Who is Vinod Khosla? The longtime Silicon Valley investor agreed to buy the Seahawks with his family over the weekend for a reported $9.6 billion. He's well-known in the tech world, and in the Seattle startup community, where he has made several appearances and a sprinkling of investments over the years. But most Seahawks fans have probably never heard of him. We dug into his track record to better understand what kind of NFL owner he'll be.
Read more.
A reality check on VC checks: Seattle-area startups raised $2.7 billion in the first half of 2026, down 40% from a year ago, even as U.S. venture funding hit a record $412.7 billion. The disconnect: AI mega-rounds are driving the national boom, and Seattle's biggest deals were in fusion, space, and cybersecurity. Read more.
“Speak softly and carry a big prompt.” An AI-powered Theodore Roosevelt didn’t exactly greet famed historian Doris Kearns Goodwin like that, but a digital avatar at the 26th president’s new library did wow the Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer. Goodwin joined Microsoft President Brad Smith to learn how the company’s AI, which relies on hundreds of thousands of archival documents, is being used at the library. Read more.
Elon Musk’s Mars illusion: SpaceX’s trillion‑dollar dream of a million‑person city on Mars is colliding with physics, biology, and economics. Experts say the planet’s radiation, toxic soil, and thin CO₂ atmosphere make permanent settlement “many decades away — if ever.” A reality check by journalist Dominic Gates points to big long-term implications for the newly public company and its Seattle-area Starlink operations. Read more.
Augmodo raises $21 million: The Seattle startup is now valued at $350 million and is moving beyond retail and grocery store shelves to put its wearable tech and spatial AI into warehouses, factories, and other physical workplaces. “Fundamentally, someone grabbing a wrench at an automotive factory isn’t that different from someone grabbing a Cheerios box,” CEO Ross Finman said. Read more.
Seattle activist at center of anti-AI movement: Before he vanished last fall, Seattle's Sam Kirchner had become one of the country's most outspoken anti-AI activists, staging protests outside Microsoft, Google and OpenAI and helping found the hard-line group Stop AI. A new profile in the Wall Street Journal traces his mysterious disappearance in San Francisco and the growing tensions within the anti-AI movement, raising unsettling questions about radicalization as the AI boom accelerates.
Who disagrees with you about AI? Attitudes toward the tech differ by country, gender, profession, age, and political affiliation, according to a number of studies rounded up by researcher Oren Etzioni. Read the latest “Etzioni on AI.”
Tech Moves: Rina Hahn leaves role as Remitly's CMO; Temporal promotes Preeti Somal to EVP amid reorganization; Veeam and Qualtrics make leadership changes; and more personnel changes.
Hot Links:
-
Phia, a personal shopping assistant startup co-founded by Bill Gates' daughter Phoebe Gates, was caught using "cookie stuffing" techniques to wrongfully claim affiliate credit and commissions on online sales it didn’t actually drive. (Bloomberg)
-
Vancouver, Wash.-based laser developer nLIGHT secured a U.S. military contract worth up to $627 million to develop containerized, high-energy laser weapon systems designed to protect against drone swarms and cruise missiles. (Business Wire)
-
Redmond, Wash.-based Data I/O signed a letter of intent to acquire IAR’s embedded software security assets, bringing its design-to-manufacturing security capabilities entirely in-house ahead of upcoming EU cyber regulations. (Data I/O)
-
Amazon is a founding partner of Get Blue, a multi-brand coalition created with Water.org, a nonprofit co-founded by Matt Damon and Gary White, to promote access to clean water. (Amazon)
Thanks for subscribing, and have a great week. — GeekWire editor Todd Bishop, [email protected]; reporter Kurt Schlosser, [email protected]; and reporter Lisa Stiffler, [email protected].
