Now in its third year, GeekWire’s “Uncommon Thinkers” — in partnership with Greater Seattle Partners — recognizes the inventors, scientists, technologists and entrepreneurs transforming industries and driving positive change in the world.

We met six innovators this year who are leading startups that address such things as the design of drug candidates; a throwback idea for phones for kids; a new approach to social media; elimination of harmful chemicals; spacecraft propulsion; and AI that performs computer tasks on your behalf.

Their colleagues call them “creative,” “mission-driven,” “laser-focused,” “incredibly low-ego,” and “brilliant.”

The honorees will be celebrated as part of Thursday’s GeekWire Gala in Seattle.

Catch up on our profiles of each winner below:

Anindya Roy, co-founder and chief scientific officer of Lila Biologics

• Anindya Roy’s path from a village in rural India to co-founding Seattle’s Lila Biologics is a story of persistence, curiosity, and boundary-pushing science. After training in top U.S. research labs, including the Baker Lab at the University of Washington, Roy now helps turn advanced protein-design concepts into real drug candidates — from cancer therapies to long-acting injectables — using cutting-edge computational tools. His journey highlights how unconventional thinking can drive the next wave of biotech innovation. Read more.

Chet Kittleson, co-founder and CEO of Tin Can

• Chet Kittleson is on a mission to bring back something rare in 2025: screen-free, voice-to-voice connection for kids. Tin Can‘s bright, WiFi-enabled landline phones are designed to let kids call each other or trusted contacts — no apps, no social media, no distractions. After raising $3.5 million and selling out its first two batches, Tin Can now has customers in all 50 states and across Canada. For Kittleson, every ring is a sign that parents are craving simpler, more meaningful ways for their children to connect — and that this retro-inspired hardware could be the antidote to screen overload. Read more.

Brian Pinkard, co-founder and CTO of Aquagga

• Brian Pinkard went from “flipping rocks” on trail crews in the Colorado Rockies to engineering a solution to one of the most stubborn pollution problems we face: “forever chemicals.” Now, at Tacoma, Wash.-based startup Aquagga, he’s using advanced chemistry to destroy PFAS contamination at its source. From hazardous-waste research to modular PFAS-destruction systems that have already been tested in Alaska, firefighting-foam cleanup, and municipal wastewater projects, Pinkard and his team are proving that impact-focused engineers can tackle environmental problems others call unsolvable. Read more.

Jeff Thornburg, co-founder and CEO of Portal Space Systems

• Jeff Thornburg is pushing the boundaries of what satellites can do by building a spacecraft that literally rides on sunlight. Through its flagship design, Supernova, Portal Space Systems plans to use solar-thermal propulsion to give future spacecraft dramatic, “science fiction”-style maneuverability: rapid orbital shifts, long mission lifetimes, and flexibility for both defense and commercial missions. Backed by a $17.5 million seed round and building out a large manufacturing facility in Bothell, Wash., Portal is transforming from startup vision to production-ready aerospace player — and Thornburg’s journey from SpaceX and Project Kuiper alum to leading a next-gen space venture shows just how far ambition and real engineering can take you. Read more.

Kiana Ehsani, co-founder and CEO of Vercept

• Kiana Ehsani is building AI platforms at Seattle-based Vercept not just to optimize workflows, but to give people back their time to live. With Vercept’s flagship tool Vy, her team has created a system that “sees” computer screens like a human, records workflows once, and then lets users automate tasks with a natural-language command. That means no more juggling dozens of apps, remembering shortcuts, or writing code — and more freedom to hike trails, ski mountains, or simply step away from the screen like Ehsani herself does when she’s out in nature. Read more.

Jay Graber, CEO of Bluesky

• Jay Graber is steering Bluesky not as a traditional social-network boss, but as a “pragmatic idealist” building a decentralized digital world that puts power back in users’ hands. Instead of locking content and social graphs behind proprietary walls, Bluesky is built on the open AT Protocol — meaning people can carry their posts, followers, and identity across platforms, even if the original app disappears. Graber envisions Bluesky as less a product and more a living “collective organism,” one that could become the foundation for a more open, flexible social internet. Read more.

Bananas, blackberries, limes and more — Amazon’s same-day delivery of perishable grocery items has expanded across the U.S. to more than 2,300 cities and towns, the company announced Wednesday.

Amazon launched the expanded offering earlier this year, allowing customers to integrate items such as fresh produce, seafood, milk and more into their regular shopping orders of electronics, books, clothes, and household essentials.

And customers have responded.

Fresh groceries now make up nine of the top 10 most-ordered same-day items, according to Amazon, with a 12-pack of toilet paper rounding out the bunch.

Analysts say Amazon’s rapid expansion of same-day delivery for fresh groceries marks a meaningful escalation in its long-term push into perishable food — a category where it has historically lagged.

The company’s scale and logistics reach allow it to serve both small towns and large metro areas without relying on third-party platforms, according to Wedbush, which noted in a report Wednesday that the expansion ramps up competitive pressure on Instacart, whose business relies heavily on grocery delivery subscriptions.

Analysts also say the stronger grocery offering makes Amazon Prime’s $139 annual membership more attractive, while weakening the value of Instacart+, which recently scaled back key subscriber benefits. Amazon is also increasingly competing with the grocery efforts of Uber Eats and DoorDash, according to Wedbush.

In most areas, the same-day deliveries are free for Amazon Prime members for orders that cost more than $25. If the purchase is below that amount, the cost is $2.99. For shoppers without a Prime membership, the delivery tacks on a $12.99 fee.

Since this summer, Amazon has expanded the fresh grocery selection available for same-day delivery by more than 30%, including offerings from Whole Foods Market and Amazon Grocery, the company’s new private brand, which now includes over 1,000 items, with most priced under $5.

Amazon is also seeing a shift in shopping patterns as customers who add fresh groceries to their orders shop about twice as often as those who don’t.

GeekWire tested the same-day service in June, placing a late-night order that arrived in the morning and included apples, cucumbers, and blueberries alongside non-perishable items.

Amazon says it plans to expand same-day perishable grocery delivery to more cities and towns in 2026.

The expansion of same-day perishable delivery comes as Amazon is also testing a new ultra-fast option called Amazon Now, which promises delivery in 30 minutes or less. GeekWire tested this service earlier this month, and received a frozen pizza, hummus, bread and more in 23 minutes, from order click to delivery drop-off in Seattle.

Amazon has for years been expanding and experimenting in the grocery space. In 2007, it started offering grocery deliveries in Seattle through Amazon Fresh, then offered Amazon Fresh grocery pick-up sites and eventually started opening Amazon Fresh grocery stores beginning in 2020. It acquired Whole Foods Market in 2017.

The ticket clock is ticking ahead of Thursday’s GeekWire Gala. Don’t miss out on the Seattle tech community’s biggest holiday party — grab a last-minute ticket now!

The Gala is a great chance to make our annual holiday event a celebration for you, your friends and co-workers.

The festive night includes food, drinks, karaoke, games, and plenty of surprise moments. Party alongside the region’s top innovators and entrepreneurs.

It all takes place at Showbox SoDo at 1700 1st Ave S., not far from T-Mobile Park. The event from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. is 21+ and all attendees must have valid ID to enter. Dress to impress, bust out your holiday flair, or just keep it geek chic.

In addition to the party atmosphere, GeekWire and Greater Seattle Partners will once again use the Gala to recognize the region’s “Uncommon Thinkers,” the groundbreaking innovators who are changing the way we work, live and play. Catch up on our profiles of the six honorees:

• Anindya Roy, co-founder and chief scientific officer of Lila Biologics
• Chet Kittleson, co-founder and CEO of Tin Can
• Brian Pinkard, co-founder and CTO at Aquagga
• Jeff Thornburg, CEO of Portal Space Systems
• Kiana Ehsani, co-founder and CEO of Vercept
• Jay Graber, CEO of Bluesky

Big thanks to the GeekWire Gala title sponsor, First Tech Federal Credit Union; gold sponsors Greater Seattle Partners, Pilot, and Astound Business Solutions; and silver sponsors MeeBoss, Tito’s, The Baldwin Group, Wilson Sonsini, ALLtech, IDA Ireland, Microsoft for Startups, gone.com, and Regence.

