke's startup Entire launched a preview of its distributed Git network, letting developers mirror repos so AI coding agents can pull from a faster, closer copy instead of hammering GitHub's central servers.
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Bellingham startup Barkie, led by former pro baseball player and long-drive golfer Dane Renkert, is rolling out a voice-first AI caddie app that tracks scores hands-free and aims to automate betting games and handicap tracking.
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Former Impinj CEO Bill Colleran has taken the helm at Seattle AI coding startup Adronite, with co-founder Edward Rothschild shifting to CTO to focus on product.
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Amazon veterans launched Primitive Labs, a startup building AI agents that simulate customer behavior so product teams can test features and designs before shipping.
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Seattle startup Optimly swept three prizes at a May investment conference for its platform that helps brands correct how AI chatbots describe them, and has since closed an $800,000 pre-seed round.
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Thanks for subscribing, and have a great weekend. — GeekWire editor Todd Bishop, [email protected]; reporter Kurt Schlosser, [email protected]; and reporter Lisa Stiffler, [email protected].
