What can Seattle learn from Cleveland's comeback? GeekWire's John Cook and Seattle angel investor Charles Fitzgerald — whose GeekWire column in February got lots of attention for warning Seattle
not to become the next Cleveland — spent several days in the northeast Ohio city this week talking with civic, business and political leaders, including the mayor and the governor. Here's what they heard, and what Seattle can take away from it.
Read more.
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Coming this weekend: John and Charles call into the GeekWire Podcast from an abandoned former Westinghouse light-bulb factory to talk about the experience. Subscribe in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.
SpaceX began trading today on the Nasdaq after raising $75 billion in the largest IPO in history. The company, which makes its Starlink satellites in the Seattle area, saw its stock climb more than 25% in early trading, making Elon Musk the world’s first trillionaire.
UW commencement speaker takes a different approach: Nobel laureate Mary Brunkow will be the featured speaker at Saturday's University of Washington commencement. She's a scientist, not a tech exec, and while her field increasingly benefits from AI, unlike other graduation speakers this season, she's not planning to sell students on its benefits. Read more.
Oregon battery maker heads for Wall Street: ZincFive, whose nickel-zinc batteries back up data centers, is going public through a SPAC merger that values it at $752 million. Read more.
Tapping deep-sea volcanic power: Endurance Energy, a Seattle startup developing technology to extract energy from the heat beneath the ocean floor, has raised $54 million. Read more.
Tech Moves: Microsoft exec departs Azure; Xealth gets first CRO; Slalom names Pacific NW leader; and more personnel changes.
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Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi talks about his own vibe coding efforts, discusses why the company imposed soft spending caps on AI tokens and shares how developers are now significantly more productive than they were a year ago. (NYT)
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Seattle Children’s Research Institute’s Sara Jane Webb has been awarded a grant of up to $17.25 million to advance pioneering neurodevelopmental research and expand the use of objective biomarkers to personalize autism care. (Seattle Children’s)
Thanks for subscribing, and have a great weekend. — GeekWire editor Todd Bishop, [email protected]; reporter Kurt Schlosser, [email protected]; and reporter Lisa Stiffler, [email protected]. (Top image: Alamy Photo / JHVEPhoto)
