The fourth annual Seattle Tech Week got off to a big start Monday, with panels and parties bringing together thousands of people from across the region and out of state. Organizers said the week features more than 250 events and drew more than 29,000 event registrations.
We went to Madrona's kickoff event at Picklewood Paddle Club on Monday evening with one question for the founders, investors, and operators we met: What are you building? Here's what we heard and learned about, from an AI system that runs a professional cricket team's logistics to voice AI for counting bottles behind a bar.
Above: Top row from left: Emily Rapp, Henry Arias, Cleo Escarez, and Jagan Nemani. Bottom row from left: Kim Vu, Andy Liu, Mary Jesse, and Kenny Daniel, at the Seattle Tech Week kickoff.
Amazon news:
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Amazon’s next “pillar”? Jeff Bezos is on the cover of Fortune magazine and inside he talks about how the tech giant’s custom chip business is on track to become one of Amazon’s most durable businesses, placing it alongside Marketplace, Prime, and Amazon Web Services. Read more.
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Less Amazon, more profit: UPS is boosting its financial outlook on the strength of doing less low-yield Amazon business. The delivery giant credits a “glide-down” that reduced Amazon volume from 13% to 9% over the past 18 months. Read more.
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Reaching for smartphones from space: Amazon Leo has requested FCC approval to launch up to 5,105 satellites starting in 2028 for a direct-to-device network designed to beam mobile connectivity straight to compatible smartphones worldwide. Read more.
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Hollywood talent clash: Warner Bros. Discovery has sued Amazon after the tech giant hired away top HBO Max marketing executive Pia Barlow 16 months before her contract expired, asking a court to block Amazon from poaching any of its contracted talent in the future. Read more.
AI gets physical: Seattle-based startup Replify, which uses autonomous AI agents to automate customer communications for fitness and wellness businesses, has been acquired by industry tech provider ABC Fitness. Read more.
AI vs. hackers: Microsoft on Monday unveiled Project Perception, an AI cybersecurity system built to defend against AI-driven attacks, aiming to keep pace with both hackers and its technology rivals. It’s part of a broader escalation across the industry. Read more.
Soaring to top honors: Washington Youth Aerospace, a team of six ninth-graders from Bellevue's Interlake High School, represented the U.S. and won first place at the International Rocketry Challenge in England, outperforming student teams from France, Japan, the UK, and Ukraine. Read more.
Hot Links:
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Boris Wertz's Version One Ventures is putting some of its newly raised capital to work, leading a $4.5 million seed investment in San Francisco-based Pilot Protocol, a startup building an "internet for agents." (BusinessWire)
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AI startup Recursive Superintelligence signed a multi-year compute agreement worth over $400 million with Amazon Web Services, committing the bulk of its funding to AWS to co-develop infrastructure and scale its self-improving AI research. (TechCrunch)
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Seattle-based F5 reported Q3 revenue of $865 million, up 11% year over year, boosted by a 19% surge in product revenue and strong demand for its app delivery and security software. (F5)
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South Korean e-commerce giant Coupang, which maintains its corporate headquarters in Seattle, faces an estimated $423 million in damages and inventory losses following a major fulfillment center fire in South Korea. (Yahoo! Finance)
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Computer scientists at Washington State University designed a side-channel cyberattack called NosyNeighbor to help researchers better identify and fix vulnerabilities in time-critical computing systems like airplane navigation, medical pacemakers, and automated vehicle brakes. (WSU Insider)
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Seattle-based Aptevo Therapeutics filed a patent application for a proprietary Nectin-4 x PD-L1 dual-targeting backbone, establishing a reusable platform architecture designed to treat solid tumors across multiple therapeutic formats. (Aptevo)
Thanks for subscribing, and have a great day. — GeekWire editor Todd Bishop, [email protected]; reporter Kurt Schlosser, [email protected]; and reporter Lisa Stiffler, [email protected].