Strong software engineers who combine their foundational skills with fluency in rapidly emerging AI tools are more valuable than ever. And while AI boosts overall productivity by 34% on average, its widening the gap between top engineers and those considered weaker.

Those are among the findings from Karat, the Seattle-based technical talent evaluation startup, which released its new “AI Workforce Transformation” report on Wednesday, detailing how artificial intelligence tools are changing the way software is developed and what types of workers are most impacted by the technology.

The findings come from Karat’s survey of 400 engineering leaders across the U.S., India, and China. And the report coincides with the release of Karat NextGen, an AI-enabled talent evaluation solution designed to evaluate software engineers in an era of increased human and AI collaboration.

Among the report highlights:

• 73% of leaders now believe a strong engineer is worth at least 3x their total compensation.
• 59% of leaders say weak engineers deliver net zero or negative value in the AI era.
• The top AI use cases for day-to-day work are code generation (83%), and testing, QA, and code review (61%).
• Agentic AI/autonomous engineering agents are highlighted by the majority of leaders as having the highest return on investment.
• Despite cost pressure, 85% of leaders expect engineering headcounts to stay flat or increase over the next three years, signaling that AI isn’t leading to massive job cuts in the near term.
• China is outpacing the U.S. and India in AI adoption and readiness.

Tech companies and workers are still adjusting to the shifting landscape of an AI-fueled industry that has traditionally relied on coders to help build and maintain the backbone of digital platforms.

When Amazon laid off 14,000 corporate employees from its global workforce in October, among the 2,303 impacted Washington state workers, mostly in Seattle and Bellevue, more than 600 were software development engineers.

That trend mirrored layoffs at Microsoft earlier this year, as companies reassess their engineering needs amid the rise of AI-driven coding tools. 

At Amazon’s re:Invent event last week in Las Vegas, AWS executive Colleen Aubrey went beyond discussing how human employees will leverage AI tools, and said instead that it’s time to consider agentic teammates “as essential as the people sitting right next to you.”

According to Karat’s report, beyond foundational skills such as problem-solving, communication, and product sense, engineers need to be assessed for new AI-native abilities, including familiarity with agentic AI; using AI for coding; integrating 3rd-party AI APIs; prompt engineering; and evaluating and mitigating AI-related risks.

Karat’s report found that nearly 70% of engineering leaders plan to strengthen their AI capabilities through strategic hiring. Yet, almost two-thirds of companies still prohibit AI use in interviews, and less than 30% are updating assessments and training interviewers to identify AI-ready talent.

The startup’s NextGen talent evaluation platform features a human + AI interview format where candidates tackle complex, multi-file projects with an integrated AI assistant while collaborating live with Karat’s expert interview engineers, who probe reasoning, trade-offs, and judgment in real time to reveal genuine engineering ability.

Sagnik Nandy, CTO at DocuSign, a Karat customer, said in a news release that while AI is transforming engineering, “the real breakthroughs happen when human judgment and AI capabilities work together” and a way to measure that combination reliably is what’s been missing.

“A human-led, AI-native interview is exactly the kind of solution organizations need to understand who can truly excel in this new model of development,” Nandy said.

Founded in 2014 by Mo Bhende and Jeff Spector, Karat became one of Seattle’s highest-valued startups after it raised $110 million in a Series C round in 2021, which brought its total valuation at the time to $1.1 billion. Total funding to date is $151.6 million.

Karat currently ranks No. 15 on the GeekWire 200, our list of the top startups in the Pacific Northwest.

Microsoft is pouring $17.5 billion into India — its largest investment in Asia — to boost the country’s AI infrastructure and diffusion, the company announced Tuesday.

The funding, planned over four years between 2026 and 2029, comes after an earlier $3 billion commitment announced earlier this year.

Microsoft’s aim is to help advance India’s cloud and AI infrastructure, skilling and ongoing operations. The tech giant said the partnership will help India make the leap from “digital public infrastructure to AI public infrastructure in the coming decade,” toward “a future that is more equitable and uniquely Indian in its scale and impact.”

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella is in the country this month as part of a multi-city “India AI” tour. He met with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi on Tuesday and will deliver a keynote address on Wednesday: “Leading in the New Age of AI.”

The investment will target three primary areas:

• Scale: A key priority is building hyperscale infrastructure to enable AI adoption in India. Microsoft said significant progress is being made at the India South Central cloud region, based in Hyderabad, that is set to go live in mid-2026. Microsoft will also continue to expand its three existing operational data center regions in Chennai, Hyderabad and Pune.     
• Skills: Microsoft is doubling its January commitment to equip 20 million Indians with essential AI skills by 2030. The company said it has already trained 5.6 million people since January, and its programs have helped more than 125,000 people gain work or entrepreneurial opportunities.  
• Sovereignty: Microsoft is introducing Sovereign Public Cloud and Sovereign Private Cloud for Indian customers, designed to give Indian organizations more control over data, compliance, and operational sovereignty. In security terms, these offerings will address data residency, regulatory compliance, governance, and operational isolation.

Microsoft also announced that 310 million informal workers in India will benefit from advanced AI capabilities being integrated into two key digital public platforms of the Ministry of Labour and Employment — e-Shram and the National Career Service.

Microsoft employs 22,000 people across Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Pune, Gurugram, Noida and other cities, representing numerous company business lines.

Elsewhere on Tuesday, Microsoft President Brad Smith announced new commitments to Canada, adding $5.4 billion over the next two years to its continued investment in building out digital and AI infrastructure in the country.

Smith highlighted many of the same goals the company outlined for India, including boosting skills training and digital sovereignty in Canada.

Founder Institute, the global business incubator and pre-seed startup accelerator, is getting up and running again in Seattle.

Tech veteran Aniket Naravanekar, co-founder and CEO of Skillsheet, is one of the program directors working to rekindle the effort. Naravanekar previously led product at Seattle startups avante and CHEQ, and spent more than 11 years at Microsoft.

He’s joined by Nicole Doyle, founder and CEO of Aspir; Jewel Atuel, a technical program manager at Averro; and Angie Parker, executive director of the Alliance of Angels.

“I think the Seattle ecosystem has such a large amount of talent that it deserves more opportunities for aspiring founders to turn their ideas into a real business,” Naravanekar told GeekWire. “I’ve been going through this process as a founder myself and I want to provide more options to those that are still on the fence or want to build but not sure how.”

Founded in Palo Alto, Calif., in 2009, Founder Institute operates across across six continents and more than 200 cities, and has had more than 8,100 graduates, according to its website.

Naravanekar believes a lack of community and leadership derailed Founder Institute’s in-person efforts in Seattle and applicants were directed to remote/virtual cohorts starting around 2021.

“We’re now bringing back the local community — local mentors, local partners, sponsors, investors and in-person meetups and events,” he said.

Naravanekar said Founder Institute is using a new approach in which the Seattle leadership team is empowered to run things instead of being treated as a “satellite.”

“We’re still using the same FI tooling and branding but have a lot more leeway in decision making to suit the unique needs of the Seattle ecosystem,” he said.

The first cohort in Seattle begins in March. An open house on Dec. 12 at AI House in Seattle will serve as an official launch event and will feature two panels: “Building in Seattle” and “Scaling & Leverage.” Panelists include Evan Poncelot of Venture Black; Loti founder Luke Arrigoni; AI2 Incubator’s Jacob Colker; Nick Hughes of Founders Live; Taylor Black of Microsoft AI Ventures; Brooks Lindsay of Light Legal; Sarah Studer of the University of Washington’s Buerk Center for Entrepreneurship; and moderator Louis Newkirk of Venture Black and Founders Live.

Levi Reed, a former managing director at Seattle Founder Institute, is now an entrepreneur-in-residence at Startup425, a non-profit funded by six Seattle-area city governments, which announced a new accelerator last year. The 15-week program is modeled after the Founder Institute curriculum.

