GeekWire

This week on the GeekWire Podcast ... We dissect Amazon's earnings, offering our take on Andy Jassy's take on the company's latest predicament. We assess a major Microsoft milestone, as the Redmond company surpasses Apple to become the world's most valuable company again. We look forward to the Metaverse, but question whether Mark Zuckerberg and his Facebook friends are the right people to take us there. And finally, by popular demand, for one show only, we bring back one of our most beloved segments, the App of the Week. With GeekWire's Todd Bishop and John Cook. Edited and produced by Curt Milton; Theme music by Daniel L.K. Caldwell.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Everyone is closely monitoring the implications of remote work as we emerge from the pandemic, so it's no surprise that one of the most widely read stories on GeekWire this week — right behind the Titanic's disappearing bathtub and Facebook's potential name change — was a story on trends in tech salaries.  Two big trends stood out in the report from jobs site Hired: Average tech salaries in Seattle are up 4.6% from last year, to $158,000, second only to the Bay Area, which saw its average dip slightly to $165,000. Nationwide, the average U.S. tech salary fell 1.1% to $152,000. With the shift to remote work, “employers are expanding their addressable candidate pool, filling roles faster and paying lower average salaries,” Hired said. What's going on here? That's our first topic on this week's GeekWire Podcast. Guest commentator: We get a real-world perspective on tech hiring, remote work, and pay trends from Bill Richter, president and CEO of Qumulo. The cloud file storage and management company joined the ranks of Seattle's unicorns with a valuation of $1.2 billion in its latest funding round. Richter was previously a venture partner at Madrona Venture Group, and a leader at Isilon Systems and EMC. "We are far more open to remote locations," he said. "It really doesn't make that much of a difference where they are when they appear on their video conferencing screen. And that opens up a lot of new talent pools." It also opens up new opportunities for people previously based in Seattle to relocate and continue working for the company. For its remote work policy, Qumulo's executive team has delegated decisions to its functional leaders, with a plan to learn and adjust as it goes, adopting an Amazon-like policy before Amazon did. "So we're definitely approaching things differently," he added. "That's not a temporary state for us; that will be the future of the way we go as a company." What does that mean for pay? The Hired survey shows that new employees in far-flung locations might not command as much as those in tech hubs. But unlike some other tech leaders, Richter, whose background is in accounting and finance, doesn't see much merit in attempting to adjust salaries when existing employees relocate. "It's a global market for talent. And in exchange for the talent and the impact that the individual provides the organization, they shall be compensated," Richter said. "All the micro-tuning of things like location and that sort of thing, that might work in the short run. In the long run, what we'll see is a market clearing for compensation in return for talent." Other topics this week The boom in unstructured cloud data, which is fueling Qumulo's business. My colleague John Cook makes his best effort to get Richter to disclose Qumulo's financial data and IPO plans. Richter does share some insights into which sectors are seeing the biggest increase in data, and thoughts on how companies are viewing Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform in this environment. The home debut of the new Seattle Kraken NHL franchise Saturday. Our colleagues Kurt Schlosser and Kevin Lisota got to tour Climate Pledge Arena this week. Check out their story and video. We reminisce about John's run-in with the Pittsburgh Penguins mascot, Iceburgh, during GeekWire's 2018 stint in the Steel City, and wonder if he'll have a similar altercation with the Kraken mascot. We'll soon find out. The future of self-driving cars, and the news that Amazon's Zoox will test its technology in Seattle's "different driving culture." John is a skeptic of autonomous vehicles, based on part his terrifying ride in one of Uber's self-driving cars. Richter is an optimist. We can only imagine what will happen when four-self driving cars arrive simultaneously at a four-way stop in Seattle. Produced and edited by Curt Milton; Music by Daniel L.K. Caldwell.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week on the GeekWire Podcast: a new Microsoft leader finally gets to work, Amazon makes a surprising change in its remote work policy, and the promise of space for the tech industry. Our guest commentator is Charlie Kindel, who worked for many years as a Microsoft general manager in areas including its server and mobile businesses, before jumping into the world of startups and then ending up at Amazon, where he led mobile payments and built the Alexa Smart Home organization.  After working as chief product and technology officer at home automation company SnapOne, previously known as Control4, he’s now an independent advisor and consultant to companies including space and satellite startups. Stories covered on this week's show: ‘The most profound experience’: Blue Origin sends Star Trek’s William Shatner to the final frontier Microsoft and Amazon reach truce allowing former AWS executive Charlie Bell to start in new role Amazon will leave remote work decisions to individual team leaders in new policy twist With GeekWire's Todd Bishop and John Cook. Theme music by Daniel L.K. Caldwell. See geekwire.com/podcast for more episodes and links to subscribe. