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GeekWire Mid-Week Update

Read the top tech stories so far this week from GeekWire


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GeekWire Mid-Week Update

Top stories so far this week

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.
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.
AWS veteran Matt Wood returns to cloud giant in new role: chief AI and technology officer
Matt Wood, who spent more than 14 years helping to lead Amazon Web Services’ artificial intelligence and machine learning initiatives… Read More
Gates Foundation Trust ends an era, selling off all remaining Microsoft stock
The Gates Foundation Trust has sold its remaining 7.7 million shares of Microsoft, marking the end of an era for the Seattle-based philanthropy as it ramps up global grantmaking.
Starbucks layoffs impact 252 jobs at Seattle support center, including VPs and other senior roles
A Washington Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification said that the cuts "will result in the relocation or contracting out of certain of the employer’s operations or the partners’ positions."
Opinion: Don’t let the OpenAI soap opera hide the precedent
Computer scientist and AI industry veteran Oren Etzioni argues that OpenAI's nonprofit-to-for-profit conversion sets a dangerous precedent for American charity law, and that the real reckoning will have to come from Washington, not the Oakland courtroom.
Former Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell has a new gig — startup CEO
The company was started by apparel industry veterans Raj Shah and Akhil Shah, raising $540,000 with a 2016 Kickstarter campaign.
Jury finds Musk waited too long to sue OpenAI and Microsoft, clearing defendants in landmark AI case
A jury ruled unanimously Monday that Elon Musk waited too long to file his lawsuit against OpenAI, Sam Altman, and Microsoft, finding the defendants not liable on all claims after less than two hours of deliberation.
Seattle, we’ve got an image problem
GeekWire co-founder John Cook argues that Seattle's increasingly anti-business national image threatens the city's standing as an innovation hub, exactly 30 years after Newsweek celebrated it as one of America's great boomtowns.
Amazon Leo’s leaders provide an inside look at the satellite broadband network’s past and future
Amazon Leo's team leader recounts how Jeff Bezos got the ball rolling in the competition with SpaceX's Starlink for space-based connectivity.
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