Fintech startup SecureSave, a 2020 spinout of Seattle’s Pioneer Square Labs, has been acquired by Wisconsin-based HSA Bank.

SecureSave helps employers offer a financial wellness benefit to workers beyond their paycheck in the form of an emergency savings account (ESA). HSA Bank is a division of Webster Bank and Webster Financial Corp. and is one of the nation’s leaders in healthcare savings and spending accounts.

Terms of the deal, completed Thursday, were not disclosed.

SecureSave employs 23 people full time, most of whom are in the Seattle area, and will continue to operate its current platform and serve its clients.

The startup was co-founded by CEO Devin Miller, CTO Bassam Saliba, and TV personality and best-selling author Suze Orman.

Miller previously led Balance Financial, a Seattle-area startup acquired by Blucora’s TaxAct subsidiary in 2013. He later joined Guidant Financial as executive vice president and later president. Saliba is another longtime entrepreneur who sold Avado to WebMD in 2013 and was a board member/acting CTO at Balance Financial alongside Miller.

SecureSave raised about $28 million to date, with venture backing from PSL, Seachange and IA Ventures, and three banks — Truist, Stearns and Webster.

Miller, who is based in Spokane, Wash., said SecureSave has supported more than 60,000 active emergency savings account holders who have saved more than $100 million to date.

Miller said the company had a strong year of growth and that interest in the category can be evidenced by legislation proposed this week in Congress. U.S. Senators Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Todd Young (R-IN) introduced the Emergency Savings Enhancement Act, aimed at helping American workers and families save for unexpected expenses without having to tap into their retirement accounts.

In a post on LinkedIn, Miller wrote about how the HSA deal came together and why it will be “a massive leap forward for ESAs.”

Miller pitched SecureSave during the 2022 season of GeekWire’s “Elevator Pitch” series.

Seattle-based startup Otto announced the wide release Thursday of its AI-powered travel assistant — Otto the Agent — in a bid to bring a concierge-level experience and personalization to business travelers.

The platform has been in closed beta for nine months. GeekWire first reported about its stealthy operations in August 2024.

Founded by longtime travel industry veterans, Otto was incubated and spun out of Seattle-based Madrona Venture Labs, the former startup studio associated with Madrona.

“The goal here is to mimic or create as good or better an experience than the best ever executive assistant, to help you book your business travel,” said founder and CEO Michael Gulmann, who spent nearly a decade at Expedia Group in various leadership roles, and also worked at business travel management giant Egencia.

Steve Singh, managing director at Madrona who co-founded business expense software giant Concur, is executive chairman of Otto.

Otto is built to learn and understand an individual’s travel habits — airline and hotel preferences, seat choices, loyalty programs, and even nuanced needs like finding rooms that avoid train noise or finding hotels with rooftop bars. Gulmann said Otto uses that knowledge to instantly surface the best flights and hotels without the the typical endless-scroll experience.

And unlike general-purpose AI tools that send users to external booking sites, Otto handles the entire transaction end-to-end, from booking to cancellations to rebooking and credit management, all within the same interface.

Otto can also connect to a traveler’s calendar and proactively detect upcoming trips and suggest itineraries before the traveler asks.

Barney Harford, former CEO of Orbitz Worldwide and former COO of Uber, called Otto “a glimpse into the future,” saying that after using it for several months it knows his business travel preferences “and has simplified the shop and book process down to just a couple of minutes.” Harford is an investor in Otto.

Beyond flights and hotels, a clear next step in Otto’s development will be the addition of car rentals and dinner reservations — things an executive assistant “back home would be helping with when you’re on the road,” Gulmann said.

“The reality is, most people don’t have an EA,” he added. “A little bit of the genesis of the company was, I was fortunate enough to have an EA at Expedia for a long time, once I got to a certain level, and it was amazing.”

Otto is available for free to individual business travelers as well as small and mid-sized businesses for the next 12 months. The startup makes money on commissions. Through a partnership with travel management company Direct Travel, Otto is also launching upcoming pilot programs with two companies Gulmann could not yet name.

The company is competing with other startups, as well as incumbents that are developing their own AI-fueled tools.

Direct Travel, which was acquired by Madrona and others in April 2024, invested in Otto’s seed round.

Singh is also executive chairman at Direct Travel. Since departing Concur a few years after its $8.3 billion acquisition to SAP in 2014, Singh became executive chairman at Spotnana, a travel-as-a-service technology platform; at Center, a corporate card and expense management platform; and Troop, a group meetings and events company.

Gulmann said innovating around travel again was the “last thing he thought he’d get back into” but a lot has changed since Expedia and others came along to displace human travel agents in the 1990s. Otto is like going back to the personalization aspect of travel agents but with the tech twist added in.

“It’s insanely faster to develop and to build the product,” he said. “We’re doing it with, including myself, a 10-person team. So, not tiny, but nowhere near the developer and engineer horsepower that Expedia or Booking.com have. But yet, I think we’re going a lot faster than they are now.”

Related:

• The new AI executive assistants: Smarter, faster, still not as good as the real thing

Govstream.ai, a Seattle-area startup building AI-native permitting tools for local governments, raised $3.6 million in funding, the company announced Thursday.

The seed round was led by Menlo Park, Calif.-based 47th Street Partners, with participation from Nellore Capital of Palo Alto, Calif., Seattle-based Ascend, and angel investors including Socrata founder Kevin Merritt and First Due co-founder and CEO Andreas Huber.

Govstream.ai’s platform sits on top of the systems cities already use and acts as a conversational “copilot” for permit techs, planners, and reviewers. The company says the technology answers questions, checks documents, compares plan sets, and helps move applications through review faster.

The first public deployment is with the City of Bellevue, where Govstream.ai’s smart assistant has been helping Development Services staff with internal permitting and zoning questions since this summer.

“Cities are under intense pressure to add housing, support small businesses, and keep development sustainable, all while working inside permitting systems that were never really rethought for this moment,” said Safouen Rabah, founder and CEO of Govstream.ai.

In Washington, for example, state projections show that roughly 1.1 million additional homes will be needed by 2044 to keep up with population growth, and about 650,000 of those will need to be affordable for low-income households.

Rabah said permitting has been digitized in pieces but not truly modernized end to end. AI can reason over hundreds of pages of plans and regulations and surface what matters.

“That’s how cities move more homes and critical infrastructure from ‘submitted’ to ‘approved’ without burning people out on either side of the counter,” Rabah said. “Every month of delay we eliminate reduces costs of a new housing unit by about $5,000 on average and makes more projects economically pencil out.”

In July, Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell issued an executive order intended to speed the permitting process for housing and small businesses in the city, using AI software from Boston- and Chicago-based CivCheck to aid permit applicants and city reviewers. Other cities, including Los Angeles, Austin and Honolulu are using AI to improve their processes.

In Bellevue, Govstream.ai is targeting and seeing signs of results including:

• A roughly 30% reduction in the burden of routine inquiries, including fewer “Where do I start?” and “Do I need a permit for this?” calls and emails.
• Up to 50% fewer re-submittals by catching missing or incorrect items before an application is formally filed.
• Up to 2X faster starts to first review on many project types, because reviewers start with context instead of a 200-page PDF.

Beyond Bellevue, the startup is gearing up to deploy in additional U.S. cities. Rabah declined to share financial metrics, but said revenue is growing as Govstream.ai converts design partners into production deployments.

A veteran of government-tech companies including Socrata and Tyler Technologies, Rabah started Govstream.ai in July 2024. The company currently employs five people and the new funding will fuel growth to 10 to 12 people over the next 12 months with the addition of engineering and AI roles in the Seattle area.

Govstream was previously featured in GeekWire’s Startup Radar series.

Amazon’s new “Amazon Now” ultra-fast delivery for household essentials and fresh groceries passed the speed test on Tuesday.

During a trial of the newly launched service, it took 23 minutes from the click of the order button on the Amazon shopping app to the drop of the items at my house. That time easily meets Amazon’s promise of 30-minutes-or-less delivery.

