GeekWire

Jeff Wilke did something unusual when he left his role as Amazon's Worldwide Consumer CEO in March, after more than two decades with the company: he learned to code in the Python programming language. "I had lots of computer scientists that were working for me and the organization, and I was heavily involved in a bunch of architectural decisions, but I hadn't written code in years," he explained. "I didn't understand exactly what it took to turn the ideas that we had into actual code. ... So I just thought it'd be useful to update my skills after a couple of decades." He was "blown away" by the experience. "The coolest thing about coding ... is that you get to stand on the shoulders of all the other people who have written code and uploaded it to libraries before you and so you don't have to go back and reinvent everything. And that just means innovation and invention and goodness can accelerate," he said. "So I actually left those two weeks totally optimistic." Wilke is translating that optimism into a variety of investments and projects, across a range of interests and industries, from biotech to honeybees. But the venture getting most of his time and attention is Re:Build Manufacturing, a Massachusetts-based company on a quest to reinvigorate the U.S. manufacturing industry. Re:Build has raised more than $400 million and made six acquisitions in engineering services and advanced materials, with six facilities in five states. Wilke is the company's chairman and co-founder, and it's a return to his roots. He grew up in Pittsburgh and worked early on in pharmaceuticals, chemicals and electronics. On this episode of the GeekWire Podcast, we talk about the future of U.S. manufacturing with Wilke and Re:Build Manufacturing CEO Miles Arnone, a longtime industrial business leader, inventor and investor who co-founded the company with Wilke. Later in the show, during a momentous week for Amazon, we also get Wilke's thoughts about his former employer, as Andy Jassy succeeds founder Jeff Bezos as CEO. Wilke was considered a potential and even likely successor to Bezos prior to the announcement of his departure. He addressed that in a prior interview with our partners at the tech news site dot.la. Audio editing by Curt Milton; theme music by Daniel L.K. Caldwell.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Boone Langston is an accomplished LEGO builder from the Portland, Ore., area who shares his creations with the world at BooneBuilds.com and on his Boone Builds YouTube channel. He also runs a virtual Boone's Build Camp for kids and adults. After working as an IT support specialist and videographer early in his career, he became a fan favorite in 2020 as one half of the team Mark and Boone, a.k.a. the "Bearded Builders," on the first season of the FOX TV show LEGO Masters, in which teams of two compete by building spectacular LEGO creations. He was also known for his impromptu singing, belting out his signature refrain, "Here We Go, We're Building With Bricks Now!" in true rock-star style, to the delight of LEGO Masters host Will Arnett. Much to the dismay of their shocked fans, Mark and Boone did not win their season of the show, as judges Amy Corbett and Jamie Berard gave the nod to newlyweds Tyler and Amy, who had announced earlier in the season that they were expecting a child. My colleague Kurt Schlosser captured the ensuing controversy perfectly in his headline at the time: Oh, baby, ‘LEGO Masters’ finale lands like a brick on outraged fans who dispute choice of winner. My family was among those surprised and disappointed by the outcome. As fellow Pacific Northwesterners, we cheered for Mark and Boone throughout the season, and everyone in our living room considered their “Artopia” project in the finale objectively superior. That sentiment was not shared by Tim Ellis, an electrical engineer by training, Redfin employee by day, and host of the podcast Dispatches from the Multiverse, who writes occasionally for GeekWire about games and other topics. After Kurt and I talked about the outcome on the GeekWire Podcast at the time, Tim started a lively debate with the two of us over text. “Tyler & Amy totally deserved the win, and if anything Mark & Boone should have been in third place behind Sam & Jessica’s peacock!” Tim texted us at the time, referring to the third-place finishers. “You should only do a recap podcast of Season 2 if you let me join for some much-needed balance. 🤣🤣” This spring, before Season 2 of LEGO Masters began, Tim resurfaced his proposal of recording an entire podcast episode about the show. I took him up on the idea — with my own surprise twist. Without telling Tim, I contacted Boone via his website. He graciously agreed join us as a guest on the podcast, and I scheduled him to join us as a surprise midway through the session — after Tim and I rehashed our debate over the outcome of Season 1. For some added fun, we had two LEGO fans join us for the recording: Tim’s daughter, Maezie, 9 years old; and my daughter, Maggie, 10 years old. Listen to the episode to hear what happened. