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Amazon drone delivery goes national: Prime Air is expanding to reach nearly 500 cities and towns across the country by the end of this year, a sixfold increase in the company’s footprint that brings drone delivery to new metro areas such as Chicago, Atlanta and Boise, with more to come. No word yet on when or whether they’ll land in the Seattle area.
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Flashback: Jeff Bezos unveiled the drones on 60 Minutes in 2013, to widespread skepticism. He said it wouldn’t become a reality for at least four or five years, but the tech and the regulations took even longer than expected. Watch here.
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Elsewhere in the company’s logistics network, SEC filings show Amazon holding warrants that could give it ownership of about 12% of Einride, the Swedish company that said Tuesday it will deploy 500 Tesla Semis for Amazon and other customers.
Expedia shakeup: Expedia Group is parting ways with eight executives as it reorganizes its product and technology teams around AI. The company confirmed the departures but wouldn’t say how many roles were cut in all. Five other leaders were promoted in the same restructuring.
TikTok trims in Bellevue: TikTok cut 75 jobs in Bellevue, nearly all of them in TikTok Shop and Global E-Commerce roles, according to a notice filed with Washington state. It’s part of a steady stream of tech layoffs this year in the Seattle region.
Nuclear heater bound for the moon: Zeno Power Systems has reserved a spot on a Firefly Aerospace lander for a radioisotope heater designed to keep spacecraft components alive through the 14-day lunar night. Zeno’s Seattle engineering hub led the work.
Reroot founder Genevieve Priebe, a fourth-generation member of a Montana farm family.
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Back to the farm to grow a startup: After two decades consulting for the likes of Microsoft and Boeing, Genevieve Priebe took over her family’s farm, ran the numbers and found that growing food doesn’t pay. In our new Startup Spotlight, she explains why she founded Reroot, a marketplace and app connecting independent producers directly with customers.
Retail-returns startup scales up: BuyWander, which auctions off returned and overstocked merchandise from retailers including Amazon, Target and Walmart, has moved its headquarters from Spokane to the Seattle area and grown to 325 employees. BuyWander added four execs, including two Amazon vets, and now runs eight warehouses across the country.
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