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week on the GeekWire Podcast, we’re sharing a few highlights from the GeekWire Summit, our annual business and technology conference, which we held this week for an audience in Seattle and online. For online access to the full video of every GeekWire Summit 2021 session, purchase a ticket at geekwire.com/summit to watch at your convenience.  On this week's show: Computer scientist and entrepreneur Yoky Matsuoka talks about her journey from academia to Silicon Valley, and compares and contrasts her experiences at Apple and Google. Matsuoka is leading an independent Panasonic subsidiary called Yohana that recently launched a personal assistant subscription service. Related: Robotics pioneer Yoky Matsuoka on the human touch in her new personal assistant venture Yohana Amazon CEO Andy Jassy addresses questions about the company’s impact on the world and responsibilities beyond serving customers. The GeekWire Summit appearance was Jassy's first live on-stage interview since succeeding founder Jeff Bezos as Amazon CEO — leading one of the world's most influential companies at a pivotal moment in its history.  Related: Amazon CEO: Relationship with Seattle City Council has become ‘rougher,’ but hope remains Grammy-award winning entertainer and entrepreneur Ciara discusses creativity and independence in music and business. She talks about the moment of insight that accompanied her hit song "Level Up," which became an ethos that translates into her work in music, business, fashion, and more. Related: GeekWire Summit 2021 recap: Leaders and luminaries share insights at our annual conference Audio editing and production by Curt Milton; Theme music by Daniel L.K. Caldwell.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella this week called the company's unsuccessful efforts to acquire TikTok's U.S. operations last year "the strangest thing" he's ever worked on. Brad Smith, Microsoft's president and newly named vice chair, laughed when he read that — agreeing with the sentiment, even if he has seen stranger things in his two decades representing the tech giant in its dealings with companies and governments around the world. In the new paperback edition of his book, Tools & Weapons, Smith writes that the situation showed it's "possible to run a foreign technology service in a domestic data center with strict security, privacy, and digital safety controls in a manner that provides appropriate transparency to local government officials." "In effect, this creates the opportunity to consider a new technology regulatory model for those instances where the US government wants technology trade to continue across the Pacific, but in a more controlled manner," he writes. Smith elaborates on the issue in this GeekWire Podcast conversation about the paperback update to Tools & Weapons, written with co-author Carol Ann Browne. They made extensive updates in the new paperback version of Tools & Weapons, including new chapters on the challenges created by unprecedented cyberattacks and the COVID-19 pandemic. Smith also talks about Microsoft's new cybersecurity initiatives, his concerns about a lack of transparency and communication about cyberattacks among U.S. agencies and companies, and the future of work after the pandemic.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Come on, how much has really changed in Windows 11 vs. Windows 10? To paraphrase a certain Spinal Tap guitarist, is it really worthy of taking it up to eleven? Kevin Stratvert hears that question all the time, and based on his experience so far, his answer is yes. Stratvert is a former Microsoft program manager who left the company to focus full-time on his work as a YouTube creator, producing how-to videos about software and services from Microsoft and others. Stratvert joins us this week on the GeekWire Podcast to look ahead to the launch of Windows 11 on Oct. 5, providing a sense for what to expect.  We talk about the new Windows 11 user interface, overall performance improvements, the centered Start menu, Windows 11 Widgets, upgrades to the multiple virtual desktops feature in Windows, the integration of Microsoft Teams Chat, the updated Your Phone app, Windows 11 hardware requirements, and Microsoft's plan for a gradual rollout of the operating system. Stratvert has been focusing on Windows 11 in many of his recent videos: Windows 11 Requirements: Can your PC run it? 5 Awesome Windows 11 Features you should use First Look at Windows 11 - impressions from an ex-Microsoft PM Windows 11 Event: Biggest announcements & my thoughts In-depth Look at Windows 11 Insider Preview In the second segment, we discuss some highlights from this week's Microsoft Surface event, including the Surface Laptop Studio and the new Surface Duo 2. And in the final segment, we talk about Stratvert's own journey from Microsoft program manager to full-time YouTube creator, which was documented in this CNBC story. Subscribe to Kevin Stratvert's YouTube channel, or see his site, kevinstratvert.com. Audio editing and production by Curt Milton; Theme music by Daniel L.K. Caldwell.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Fred Moody is a retired journalist in the Seattle area, the former managing editor of Seattle Weekly, and the author of a series on Kindle Vella, Amazon’s new episodic storytelling platform for mobile devices. It's called Barfly on the Wall: A meteoric misadventure into Seattle bartending.   