Amazon Now is rolling out to eligible neighborhoods in Seattle and Philadelphia. Customers using the Amazon app or website can browse a curated selection of fresh produce, meat and seafood, pantry staples, frozen foods, beverages, household supplies and more.

Customers are able to track their order status and tip their driver within the Amazon Now feature. Prime members pay discounted delivery fees starting at $3.99 per order, compared with $13.99 for non-Prime customers, with a $1.99 “small basket” fee on orders under $15.

GeekWire reported last week that Amazon was building out a new rapid-delivery hub at a former Amazon Fresh Pickup site in Seattle’s Ballard neighborhood. (That site did not fulfill the order I placed on Tuesday.) Amazon this week revealed more details about Amazon Now.

Permit filings detail how employees pick and bag items in a back-of-house stockroom, stage completed orders on front-of-house shelves, and hand them off to Amazon Flex drivers, who are expected to arrive, scan, confirm, and leave with a package within roughly two minutes. The operation is slated to run 24 hours a day, seven days a week, “much like a convenience store,” according to the filings.

Keep reading for details on how the process works.

The shopping

My wife prefers to do all the shopping for our household and she does so at several different stores including Trader Joe’s, Fred Meyer, Town & Country, and Costco. Our neighborhood, Ballard, isn’t exactly a food desert, and prior to conducting my Amazon Now test, I passed a Safeway en route to stops at Walgreens and Metropolitan Market within a few blocks of my house.

But for the sake of speed and convenience and this test, I browsed the Amazon Now selection looking for a few items we could use. I chose a Red Baron frozen pizza ($4.37); 365 by Whole Foods Market multigrain bread ($2.85); a 4-pack of Duracell AA batteries ($5.47); Saltine crackers ($4.05); Sabra classic hummus ($3.95); and a 6-ounce pack of blackberries ($2.17).

The six items totaled $22.86, plus the $3.99 delivery fee, 64 cents in tax, and a $3 tip for the driver — $30.49 total.

There’s either a reason why my wife does all the shopping or groceries really are very expensive these days, because $30 feels like a lot for six items. Although, $7 of that does include delivery fee and tip — the price of on-demand convenience!

The tracking

I placed the order at 12:38 p.m. and the Amazon app and a confirmation email both immediately estimated that delivery time would be 1:05 p.m.

A status bar in the app showed where my items would be in the chain of events: ordered, packed, out for delivery, and delivered.

Within just a few minutes the status changed from ordered to out for delivery, and I watched as a small Amazon vehicle icon made its way west across Seattle toward my house. The delivery estimate time dropped a couple minutes to 1:02 p.m.

When a white van showed up in front of my house in less than 10 minutes I was sure this story was going to go in a different direction about just how speedy Amazon Now is. But my neighbor was getting a bunch of stuff delivered from IKEA — no one shops in stores anymore, I guess.

For what it’s worth, transportation software company INRIX released its annual Global Traffic Scorecard this week, with details on how much time people lose sitting in traffic. INRIX says Seattle congestion is climbing again, especially in last-mile corridors that delivery fleets rely on.

“The [Amazon Now service] may end up distributing demand more evenly across the transportation network, rather than concentrating congestion via larger hubs,” Bob Pishue, transportation analyst at INRIX, told GeekWire.

The delivery

I watched via the app as the Amazon vehicle icon neared my house and I stepped onto my front porch at 1 p.m. to see my driver arrive. Wearing his blue Amazon vest, the driver placed a brown paper Amazon Now bag in my hand for what amounted to a 23-minute process from start to finish.

The driver said he made his pickup from an Amazon Now-specific facility that is located near a Whole Foods location at Roosevelt Way NE and NE 64th Street — roughly 3.5 miles or 15 minutes from my house.

The driver had not heard anything about the planned Amazon Now delivery hub just down the road from my house in Ballard, at 5100 15th Ave. NW.

The groceries

The six items I ordered were packed as neatly as you’d expect, even if the loaf of bread did get a little smooshed.

The frozen pizza was still cold, and so was the hummus. The blackberries looked like any random, small pack of blackberries I might find in the fridge and finish off in one sitting.

The batteries were really the only thing I needed at the moment, and I’d have preferred to be able to buy a more economical pack of 12 or 20, but a four pack was the only option. Maybe four batteries is all anyone needs from their fast-delivery convenience store.

Final thoughts

I’m old school-ish. I like going to the grocery store. I like seeing people, browsing aisles, and talking to the cashier (if they haven’t all been replaced by self-checkout). We’re not in Covid times. No part of me really needs or wants a bag of six random grocery items quickly delivered to my front porch in the name of convenience.

I’m clearly not the target audience for Amazon Now. My 18-year-old watched me as I stood at the window waiting for the driver and asked, “What is it, like DoorDash?”

“I guess so,” I said.

But if I was sick on my couch and wanted soup, Saltines and a ginger ale in 30 minutes or less, and didn’t want to move to go get it, I might use the service again.

Or if I’d already been to the store that day and forgot some items that were needed for dinner, I could see biting the bullet. Especially if the drive back to the grocery store was not so quick.

While at Met Market earlier that morning, I watched a woman in self-checkout pull at her receipt and the whole roll of tape fell out of the machine and rolled across the floor unspooling.

“Don’t worry, I’ve got it!” said the human employee monitoring self-checkers. “I need to show I’m essential.”

Amazon has agreed to pay more than $3.7 million to settle claims with the City of Seattle’s Office of Labor Standards (OLS) over allegations that it violated ordinances protecting gig and app-based workers during the pandemic.

OLS said in a news release Wednesday that Amazon only provided premium pay and paid sick and safe time (PSST) to workers when they performed deliveries for Amazon Flex’s food or grocery business lines — but not to workers who performed package deliveries from Amazon’s warehouses.

Amazon Flex uses independent contractors that drive their own vehicles to deliver items for Amazon business lines.

Amazon denied the allegations, but will pay $3,777,924.10, consisting of settlement payments and credits to 10,968 affected workers and $20,000 in fines to the City of Seattle.

The alleged violations cover three city ordinances: Gig Worker Premium Pay, Gig Worker Paid Sick and Safe Time, and App-Based Worker Paid Sick and Safe Time.

OLS alleged that in violation of the Gig Worker Premium Pay ordinance, between Aug. 27, 2021, and Oct. 31, 2022, Amazon failed to provide premium pay to Amazon Flex gig workers for deliveries with a pick-up and/or drop-off in Seattle that were not for its food/grocery business lines.

OLS further alleged violations of the Gig Worker Paid Sick and Safe Time and the App-Based Worker Paid Sick and Safe Time ordinances between Jan. 31, 2021, and Jan. 12, 2024. The agency said Amazon Flex failed to establish an accessible system for gig workers to request and use PSST for workers that were not delivering for its food/grocery business lines, and it failed to provide correct monthly PSST notification to workers that were not delivering food/grocery.

“Gig workers served on the frontlines throughout the pandemic, providing critical services like grocery and food delivery to our vulnerable neighbors and elders,” Mayor Bruce Harrell said in a statement. “These workers remain a valued part of our workforce today and deserve fair pay and protections.”

The Gig Worker Premium Pay and Gig Worker PSST ordinances were temporary ordinances enacted during the pandemic to allow gig workers access to extra pay and sick leave benefits. With the lifting of the mayor’s emergency order on Oct. 31, 2022, the two ordinances are no longer in effect.

The settlement with Amazon Flex is the second largest in OLS history, according to OLS Director Steven Marchese.

In August, Uber Eats agreed to pay $15 million to more than 16,000 delivery workers in Seattle over allegations that the tech giant violated laws regulating how workers are paid. A majority of that settlement was related to the city’s Independent Contractor Protections (ICP) Ordinance, which passed in 2021 and aims to ensure pay transparency. 

Affected Amazon Flex workers can expect settlement payments starting around Jan. 1, according to OLS.

