Two pizzas and a prototype: Amazon CEO Andy Jassy says he wants the company to run like the world’s largest startup. AWS VP Swami Sivasubramanian’s agentic AI division may be the closest thing to what that looks like in practice. With teams as small as six people developing major products, they’ve been using AI tools to quietly change how they work, in some cases building prototypes before the traditional Amazon “six-pagers.” In the latest installment of GeekWire’s Agents of Transformation series, we look inside the team to understand what it says about the future of product development across the industry.
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Northwest-based nuclear fission and fusion companies notched notable milestones in efforts to deploy their clean energy technologies:
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The next-gen nuclear company TerraPower is planting its flag in the UK with the opening of a subsidiary there. The Bill Gates-backed venture has already been working with UK regulators to gain approval for its first international facility.
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Helion Energy announced that it’s the first company in the world to receive regulatory licenses for a commercial fusion power plant. The facility is under construction in Central Washington as the startup races to develop the technology to operate it.
Taking off: Shares of SpaceX surged Tuesday morning, pushing the Elon Musk-led company above Amazon and into a neck-and-neck race with Microsoft for the title of the world’s fourth-most valuable public company, less than a week after its blockbuster $75 billion IPO. The jump came after SpaceX announced its $60 billion acquisition of AI coding startup Cursor. Read more.
A startup to “reimagine insurance”: Former 98Point6 CEO Robbie Cape is teaming with Pioneer Square Labs on The Instrument, a company coming out of stealth with what appears to be an AI-driven approach to insurance. Cape said on LinkedIn that he was lured by a “tough” VC, the complexity of the trillion-dollar market, and money. Read more.
Measuring AI’s carbon footprint: Seattle startup Neuralwatt, founded by two Microsoft veterans, has launched what appears to be the first tool capable of tracking the carbon emissions of individual AI workloads in real time. Read more.
JumpStart or fall back? A new Downtown Seattle Association report ties Seattle's JumpStart tax to five years of downtown job losses and a 48% drop in office values, contrasting the city with booming Bellevue. Mayor Katie Wilson credited the tax with helping Seattle avoid deep budget cuts after the pandemic and said downtown's struggles owe more to national economic forces, remote work and tech-sector shifts than to any single tax. Read more.
Seattle entrepreneurs honored by Allen School: Nodira Khoussainova, co-founder of Focused Space, and David Dawson, co-founder of Ridwell, were presented with the school’s alumni impact award at the graduation ceremony last Friday. The award ceremony allowed the school’s newest alums to connect with some of its most impactful. Read more.
World Cup tie is still a win: Egypt and Belgium played to a 1-1 draw in the first FIFA World Cup match in Seattle, but later Monday night drones put on a winning show with the first-ever lighted scoreboard flying near the Space Needle. Read more.
Hot Links:
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UiPath, the AI automation giant with a large Seattle-area office, introduced Maestro Case, a new system meant to help companies manage complicated, multi‑step work that moves across teams and tools. (BusinessWire)
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Microsoft made Copilot Cowork generally available worldwide, shifting to a usage-based pricing model for the enterprise AI tool that executes complex, long-running tasks. The company is reportedly considering offering the ability to run the app on China-based DeepSeek's model as a lower-cost option. (Microsoft, Axios)
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GitHub’s cloud capacity problems are prompting Microsoft to look to other providers, including rival Amazon Web Services, to help manage increased demand for AI coding. (Business Insider)
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Apptio, the Bellevue‑born company that’s now part of IBM, introduced a new AI‑powered “Conversational Insights” tool and other updates aimed at giving enterprises clearer visibility into fast‑growing tech and AI spending. (Apptio)
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Microsoft introduced new Surface Pro and Surface Laptop models powered by Snapdragon X2 chips, promising better performance, battery life, displays and cameras, with devices available starting June 16. (Windows Blogs)
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].
