White House vs. Microsoft, AI fighter jets, and a visit to a startup founder's Seattle recording studio

This week, we take the GeekWire Podcast to Front Burner Studios near Pike Place Market, where our host is studio co-owner Seth Paul, who's also co-founder and CEO of the Seattle security startup Qinsay. We discuss the White House crackdown on Microsoft’s green-card sponsorships, hours before Presi…

Seattle and San Francisco: Big tech, political backlash and the AI boom

This week, GeekWire co-founder John Cook joins University of Washington historian Margaret O'Mara, author of "The Code," and San Francisco journalist Jonathan Weber, author of "City on the Edge," for a live joint taping with the Blue City Blues podcast at the National Nordic Museum in Seattle. With…

Live show: Amazon, Meta and the fight over the future of AI; Plus, is Seattle still the place to build?

This week: Amazon is blocking Meta's new Muse AI assistant from shopping on Amazon.com, saying the agent doesn't identify itself and violates the site's conditions of use. We explain why the standoff is an early sign of a much bigger fight over whether AI agents can use websites and apps on people'…

AI meets real estate, with Zillow's engineering SVP Toby Roberts

On this week's show, recorded live at Atmosphere Seattle on the shores of Lake Union, Zillow Senior Vice President of Engineering Toby Roberts joins us to talk about what AI is doing to the business of buying and selling homes. The show was recorded in partnership with Real Estate At Work, the net…

Study warns Seattle over-relies on Big Tech; Seattle Times v. Microsoft; Apple's iPhone Duo echoes the past

This week: A study commissioned by the City of Seattle warns that the city is not in decline but is in danger, finding that 10 companies, nine of them in tech, pay three-quarters of the payroll tax on large employers, and that the tax structure uniquely penalizes the hiring of senior, high-compensa…

NBA's Ballmer crackdown echoes Microsoft antitrust, SF vs. Seattle housing, and a Seahawks tech twist

This week: The NBA suspends former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer for a year and hits the Clippers with $30 million in fines and five lost draft picks over allegedly sham endorsement deals for Kawhi Leonard, drawing comparisons to the Microsoft antitrust era. A new Redfin report says San Francisco's …

Bill Gates in his own words: How he's using AI, and why he's worried about the future

This week: Bill Gates published a new essay warning that the AI industry is crossing the safety lines it set for itself, and that nobody is preparing for what's coming. At 70 years old, he also uses AI more than most people half his age, and he finds it enthralling, as you'll hear in highlights fro…

Amazon's drones finally take off, inside Anduril's Seattle-area buildup, and an AirTag leads to a secret Amazon facility

This week: Amazon's Prime Air drones are finally going national, nearly 13 years after Jeff Bezos unveiled the idea on 60 Minutes. GeekWire's John Cook goes inside Anduril's unmarked Bellevue office as the defense company builds toward 1,000 Seattle-area engineers. Plus: a reporter hides an AirTag …

Bezos and Liverpool FC, a Meta vet's AI startup, Auger's Dallas move, and the demise of Microsoft's AI blob

This week: What should Liverpool FC fans expect from Jeff Bezos as a member of the storied club's new minority ownership group? We consult the Amazon leadership principles for the answer. Plus, a tip and an SEC filing lead to a scoop on a former Meta AI director's new startup, the GeekWire Editoria…

Elon Musk's Starlink swagger, SpaceX vs. the cloud giants, and Seattle’s tech universe revisited

This week: SpaceX reports its first quarter as a public company, and Elon Musk says Starlink could deliver a majority of the world's internet within a decade, leveraging production facilities in Redmond. Musk also explains the company's data center ambitions, calling terrestrial infrastructure a tr…