GeekWire

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The meaning of Rocket's Redfin deal; Microsoft Copilot meets Xbox Mar 15, 2025

Show notes

This week on the GeekWire Podcast, we discuss the big real estate technology news of the week: Rocket Companies, the mortgage, real estate and personal finance giant, is buying Redfin, the Seattle-based tech-powered real estate company that has been a longtime disrupter in the world of buying and selling homes.

Joining us to assess the implications are Stephanie Reid-Simons, who oversees the news team at RealEstateNews.com as a senior vice president with the news site; and Tim Ellis, a former Redfin market analyst who's a podcaster and blogger, and a veteran of Seattle-area startups including Porch, Moz, and Glowforge.

Also on the show: Microsoft brings its Copilot AI technology to gaming, but can Microsoft prove this is more than Xbox meets Clippy? We’ll consider that question in the final segment with Thomas Wilde, an independent video-game journalist and editor who writes about games for GeekWire, Hard Drive, and other publications.

Join us at Microsoft@50 at Town Hall Seattle this Thursday, March 20.

With GeekWire co-founder Todd Bishop.

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Alexa's AI upgrade: What it means for Amazon's business and Alexa users Mar 08, 2025

Show notes

This week: Michael Levin and Josh Lowitz of Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIRP) discuss the state of Amazon's Alexa and Echo business, and what the recently announced Alexa+ service means for the company and users. CIRP studies consumer behavior to provide insights for investors and industry leaders.

Related links and coverage

CIRP: Amazon Report on Substack. (Check out CIRP's Apple Report, as well.)
CIRP's Amazon Report: Alexa, Should I Pay for Alexa+? Or Get a New Echo?
GeekWire: Amazon’s new Alexa+ uses generative AI to personalize conversations and automate tasks
Amazon: Introducing Alexa+, the next generation of Alexa

With GeekWire co-founder Todd Bishop; Edited by Curt Milton.

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Hanging up on Skype; Google's future in Seattle; Inside Microsoft's quest for a quantum leap Mar 01, 2025

Show notes

This week on the Geekwire Podcast: Google prepares to say goodbye to Seattle's Fremont neighborhood, we get ready to say farewell to Skype; and we take a quantum leap with one of Microsoft's top technical leaders in the field: Chetan Nayak, technical fellow and corporate vice of quantum hardware for the company.

Related stories and links:

With GeekWire's Taylor Soper and Todd Bishop; Audio editing by Curt Milton

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Microsoft's quantum breakthrough; WA state targets Uber and Lyft; GeekWire 200; Bezos and Bond Feb 22, 2025

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This week on the GeekWire Podcast, we discuss Microsoft's quantum computing breakthrough; a Washington state bill that targets Uber and Lyft surge pricing; the latest update to the GeekWire 200 ranking of Pacific Northwest startups; and Amazon's move to take creative control of the James Bond movie franchise.

Related Links

With GeekWire co-founder Todd Bishop and editor Taylor Soper.

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Innovation at Microsoft: Success, struggles, and lessons learned Feb 18, 2025

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A new book, The Insider's Guide to Innovation at Microsoft, finds universal business lessons in the company's successes and also its failures, through case studies about different products and teams in various scenarios and stages of evolution.

The book was written by two Microsoft business strategists and innovation leaders: Dean Carignan, who now focuses on AI in the company's office of the chief scientist; and JoAnn Garbin, who created and led Microsoft's Regenerative Datacenter of the Future program as part of its sustainability initiatives.

We speak with Carignan about the book on this special episode of the Geekwire Podcast, as part of our Microsoft @ 50 series.

Microsoft @ 50 is an independent GeekWire editorial project supported by Accenture. Learn more and register here for our Microsoft @ 50 event, March 20 in Seattle.

More in GeekWire’s Microsoft @ 50 series

Hosted by Todd Bishop; edited by Curt Milton.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

'Open source will win': Allen Institute for AI CEO Ali Farhadi on the new era of artificial intelligence Feb 15, 2025

Show notes

It has been a wild few weeks and eventful few months in AI: DeepSeek, OpenAI, Stargate, Microsoft, Meta, Amazon, Salesforce, Google, Elon Musk, and more.