Update: Amazon provided the following statement to GeekWire on Wednesday:

“The Puget Sound region is our home, and we’re proud to serve customers here while supporting the community through good job opportunities, support for local small businesses and organizations, and hundreds of millions in local investments. We’ve always complied with Seattle laws relating to providing paid sick and safe time to delivery partners — including when the City Council enacted emergency measures during the pandemic for food delivery app-based workers, and following the 2024 expansion of the rule to include all app-based workers. While we strongly disagree with OLS on the facts of this matter, we’re pleased to put it behind us and remain focused on continuing to improve the experience for our customers and the drivers who deliver to them.”

Editor’s note: This series profiles six of the Seattle region’s “Uncommon Thinkers”: inventors, scientists, technologists and entrepreneurs transforming industries and driving positive change in the world. They will be recognized Dec. 11 at the GeekWire Gala. Uncommon Thinkers is presented in partnership with Greater Seattle Partners.

Plenty of startup founders and product builders envision what they’re making as something that will simplify processes or improve workflow for customers. Kiana Ehsani sees her creation as a means to spending more time outdoors.

Certainly there’s much more to it than that, but when Ehsani — the co-founder and CEO of Seattle AI startup Vercept — is running an ultramarathon, climbing up a mountain or skiing down one, she can’t help but consider how her technology makes it all the more enjoyable.

“I’m just the happiest when I’m in nature, when I’m not behind my computer, letting my mind be present in the moment, listening to the steps of my foot on the trail, or on snow or ice,” Ehsani said.

It’s what motivated her and her colleagues at Vercept to build Vy, an AI product that “sees” and understands computer screens like a human would. It records a user performing tasks across different software or websites — and then autonomously runs the same workflow from a natural language command.

The idea is to use AI to automate repetitive tasks, like entering data, producing video content, organizing invoices, and more. And Ehsani said Vy makes it so not everyone needs to know how to work so many specialized software programs.

“I don’t want to become skilled in every single dimension that exists out there,” she said. “The more time you’re not spending on repetitive work that is not using your brain power, then the more time you have to be creative.”

Ehsani’s goal is to be able to send emails or check code and Slack messages when she’s somewhere in nature without good internet service. Vy handles the tasks on its own and reports back about what it completed.

“I am most creative when I’m on a hike,” she said. “If I could just have that more often, to be able to have that creative mind, flowing and producing more, and I didn’t have to be stuck behind the desk, then the world would be my playground.”

‘Repeatedly transformed herself’

Ehsani’s journey to AI innovator and Seattle startup founder started in Iran, where she lived until she graduated from Sharif University. She ranked 64th in the country’s University Entrance Exam.

“I was a geek,” she said. “I was publishing papers as an undergrad, and I would go and give talks at conferences internationally, and I was so proud of what I was doing.”

She came to the U.S. in 2015 to get her Master’s and PhD in computer science at the University of Washington.

“Within the first year I realized, ‘Oh, there’s a lot of possibility in AI and I want to get more involved,'” Ehsani said.

After internships at Google and Meta, she joined Seattle’s Allen Institute for AI (Ai2) where she spent four years, overseeing the Ai2 robotics and embodied artificial intelligence teams as a senior researcher.

At the end of 2024, Ehsani launched Vercept alongside Oren Etzioni, the longtime AI specialist and UW professor who was founding CEO of Ai2. They were joined by Matt Deitke, Luca Weihs, and Ross Girshick.

Etzioni said that while some people are “all heart” — good people with high emotional intelligence — or “all brain” — smart, sharp and cerebral — it’s rare to find someone who is both. Ehsani, who he called brilliant, dedicated and intuitive, is that person.

“One uncommon thing about Kiana is how she has repeatedly transformed herself,” Etzioni said via email. “From a brilliant theoretician in Iran to a creative and award-winning vision and robotics researcher at UW and Ai2, to kick-ass founder and CEO now. And the best is yet to come!”

Competing with fewer resources

Ehsani remembers being frustrated and bored by the challenges that AI was being tasked to solve, such as simple image classification, just 10 years ago. She wanted to solve real problems and show that AI could interact with the real world.

That mindset drove her interest in computer vision and robotics research. But again, she grew frustrated by the slow pace of hardware development and decided she wanted to work with AI models and virtual robots that take actions on behalf of a user.

Growing up in Iran she had become accustomed to limited resources. Working in academia and then in research for a nonprofit, she again had to think outside the box and find ways to compete against big AI labs.

She still embraces a scrappy startup mentality as Vercept competes against OpenAI (Operator), Google (Project Mariner), Amazon (Nova Act), and others with tools that automate tasks across browsers and apps, fueled by advances in generative AI.

“That’s the mindset that made me grow more, and that’s why at Vercept we are training models a lot more efficiently and less resource-heavy than anyone out there,” she said. “We love being scrappy and proving that you don’t need billions and trillions of dollars to make AI work.”

Just this week, Vercept launched a newly built version of Vy that works on both Windows and MacOS. Ehsani said the app is more robust and Vercept’s benchmark results have improved drastically.

The startup has grown to a team of 12 and in June raised a $16 million seed round. In July, Ehsani lost Deitke, one of her co-founders, who was lured by Meta to join its newly formed Superintelligence Lab.

Deitke called Ehsani “an incredible leader and visionary” whose strong background in robotics makes her extremely well suited for working at the frontier of computer use, which he said is really just robotics without many of the challenges of the physical world.

“Working with her is infectious and inspiring,” Deitke said. “She has an incredible work ethic and is constantly energized and comes up with amazing ideas while brainstorming that only become obvious to the rest of us after a while.”

But he said more than anything, Ehsani’s a “tremendous person” who leaves a lasting mark with her kindness and ambition.

“She’s truly an exceptional person,” Deitke said.

Several weeks ago, Ehsani was challenging herself in nature yet again, this time with a 50k ultramarathon that featured 8,000 feet of elevation gain.

Freezing, thirsty, and dragging herself up a hill, she likened the race to running a startup, writing on LinkedIn about how despite everything going wrong and plans changing last minute, she still had to stay flexible and believe she’d make it, even when others seemed ahead.

“That’s the story of my life,” she told GeekWire. “I live that every day.”

Embattled electric bike maker Rad Power Bikes is facing another challenge as the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) issued a warning to consumers Monday to stop using some of the Seattle-based company’s bikes because of danger posed by their lithium-ion batteries.

The product safety warning urges consumers to immediately remove and dispose of hazardous batteries that “can unexpectedly ignite and explode, posing a fire hazard to consumers, especially when the battery or the harness has been exposed to water and debris.”

The CPSC said Rad “has refused to agree to an acceptable recall” for the batteries, which are manufactured in China.

The batteries were sold as replacements and with a variety of Rad bikes via Rad’s website, Best Buy stores and independent bike shops. The battery model number (HL-RP-S1304 or RP-1304) is printed on a label on the back or rear of the battery and bike models included: RadWagon 4, RadCity HS 4, RadRover High Step 5, RadCity Step Thru 3, RadRover Step Thru 1, RadRunner 2, RadRunner 1, RadRunner Plus, and RadExpand 5.

The report adds another significant obstacle to Rad’s continued operations. Earlier this month, Rad revealed that it was struggling to survive due to financial difficulties, and the e-bike seller said that it was in danger of shutting down by early January.

On Monday, Rad disputed the CPSC’s findings. “Rad Power Bikes firmly stands behind our batteries and our reputation as leaders in the e-bike industry, and strongly disagrees with the CPSC’s characterization of certain Rad batteries as defective or unsafe,” the company said in a lengthy statement provided to GeekWire (in full below).

Rad said the significant cost of CPSC’s all-or-nothing recall demand would force Rad to shut down immediately with no way to support its riders or employees.

CPSC Warns Consumers to Immediately Stop Using Batteries for E-Bikes from Rad Power Bikes Due to Fire Hazard; Risk of Serious Injury or Death www.cpsc.gov/Warnings/202…

— U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (@cpsc.gov) 2025-11-24T19:03:26.293Z

Rad said it offered “multiple good-faith solutions” to address CPSC’s concerns over at least 31 reports of fire, including what the agency said were 12 reports of property damage caused by Rad batteries, totaling approximately $734,500.