GeekWire's Todd Bishop has been looking into Kindle Vella and other story platforms as a reflection of broader changes in how people publish and read stories. Moody is one of the authors featured in a GeekWire story on the subject. Moody has followed Amazon since its early days as an online bookseller, interviewing Jeff Bezos for an article when the company was based in a modest office south of downtown Seattle. The company was so small at the time that Bezos personally followed up with Moody to explain how the journalist's out-of-print book about the Seattle Seahawks ended up in Amazon's online catalog. "He was talking about why he was located in Seattle, and what his plans were, to be the world's biggest bookstore and all that, but there was no sense that they were headed where they were headed, at least not to my benighted eyes," Moody recalled this week. "You could tell he was really onto something, but nobody could have imagined what that something was." In 2004, as the tech economy was taking off in the city, Moody wrote about Seattle's "struggle for its soul" in his book, Seattle and the Demons of Ambition. That book was inspired in part by his experience encountering protesters during the World Trade Organization riots, which opened his eyes to Seattle's evolution into a "massive establishment symbol with all this corporate power," as he puts it. More than a decade later, in 2015, his eyes were opened to yet another side of the city when he came out of retirement to work as a day-shift bartender at the Shanghai Room in Seattle's Greenwood neighborhood, which his daughter Caitlin and son-in-law Tony took over when they opened the adjacent North Star Diner. (They stepped down as owner/operators earlier this year.) Moody started taking notes about the characters at the bar, the people he worked with, and his experiences with the late Anthony Bourdain and his crew when the famed chef and television host visited Seattle for his final show here. When the pandemic hit, Moody found himself with the time to write. "I wanted to experiment with a different kind of narrative, where I'm telling these short little pieces, sometimes anecdotes, sometimes conversations, or little pieces from people's lives, then just kind of jumping from one to the other," he explained, describing it as "a mosaic" that builds into a larger narrative. Then he heard about Vella. "It was almost like a perfect format for what I'd been doing," he said. "I could just take these bite-sized, little things, and make these episodes." Vella also matched the trends he had witnessed from behind the bar. "I was really taken with the idea that it would be so phone-friendly, because the audience I was thinking about for this book were people that read exclusively on their phones, which I noticed in my bartending was the case with almost everybody under 40 years old," he said. Read the full story on GeekWire.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Jason Stoffer was still early in his career at venture capital firm Maveron in 2012 when he declined an opportunity to invest in Remitly, then a fledgling Seattle startup with ambitions to challenge Western Union by bringing a tech mindset to the business of international money transfers. He was impressed by Remitly co-founders Matt Oppenheimer and Josh Hug but knew they faced a huge challenge in getting the state-by-state regulatory approval required to make monetary remittances to what was then their initial international market, the Philippines. "It felt like the end vision was powerful — if they can get there," Stoffer recalled. "But two guys in a room in Seattle saying they were going to navigate an incredibly complex regulatory environment and figure out how to market in a country a continent away, it felt like too big a hill to climb. And they proved me wrong." Ten years later, Remitly is poised to go public in an initial public offering that values the company at $6.5 billion, as we reported this week. Stoffer, whose successful exits as an investor include Flywire, Course Hero, General Assembly and Zulily, analyzed Remitly's financials recently on his new blog, Ringing the Bell, displaying an admirable humility in his assessment of a company that could have been part of the Maveron portfolio. He joins my colleague John Cook and me on the GeekWire Podcast to talk more about Remitly, lessons learned, the current market for tech investing, and his approach to reading S-1 regulatory filings. In the final segment, we discuss Amazon CEO Andy Jassy's first television appearance since assuming the top role from founder Jeff Bezos. Stoffer is an investor in Cap Hill Brands, an aggregator of third-party Amazon sellers. Audio editing and production by Curt Milton; Theme music by Daniel L.K. Caldwell.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Remote work is putting productivity and innovation at risk. That was one of the conclusions of a peer-reviewed study of more than 61,000 Microsoft employees, published this week, and it’s our first topic this week. We talk about the workplace dynamics that are creating the situation, and explain why the implications go far beyond Microsoft’s workforce as the COVID-19 Delta variant pushes back the return to the office. Plus, how predictive analytics and machine learning could change the NFL and other sports, and a preview of the GeekWire Summit, featuring Amazon CEO Andy Jassy, pop superstar Ciara, and a lineup of top leaders in tech, business and science.  For the audiophiles in the audience, our listener feedback section offers another important clarification in our seemingly never-ending discussion of the Blue Yeti microphone.  A special request for loyal listeners: Help us get to 100 reviews on Apple Podcasts!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

GeekWire's Mike Lewis talks with U.S. Representative Pramila Jayapal, a Democrat who represents the 7th Congressional District in Washington state, including Amazon’s hometown of Seattle. Rep. Jayapal is also the Vice Chair of the House Antitrust Subcommittee, and the author of a bill that aims to prevent what it calls monopolistic practices by big tech companies including Amazon. In addition to antitrust issues, they discuss online privacy, vaccine mandates and infrastructure spending.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.