Auger, a startup building logistics and supply chain software, announced Yuqing Sun as its chief data and AI enablement officer. Sun joins the Bellevue, Wash.-based company from Johnson & Johnson where she has worked for nearly 20 years in a variety of supply chain, analytics and data science roles.

“Yuqing brings the rare combo of deep technical chops, operational scar tissue, and the calm that only comes from having seen every kind of supply-chain fire drill,” said Dave Clark, Auger’s founder and CEO and a former Amazon executive.

Clark noted on LinkedIn that while at Johnson & Johnson, Sun worked to modernize “one of the most complex supply chains on the planet through data and AI innovations. She built and scaled more than 30 AI-driven products across optimization, simulation, IoT, machine learning, computer vision — you name it.”

Last month Auger appointed Justine Hastings as chief AI economist. The company, ranked No. 48 on the GeekWire 200 list of top Pacific Northwest startups, raised a $100 million Series A round last December.

— Amy Harris is the new public policy and government relations director for the Washington Technology Industry Association (WTIA).

For the past nine years, Harris has been a principal for Red Strategies, which bills itself as providing “fundraising consulting and event planning for right of center candidates and organizations.” She has also worked as an executive assistant for two members of Congress.

Randa Minkarah, CEO of the WTIA consortium, praised Harris’ “deep experience in bipartisan coalition-building, strategic advocacy, and navigating complex political landscapes,” noting the skills will be instrumental in working in Washington state and the nation’s capitol.

— Marc Brown, a former corporate vice president at Microsoft who helped lead the acquisition of companies including LinkedIn, GitHub and Minecraft, has joined the board of directors for Syncro, a software platform for IT professionals.

Seattle-based Brown was with Microsoft for more than two decades, managing more than 185 acquisitions and 80 equity investments.

— Pyramid Communications, a longtime Seattle-area public relations firm, named Emily Ryan as its first CEO. Ryan was with Pyramid for nearly 14 years before taking a year-long role as chief communications officer for Our Children’s Trust in 2024.

“During a tumultuous period in the world, Pyramid is doubling down on our commitment to support changemakers leading bold action for a better world,” the company posted on LinkedIn. “Emily’s trusted, creative leadership will sustain our team and our clients as we continue to work alongside all of you…”

— Carbon Direct, a carbon management firm based in New York and Seattle, announced two leadership hires as a result of its recent acquisition of climate tech startup Pachama.

• Greg FitzGerald, based in Vancouver, B.C., is now vice president of supply and will help source and commercialize carbon credits that organizations purchase to offset their emissions.
• Diego Saez Gil, co-founder and former CEO of Pachama, has taken the role of senior vice president of strategic engagement and is based in the Bay Area.

Seattle is looking to celebrate and accelerate its leadership in artificial intelligence at the very moment the first wave of the AI economy is crashing down on the region’s tech workforce.

That contrast was hard to miss Monday evening at the opening reception for Seattle AI Week 2025 at Pier 70. On stage, panels offered a healthy dose of optimism about building the AI future. In the crowd, buzz about Amazon’s impending layoffs brought the reality of the moment back to earth.

A region that rose with Microsoft and then Amazon is now dealing with the consequences of Big Tech’s AI-era restructuring. Companies that hired by the thousands are now thinning their ranks in the name of efficiency and focus — a dose of corporate realism for the local tech economy.

The double-edged nature of this shift is not lost on Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson.

“AI, and the future of AI, and what that means for our state and the world — each day I do this job, the more that moves up in my mind in terms of the challenges and the opportunities we have,” Ferguson told the AI Week crowd. He touted Washington’s concentration of AI jobs, saying his goal is to maximize the benefits of AI while minimizing its downsides.

Seattle AI Week, led by the Washington Technology Industry Association, was started last year after a Forbes list of the nation’s top 50 AI startups included none from Seattle, said the WTIA’s Nick Ellingson, opening this year’s event. That didn’t seem right. Was it a messaging problem?

“A bunch of us got together and said, let’s talk about all the cool things happening around AI in Seattle, and let’s expand the tent beyond just tech things that are happening,” Ellingson explained.

So maybe that’s the best measuring stick: how many startups will this latest shakeout spark, and how can the Seattle region’s startup and tech leaders make it happen? Can the region become less dependent on the whims of the Microsoft and Amazon C-suites in the process? 

“Washington has so much opportunity. It’s one of the few capitals of AI in the world,” said WTIA’s Arry Yu in her opening remarks. “People talk about China, people talk about Silicon Valley — there are a few contenders, but really, it’s here in Seattle. … The future is built on data, on powerful technology, but also on community. That’s what makes this place different.”

And yet, “AI is a sleepy scene in Seattle, where people work at their companies, but there’s very little activity and cross-pollinating outside of this,” said Nathan Lambert, senior research scientist with the Allen Institute for AI, during the opening panel discussion.

No, we don’t want to become San Francisco or Silicon Valley, Lambert added. But that doesn’t mean the region can’t cherry-pick some of the ingredients that put Bay Area tech on top.

Whether laid-off tech workers will start their own companies is a common question after layoffs like this. In the Seattle region at least, that outcome has been more fantasy than reality. 

This is where AI could change things, if not with the fabled one-person unicorn then with a bigger wave of new companies born of this employment downturn. Who knows, maybe one will even land on that elusive Forbes AI 50 list. (Hey, a region can dream!)

But as the new AI reality unfolds in the regional workforce, maybe the best question to ask is whether Seattle’s next big thing can come from its own backyard again.

Related: Ferguson’s AI balancing act: Washington governor wants to harness innovation while minimizing harms