Rad said the incident rate associated with the batteries in the CPSC’s notice is a fraction of one percent.

“While that number is low, we know even one incident is one too many, and we are heartbroken by any report involving our products,” the company’s statement read.

The company said its batteries were tested by independent third-party labs as part of its typical product testing and again during the CPSC investigation, “and confirmed compliance with the highest industry standards.”

Rad upgraded its bikes to what it calls the Rad Safe Shield battery in early 2024, and the company said it offered to upgrade consumers to those batteries at a substantial discount as part of one of its solutions during the CPSC investigation.

The company stressed in its statement that all lithium-ion batteries, not just in e-bikes, can pose a fire risk if improperly handled or exposed to significant water, and the company promotes proper care and maintenance in its user manuals and customer safety guides.

Rad Power Bikes, headquartered in Seattle’s Ballard neighborhood, launched as a direct-to-consumer brand in 2015.

The company saw huge demand amid the pandemic as more people bought e-bikes. Its sales and workforce surged and it raised more than $300 million from investors in 2021. The company was valued at $1.65 billion that year, according to PitchBook, making it one of a handful of “unicorn” startups in the Seattle region at the time.

The company has attracted nearly 700,000 riders around the globe, but a series of missteps and macroeconomic challenges in recent years have led to more than seven rounds of layoffs and a remarkable downfall.

A spokesperson told GeekWire on Monday that Rad’s filing of a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification with the Washington state Employment Security Department earlier this month was due to the company’s financial circumstances and its obligation to comply with state law. It was not related to the CPSC investigation.

Three years ago, Rad issued a recall on its RadWagon 4 electric cargo bikes over an issue with tires and rim strips that created a fall and crash hazard.

In 2023, The New York Times reported on a rise in micro-mobility device fires or overheating incidents caused by poorly made batteries that the CPSC said was particularly acute in densely populated areas like New York City.

The CPSC urged consumers on Monday to immediately remove affected batteries and dispose of them following local hazardous waste procedures.

Rad Power Bikes statement regarding CPSC warning:

Rad Power Bikes firmly stands behind our batteries and our reputation as leaders in the ebike industry, and strongly disagrees with the CPSC’s characterization of certain Rad batteries as defective or unsafe.

We have a long and well-documented track record of building safe, reliable ebikes equipped with batteries that meet or exceed rigorous international safety standards, including UL-2271 and UL-2849. The CPSC proposed requiring these UL standards in January 2025, but has yet to adopt them. Rad ebikes have met these standards for years.

Reputable, independent third-party labs tested Rad’s batteries, both as part of our typical product testing and again during the CPSC investigation, and confirmed compliance with the highest industry standards. Our understanding is that the CPSC does not dispute the conclusions of these tests. It is also our understanding that the battery itself was not independently examined per industry-accepted test standards.   

Context Matters

The incident rate associated with the batteries in the CPSC’s notice is a fraction of one percent. While that number is low, we know even one incident is one too many, and we are heartbroken by any report involving our products.

It is also widely understood that all lithium-ion batteries—whether in ebikes, e-scooters, laptops, or power tools—can pose a fire risk if damaged, improperly charged, exposed to excess moisture, subjected to extreme temperatures or improper modifications to the electrical components, all of which Rad repeatedly advises against in user manuals and customer safety guides. Contrary to the CPSC’s statement, mere exposure to water and debris does not create a hazard; rather, significant water exposure, as warned against in our manuals, can pose a hazard.

These risks apply across industries and exist even in products that are fully UL compliant. Ebike batteries are significantly more powerful than household device batteries, which is why proper care and maintenance are so important and why Rad continues to invest in rider education and safety innovation.

Rad’s Cooperation with the CPSC

Rad hoped this process would be an opportunity to work with the agency and others in the industry to improve rider education and offer clearer, more consistent safety guidance on how to use and store ebikes and their batteries safely. 

Rad offered multiple good-faith solutions to address the agency’s concerns, including offering consumers an opportunity to upgrade to Safe Shield batteries (described below) at a substantial discount. CPSC rejected this opportunity.  The significant cost of the all-or-nothing demand would force Rad to shut its doors immediately, leaving no way to support our riders or our employees. 

A Commitment to Safety and Innovation

Rad has been a pioneer in promoting and advancing energy-efficient transportation, and our efforts to innovate and build safer, better batteries led to the development of the Rad Safe Shield battery. However, a product that incorporates new, safer, and better technology does not thereby mean that preceding products are not safe or defective. For example, when anti-lock brakes were developed, that did not render earlier cars unsafe; it simply meant a better, safer technology was available to consumers. 

That kind of thinking discourages innovation and limits the accessibility that ebikes bring to millions of people. Without the adoption of clear, common-sense standards, no electric bike manufacturer can operate with confidence. 

Previously:

• The rise and fall of Rad Power Bikes: From breakout success to the brink of shutdown
• Rad Power Bikes faces possible shutdown as it tries to survive ‘significant financial challenges’

Amazon plans to invest up to $50 billion to expand AI and advanced computing infrastructure for U.S. government agencies, the company announced Monday.

The investment, set to break ground in 2026, will add nearly 1.3 gigawatts of data center capacity to the Amazon Web Services regions Top Secret, AWS Secret, and AWS GovCloud (US) — locations specifically designed for classified and sensitive workloads.

Amazon said federal agencies will gain access to AI tools such as Amazon SageMaker for custom model training and Amazon Bedrock for deploying AI models and building agents. The centers will be equipped with AWS’s own Trainium AI chips and NVIDIA hardware.

The intent is to accelerate discovery and decision-making across government missions, which could mean faster modeling for scientific research, quicker threat analysis for intelligence agencies, or more accurate forecasting for disaster response and climate modeling, according to Amazon.

“Our investment in purpose-built government AI and cloud infrastructure will fundamentally transform how federal agencies leverage supercomputing,” AWS CEO Matt Garman said in a statement. “This investment removes the technology barriers that have held government back and further positions America to lead in the AI era.”

Amazon first launched government-specific cloud infrastructure in 2011. Today the company says it supports more than 11,000 government agencies.

Out of Office is a new GeekWire series spotlighting the passions and hobbies that members of the Seattle-area tech community pursue outside of work.

• Name: Peter Lee.
• Day job: President, Microsoft Research. Lee leads the organization’s global labs and drives the incubation of new research-powered products in artificial intelligence, computing foundations, health, and life sciences.
• Out-of-office passion: Converting classic cars to electric.

When Peter Lee first started his research for a project to convert his replica 1955 Porsche 550 Spyder to electric, he used the AI model Davinci-003 (OpenAI’s early Chat GPT-4) for help with the engineering design.

When he explained to the AI what he wanted to do, the first response Lee got back was, “Why on earth would you want to ruin a beautiful classic car like that?” 

The head of Microsoft Research doesn’t just hear it from artificial intelligence. Now in the midst of converting another classic — a 1968 Ford Mustang GT Fastback — Lee is used to plenty of human car fanatics expressing their displeasure with his hobby.

“Half the people I’ve told about this project think it’s the coolest thing, and the other half think it’s totally evil,” Lee said. “One guy actually told me I’m never going to heaven.”

Lee, who joined Microsoft in 2010 and previously spent 22 years at Carnegie Mellon University, was named one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people in health and life sciences in 2024. Cars have been a passion since he was a kid. He raced karts and Formula Ford, and was even a licensed auto body technician for a time.

Frustrated by fuel system issues with the Porsche in 2020, Lee connected with Marc Davis, founder of Moment Motor Co. in Austin, Texas, a shop that “transforms vintage head-turners into modern electric cars.” Moment is dedicated to “preserving the art and beauty” of classics like those owned by Lee.

Some classic car lovers are quick to criticize EV conversions for messing with the original gas-powered intent of manufacturers, pointing out that the cost alone makes it irresponsible. Davis said Moment’s work generates “plenty of vomit emojis” from purists on the company’s social media posts.

