Seattle's 'Third Act': The superstar startups hiding in plain sight

Seattle’s ‘Third Act’: One year after GeekWire asked where Seattle’s superstar AI startups were, two venture capitalists offer an answer: they’re here, but they build rockets, geothermal energy plants and autonomous off-road vehicles, not just software. In a new guest opinion piece, Ascend’s Nate Bek and Plug and Play’s Ben Eisinger assert that the region’s rare mix of industrial infrastructure, AI talent and manufacturing know-how is fueling the region’s next wave of impactful startups.

From Bothell to Cape Canaveral: Portal Space Systems is preparing to ship Starburst-1, its first full spacecraft, to Florida for an October launch on a SpaceX rideshare. The Bothell startup also announced that Supernova — a larger, more maneuverable vehicle propelled by concentrated sunlight heating ammonia — will fly in 2028 on a Falcon 9. We got a peek inside.

North America’s biggest book sorter: The King County Library System opened a $5.2M hub in Renton, Wash., that features the largest library materials sorter on the continent. Two robotic arms destack incoming totes every 15 seconds, and each scanned item routes into one of 186 chutes, handling the 25,000 items that move through 50 libraries every day.

Qualtrics layoffs: The experience-management software company laid off employees worldwide Wednesday, including its co-headquarters in Seattle and Provo, Utah, citing overlap from its $6.75 billion purchase of healthcare data firm Press Ganey Forsta in May. Qualtrics won’t say how many jobs were cut, but some details could emerge soon from a state filing.

• Previously on the reorg and layoffs beat: Expedia Group parted ways with at least eight execs in an AI-driven shakeup, and TikTok cut 75 jobs in the Seattle area, hitting its TikTok Shop e-commerce teams in Bellevue.

Surveillance pricing: Seattle could become the first city in the nation to ban grocery prices set from shoppers’ personal data, with a council committee set to hear amendments Friday and a full vote due in September. The bill permits loyalty discounts and coupons, but industry groups say its enforcement mechanism will make stores drop those deals anyway. A City Council memo says the effect on grocery bills is hard to predict either way.

Jeff Bezos, decoded for Liverpool fans: GeekWire co-founder John Cook sat down with a Liverpool FC fan site to discuss what the Amazon founder’s new ownership stake means for the Premier League club, pointing supporters to the tech giant’s leadership principles as a guide

• Impinj partner Keonn upgraded its overhead store scanners with the Seattle company’s latest RFID technology, improving the speed and accuracy of scanning — part of a larger move to track retail inventory continuously rather than in periodic counts. (Impinj)
• Meta is spending hundreds of millions of dollars a year to reach AI models through Microsoft’s Azure cloud, making the social network one of Microsoft’s largest AI customers — a reminder that most demand for AI still comes from other tech companies. (Bloomberg)
• T-Mobile CIO Jeff Simon recounts the time in 2024 when he and three colleagues piled into his Tesla, drove to a Seattle-area data center and literally cut a router cable with a pair of scissors after tracing odd network activity to a Chinese hacking campaign. (Bloomberg)
• Meta is replacing Seattle-area caterer Lavish Roots after more than a decade, consolidating its food operations globally with Sodexo as the tech giant adjusts campus services for a smaller, more distributed hybrid workforce. (The Seattle Times)

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