In all of this, there's a heightened focus on what it takes to train AI models and the importance of open-source AI. This week on the GeekWire Podcast, we get insights from Ali Farhadi, CEO of the Allen Institute for AI (Ai2), the Seattle-based nonprofit that has been innovating in open-source AI since long before it was popular.

"If the U.S. wants to maintain its edge ... we have only one way, and that is to promote open approaches, promote open-source solutions," Farhadi says, reflecting on the past few months. "Because no matter how many dollars you're investing in an ecosystem, without communal, global efforts, you're not going to be as fast."

Related Coverage and Links:

Allen Institute for AI's new open-source iOS AI app runs on-device for secure, private, offline use
Allen Institute for AI challenges DeepSeek on key benchmarks with big new open-source AI model
Allen Institute for AI’s new model points to items in images, aims to make bigger point in industry
New York Times: An Industry Insider Drives an Open Alternative to Big Tech’s A.I.
Ken Yeung, "The AI Economy" newsletter: Ai2: The AI House That Paul Allen Built
Ai2 Blog: OLMoE, meet iOS

Hosted by GeekWire co-founder Todd Bishop

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Bill Gates, Part 2: Microsoft at 50, and the next big opportunities for AI and innovation Feb 12, 2025

Show notes

For this latest installment in our Microsoft @ 50 series, we talk with Bill Gates about the company's 50th anniversary, parallels between AI and the early days of the PC, and where he sees the next big opportunities for innovation.

This is part of a wide-ranging interview coinciding with the release of his new book, Source Code: My Beginnings. We published Part 1 of the interview last week, focusing on his upbringing in Seattle, the influential people in his life, the early days of the company, and his perspective on events now unfolding in the world.

Microsoft @ 50 is an independent GeekWire editorial project supported by Accenture. Learn more and register here for our special Microsoft @ 50 event, March 20, 2025, in Seattle.

More in GeekWire’s Microsoft @ 50 series

Hosted by GeekWire co-founder Todd Bishop.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Amazon, AI, and the cloud: A reality check, with Corey Quinn of 'Last Week in AWS' Feb 08, 2025

Show notes

Our guest this week is Corey Quinn, the chief cloud economist at The Duckbill Group, the host of the AWS Morning Brief and Screaming in the Cloud podcasts, and the curator of Last Week in AWS, a weekly newsletter. Apart from his newsletter and podcasts, Quinn's day job involves helping AWS customers understand and manage their bills. Amid all the AI hype and billions in capex spending, he uses those insights to provide a behind-the-scenes glimpse and a reality check on the state of the cloud market today.

RELATED LINKS

With GeekWire co-founder Todd Bishop; edited by Curt Milton.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Bill Gates, Part 1: His remarkable upbringing, and outlook on the world today Feb 04, 2025

Show notes

In advance of the release of his new memoir, Source Code: My Beginnings, Bill Gates sat down with GeekWire for a wide-ranging conversion on topics including his extraordinary upbringing in Seattle, the key people and influences in his life, the remarkable circumstances and luck that led to his work in software, and his outlook on the world today.

We're presenting this interview in two parts, this one focusing on Gates' new book and his life, and where the world is headed from here. On an upcoming episode, as part of our Microsoft @ 50 series, we'll hear his thoughts on the evolution of the company that he and Paul Allen started five decades ago, the opportunities in artificial intelligence, and what's next for Microsoft and the industry.

With GeekWire co-founder Todd Bishop. Contributing: Kevin Lisota.

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DeepSeek reality check; Amazon, Kuiper, Bezos, and the Post; lost in the Microsoft garage Feb 01, 2025

Show notes

This week on the GeekWire Podcast, we dive deep into DeepSeek, the AI project that shaking up the tech world, to better understand the underlying technical advances and the long-term implications for the industry.

Joining us is Bill Howe, an associate professor at the University of Washington's Information School and the co-founding director of the UW Center for Responsible AI Systems and Experiences, among other UW roles.

Related stories:

We open the show from the Microsoft campus in Redmond, after getting an inside look at the company's history for an upcoming installment in our Microsoft @ 50 series. John marvels at the size of new campus project, which is still under way, and we experience first-hand the company's vast parking garage when we try to leave.

Also on our agenda this week: Amazon's lawsuit against Washington state over a Washington Post public records request, and what it says about the conflicts inherent to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos' ownership of the newspaper.

With GeekWire's Todd Bishop and John Cook. Edited by Curt Milton.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.