“I personally believe what we’re doing is preservation,” he said, pointing to projects in which people bring new life to a car that was their all-time favorite or something that their dad drove. (This Bloomberg video shows how the conversion process works.)

The cost of such a conversion can depend on car condition, size, and performance and range requirements from the owner, but Davis puts the ballpark between $50,000 and $150,000. That’s on top of a classic car that might cost $200,000. The Mustang project entails 100-150 hours of engineering work and 400-500 hours of installation work.

Lee is drawn to many of the benefits of going electric — no gas or oil to worry about, modern components, and explosive torque.

In the wet Pacific Northwest, Lee’s Porsche is garaged for the winter at a 50% charge. On the first nice day in the spring, there’s little to fuss with.

“I’ll just check the air in the tires, turn it on, and it’ll just go. And it’ll go fast. It’s really a wonderful, wonderful thing,” Lee said, adding that speeds in the Porsche, which is a replica of the model in which Hollywood icon James Dean died, can be “a little scary.”

With the Mustang, Lee is involved in decisions big and small, from what type of shift knob he might like, to whether to retain the solid rear axle.

“I put thought into this, especially when I was driving the car to get to know it,” Lee said. “I ended up thinking that the car wouldn’t be a Mustang anymore if we got rid of the live rear axle, and it turned out that Marc’s design choice was exactly the same.”

When it’s done, the Mustang will be a unique build, and one that Lee says will demand plenty of attention on the car show circuit.

Asked whether he has a third vehicle in mind to convert next, Lee laughed before considering his growing collection and his desire to possibly change over an old pickup truck.

“My wife isn’t around is she?” he said.

Most rewarding aspect of this pursuit: Lee loves that there are serious technical and design aspects of what he’s pursuing. In the case of the current project, he grapples with decisions that impact what it means for the car to still be a Mustang, and feel like a Mustang.

“The thing I’ve always loved about cars, and why I love to work on cars, is you actually finish something,” he said. “That never happens in software. Software’s never done. You might ship it, but you’re still working on it forever.”

Lee is also a believer in the growing business potential of converting classic cars to EV and he thinks it would be a thrill to be involved on the side with a company that’s doing such work.

“The whole idea of beautiful, classic-looking cars that have all the modern conveniences of being EV — I think that’s going to be a bigger and bigger thing,” he said.

The lessons he brings back to work: Lee has wanted to combine his passion around cars with his day job forever. Today, car technology and auto racing have become so technical that he now has fellow researchers at Microsoft who are generally interested as well.

He called cars “a great laboratory” for trying to understand action models — the AI systems designed to predict and determine the next best action an agent (like a robot or software) should take to achieve a specific goal.

At Microsoft Research, advancements in car software provide interesting ways to think about the architecture of an action model or training paradigms, with learnings that could impact what’s happening on your own computer.

“It wouldn’t surprise me if five years from now the ’68 Mustang conversion has more intelligence, more self-drive, more action model, more robotic capabilities,” Lee said. “I think you’ll see those things pop up even in your plain old Windows desktop over time.”

Read more Out of Office profiles.

Do you have an out-of-office hobby or interesting side hustle that you’re passionate about that would make for a fun profile on GeekWire? Drop us a line: tips@geekwire.com.

Mount Rainier is not getting ready to erupt, but scientists at the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network might blow their stacks over having to respond to a rumor about increased tremor activity at the Washington state volcano.

The Daily Mail reported this week that the mountain was sending up “a flurry of strange signals” and raising concern “that something inside the volcano might be shifting.”

“This towering stratovolcano looms over more than 3.3 million people across the Seattle-Tacoma metro area, threatening to cripple entire communities with ashfall, flooding, and catastrophic mudflows if it erupts,” The Daily Mail reported in dramatic fashion in a story that went viral online.

PNSN was forced to respond on Wednesday with a detailed blog post debunking the story, explaining that a likely buildup of ice on the antenna of a Rainier seismic station was causing radio interference misread as seismic activity.

PNSN said the station at St. Andrews Rock (STAR) is “one of the last remaining old analog sites on the mountain and uses very low-power radio transmission to send data down to a receiver site.” The system, located just west of the summit, is susceptible to weather-related interference and PNSN said recent stormy weather likely caused “rime ice buildup.”

The blog post contains recent seismograms and further explanation about how the station’s typical signals are affected by glacier slips, rock falls and high winds. PNSN said any unusual seismic activity such as significant earthquakes or volcanic tremor would show up on numerous other stations that are on or near the volcano and would be detected and reported by PNSN within a short time.

“We realized that what they were seeing was one, just one, of our many seismic stations that was sending out essentially static, just noise, instead of actual data,” PNSN Director Harold Tobin told KING 5. “And that’s the whole problem, and the thing that people think is tremor at the volcano, it’s just some static.”

Washington's Mount Rainier has suddenly awoken and is buzzing with almost nonstop activity for days, stoking fears that an eruption could come soon. 🔗 https://t.co/ZQeqGiKetq pic.twitter.com/KfZ6cUvWi3

— Daily Mail (@DailyMail) November 18, 2025

PNSN is operated cooperatively by the University of Washington, the University of Oregon, and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS)’s Seattle Field Office to monitor earthquake and volcanic activity across the Pacific Northwest.

The last minor eruption at Mount Rainier was recorded in 1884.

The last minor eruption at PNSN was Wednesday in response to The Daily Mail.

“Unfortunately, sloppy journalism by non-scientists who don’t understand seismology nor check with those that do can generate confusion in the public and more work for those who need to correct the clearly incorrect information,” PNSN’s blog post read. “It is no wonder that some publications are only considered tabloids and should never be believed.”

Previously:

• Seattle shakes again as Mariners grand slam triggers another big burst of seismic activity

Early bird tickets for the GeekWire Gala are going fast, and today is your last chance to secure discounted pricing for our annual holiday extravaganza.

The Gala is the Seattle tech community’s biggest holiday celebration, and it takes place Dec. 11 at Showbox SoDo.

The festive night includes food, drinks, karaoke, games, and plenty of surprise moments. Bring your whole team and make our holiday party your holiday party alongside the region’s top innovators and entrepreneurs.

In addition to the party atmosphere, GeekWire and Greater Seattle Partners will once again use the Gala to recognize the region’s “Uncommon Thinkers,” the groundbreaking innovators who are changing the way we work, live and play. We’ve profiled three of these individuals so far — Anindya Roy, co-founder and chief scientific officer of Lila Biologics; and Chet Kittleson, co-founder and CEO of Tin Can; and Brian Pinkard, co-founder and CTO at Aquagga. We’ll publish profiles of other honorees in the coming weeks.

Showbox SoDo is located at 1700 1st Ave S., not far from T-Mobile Park. The event from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. is 21+ and all attendees must have valid ID to enter. Dress to impress, bust our your holiday flare, or just keep it geek chic.

Big thanks to the GeekWire Gala title sponsor, First Tech Federal Credit Union; gold sponsors Greater Seattle Partners and Astound Business Solutions; and silver sponsors MeeBoss, Tito’s, The Baldwin Group, Wilson Sonsini, ALLtech, and Regence.

Sponsorships include brand exposure, VIP access, and a front-row seat to the celebration. For sponsorship and group ticket sales, contact us at events@geekwire.com.

Following the election of a new mayor in Seattle, one of Amazon’s top executives reaffirmed its commitment to the region Tuesday, promising, “We are not going anywhere.”

David Zapolsky, Amazon chief global affairs and legal officer, made the comment during an Amazon Community Impact Reception at The Spheres in Seattle, where he and others discussed the company’s philanthropic and civic initiatives from housing to food security.

“Obviously, this is a time of change, both in this region and around the world,” Zapolsky said. “Amazon remains committed to our home, this Puget Sound region. We are not going anywhere. And so we remain committed to building this community.”

It’s a rare public reaffirmation of the Seattle region as Amazon’s primary base. It follows years of political disputes over taxes and other city policies that contributed to Amazon shifting more of its workforce to Bellevue, Wash., and Northern Virginia.

With the arrival of Seattle Mayor-elect Katie Wilson, Amazon must once again establish a working relationship with a city leader who ran on promises to address issues such as affordability, brought about in part by a tech boom that Amazon helped fuel.

Wilson defeated Mayor Bruce Harrell, a more business friendly leader than Amazon was used to dealing with during the tech giant’s strained relations with City Hall.

“I’ve tried to have a very supportive relationship, but also one on mutual accountability,” Harrell told GeekWire in January about his dealings with Amazon. “I think it’s working out well.”

During her campaign in September, Wilson told GeekWire that she aims to work with the tech sector and Amazon on innovative solutions to civic challenges.

A longtime community organizer and Transit Riders Union co-founder, Wilson helped design and pass Seattle’s controversial JumpStart payroll expense tax in 2020. A majority of the revenue — $360 million in 2024 — is generated from 10 companies, including Amazon. 

“Obviously Amazon and the other big tech companies are very important players in our city and in our economy, and so I think it’s very important that the city has working relationships there,” she said.

In the same election that ushered in Wilson, voters also overwhelmingly approved Proposition 2, a plan hatched by Harrell and City Councilmember Alexis Mercedes Rinck that will reshape the city’s business and occupation (B&O) tax that applies to gross revenue. It will impact both small startups and large tech companies such as Amazon.

According to public records, Zapolsky gave $550 to Harrell’s re-election campaign. Amazon HR chief Beth Galetti ($650) and Amazon Stores CEO Doug Herrington ($550) are among others from Amazon who contributed.

During Tuesday’s event at The Spheres, Amazon spotlighted its philanthropic efforts and the progress being made across the region, including:

• $900 million committed through its Housing Fund to create or preserve more than 10,000 affordable homes.
• 4.5 million meals delivered to families in need since 2020.
• 380,000 bed nights provided through Mary’s Place to families experiencing homelessness.

Zapolsky said Amazon’s community strategy shifted as the company rapidly expanded in Seattle. He said employees and leaders have always cared about their community, but the company’s efforts were informal and relatively small-scale in its earlier days. By 2009 and 2010, Amazon had grown far faster than expected and “we were sort of backing into the scale that we have in the city,” Zapolsky said — prompting company leaders to recognize the need for a more organized approach.

From there, he said, Amazon began applying its core business principles to civic work: taking a long-term view, listening to partners to understand what the community actually needs, and focusing on where Amazon’s unique capabilities — logistics, technology, legal expertise — could make the biggest impact, rather than just financial contributions.

“We’re still in the middle of the journey,” Zapolsky said.

Amazon counts more than 80,000 full- and part-time employees in the Puget Sound region. About 50,000 corporate and tech workers are in Seattle— a number that shrunk from about 60,000 in 2020 as more jobs shifted to Bellevue. The company cut 14,000 workers in broad layoffs in October, with 2,303 corporate employees in Washington state.

Zapolsky, who has been at Amazon 26 years, called his move from New York to Seattle 32 years ago the best decision he ever made. He cited the city’s amazing assets, from its people and diversity to its infrastructure improvements including the waterfront, convention center, and Climate Pledge Arena.

“Even government when it tries can’t screw this up,” he said, adding, again, “We’re here to stay. We want to continue working with our partners in the community, continue making the Puget Sound region better for our community and for our employees.”

A group of Seattle nonprofits aiming to boost exposure to and participation in the arts among young people will receive nearly $7 million in funding from Allen Family Philanthropies.

The organizations — all leading projects on the Seattle Center campus — include independent radio station KEXP, the Museum of Pop Culture, Pacific Science Center and others.

Allen Family Philanthropies (formerly known as the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation) is a charitable entity started by the late Microsoft co-founder and his sister, Jody Allen, in 1988. The philanthropy invests in a number of areas, including arts and culture, science and technology, and research in all areas of bioscience.

The grants are aimed at projects intended to grow opportunities for diverse creators, increase access to arts programming and engagement, and reimagine spaces, according to a news release Wednesday.

Here are the eight nonprofits and their plans for how grants totaling $6,868,990 over three years will be used:

• KEXP will support emerging artists and cultural workers and enhance audience diversity through extended programs for youth and their families, including the youth DJ programs, all-ages events, expanded youth outreach and programming engagement, and live music events and other activations in the KEXP Gathering Space and courtyard. ($879,700 in funding).
• Museum of Pop Culture (MOPOP) will develop a residency program that will expand free youth access to interactive, culturally relevant learning experiences ($696,176 in funding).
• National Film Festival for Talented Youth (NFFTY) will scale and grow festival programming into year-round, accessible opportunities for film education, mentorship, and professional development for aspiring youth filmmakers at Seattle Center ($480,882 in funding).
• Pacific Northwest Ballet (PNB) will unify PNB’s emerging artist efforts into a singular choreographic dance program with more technical training and performance opportunities, increasing engagement for young artists aged 10-26, and expanding the Community Stages program ($1,250,000 in funding).

• Pacific Science Center (PacSci) will connect arts and culture with science, reimagining spaces with public artwork and cultural installations commissioned by Pacific Northwest Indigenous artists and culture bearers, through a new artist-in-residence program within the Maker & Innovation Lab ($997,632 in funding).
• Seattle Repertory Theatre & Seattle Children’s Theatre will expand their theatrical partnership model with a multi-year initiative to co-produce one main stage show each season aimed at teens and their families ($1,320,000 in funding).
• TeenTix will support a new Teen Connectors program in partnership with Seattle Center arts venues to increase access and engagement of teen audiences in arts and culture experiences ($250,000 in funding).
• The Vera Project (Vera) will launch All Ages / All Access, a new slate of all-ages music and arts programming centered on concerts, gallery openings, and creative workforce development opportunities by and for young people. ($994,600 in funding).

Seattle Center draws more than 12 million visitors annually, and is the most visited arts and cultural destination in the Pacific Northwest.

“By investing in arts organizations that engage young people, we invest in the creators, audiences, and advocates who will contribute to and sustain a vibrant arts and culture sector in Seattle for years to come,” said Anh Nguyen, director of arts, youth and community for Allen Family Philanthropies. “These organizations excel at engaging young artists and young audiences — and know how to ignite curiosity. The grants will ensure youth arts and culture programming can continue to grow and evolve to meet community needs.”

Allen Family Philanthropies’ funding for Seattle Center organizations follows previous arts investments from the foundation, including $9 million to eight downtown arts organizations to support nearly 1,200 public events, and the Community Accelerator Grant Program administered by ArtsFund, which has awarded $30 million in funding to 930 arts and culture organizations across Washington state over the last three years.

Previously:

• Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen’s final act: New $3.1B foundation bets big on science and tech
• In an age of billionaire backlash, Paul Allen’s lasting legacy stands out in Seattle

The Washington Technology Industry Association (WTIA) announced a batch of 19 startups that will be taking place in the nonprofit’s 13th WTIA Founder Cohort Accelerator Program on Tuesday.

Part of the WTIA Startup Program, the Founder Cohort is designed to help early stage startups across Washington state grow and scale over the course of four months. Companies gain access to various resources, mentorship, networking opportunities and guidance as they navigate increasing revenue, securing additional investment, and growing their teams.

The 19 selected companies include:

• Aira Security
• Cr3ate.ai
• Devplan
• DrunR
• InnoMat.AI
• Koniva
• LemiLeap
• NailedIT
• Nurano Labs / Color42
• Oikyo
• Optimly
• Pilotlight
• REearthable
• Rising Wines Collective
• Saltwyk
• SkyTax
• Tato
• VRenity
• One stealth startup

The Founder Cohort will run from this month through February.

“This program is about more than just education, it’s about building community,” Koki Sato, program manager of the accelerator, said in a statement. “We’re here to help founders strengthen their companies and connect with peers, mentors, and investors who can accelerate their growth.”

Since its inception, the WTIA Founder Cohort has supported over 300 companies. Alumni from previous cohorts have collectively raised over $400 million, according to WTIA.