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Another day, another deal. Keeping up with the flurry of acquisitions, IPOs, SPACs and venture capital these days is no easy task. In fact, IPO dollar volume for 2021 has already reached $171 billion, surpassing the record totals of last year. Same goes for mergers and acquisitions, with record levels of deal activity tracked for 2021. The money is certainly flowing. Washington state now boasts 11 "unicorns" — privately held companies boasting valuations of $1 billion or more. Many of them — such as Highspot, Zenoti and Outreach  —  have raised venture capital rounds of $150 million or more in the past six months. And each day here at GeekWire we're updating our funding list — not blinking an eye when a company announces $30 million, $40 million or $50 million in new funding. Even more, we've tracked 32 IPOs, SPACs and acquisitions involving Pacific Northwest companies so far this year, including blockbusters like Okta's $6.5 billion purchase of authentication ID startup Auth0 and Twilio's $850 million acquisition of business texting startup Zipwhip. (See full list of deals here). To help put the wild market in perspective, we're joined this week on the GeekWire podcast by Ben Gilbert, a co-founder at Seattle venture capital firm Pioneer Square Labs and the co-host of the Acquired podcast, an in-depth show that discusses the ins and outs of acquisitions and recently ranked as the number one tech show on Apple Podcasts.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week we're presenting a special episode of our Day 2 podcast about everything Amazon, going behind-the-scenes of the New York Times investigation into the company's warehouse HR practices. Subscribe to Day 2 in Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen. Amazon’s direct workforce rose by 500,000 people in 2020 — that’s half a million people — to nearly 1.3 million employees. The extraordinary hiring, supporting the rapid expansion of Amazon’s warehouse and delivery operations, raised the natural question: what would be the consequences of all that growth? An eight-month New York Times investigation, published this week, provides much of the answer, telling the stories of warehouse workers caught up in an unforgiving, error-prone system that struggled to keep pace with Amazon’s growth, the unique challenges of the pandemic, and unprecedented customer demand. The piece reveals the limitations of Amazon’s automated HR technology, but it also demonstrates the impact of policy decisions by Amazon executives, including founder Jeff Bezos and operations-leader-turned-consumer chief Dave Clark. Among them, according to the story: a conscious decision to encourage turnover and limit upward mobility among hourly warehouse workers. Karen Weise, the Seattle-based New York Times tech reporter who reported the story with her colleagues, Jodi Kantor and Grace Ashford, shares the backstory and talks about their key findings in this podcast discussion.sSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Our guest on this episode of the GeekWire Podcast is Mark Nelson, who was named Tableau Software president and CEO in March. He filled a vacancy created when his predecessor, Adam Selipsky, was named CEO of Amazon Web Services, taking over for Andy Jassy, who is succeeding Jeff Bezos as Amazon CEO. We get to know Nelson on this episode of the GeekWire Podcast, talking about his background and leadership approach, life inside Salesforce, his goals as the new leader of Tableau, and the company's future in the Seattle region. Salesforce bought Tableau for more than $15 billion in 2019, its largest acquisition at the time. Now, with Salesforce close to completing its acquisition of workplace collaboration company Slack for $27.7 billion, investors are looking to Tableau's performance inside Salesforce for clues about Slack's fate. We talk about Tableau's results, ask Nelson what advice he'd give Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield about working with Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The pandemic had a seismic impact on in-person meetings and events, requiring organizers and attendees to adjust to a whole new reality. The aftermath could prove even trickier, creating a hybrid audience, with some people attending virtually and others in the flesh.  That's one takeaway from our conversation with Allie Magyar, the CEO of Hubb, a Vancouver, Wash.-based company that makes technology for virtual and in-person events. A veteran of the events industry, Magyar has run some of the world's biggest tech conferences, including Microsoft's Ignite, for which she was the lead planner.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Amazon's agreement to acquire MGM for $8.45 billion has all the makings of a great script, combining a Hollywood icon with an Internet powerhouse. But will this unlikely pairing be a giant blockbuster or a massive flop? Joining us to assess the situation on this episode of the GeekWire Podcast is Sam Blake, a reporter who covers entertainment and media for dot.LA, the technology news site for Southern California. Here's how he put the news in perspective in his coverage this week: "Ninety-six years after Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures and Louis B. Mayer Pictures merged to form MGM Studios, the Hollywood mainstay best known for its roaring lion mascot is set to join a trillion-dollar business empire best known for selling household items over the internet." MGM would provide Amazon with more than 4,000 films and 17,000 TV shows that have collectively won more than 180 Academy Awards and 100 Emmys. The film library includes the James Bond and Rocky franchises, as well as television shows such as “The Handmaid’s Tale” and “Fargo,” and reality shows such as “Shark Tank” and “Survivor.”See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The 2021 virtual GeekWire Awards were held this week, recognizing the top companies, innovators, entrepreneurs and technologies in the Pacific Northwest, as nominated and chosen by the GeekWire community — along with  celebrity cameos. On this special episode of the GeekWire Podcast, we’re featuring highlights from a behind-the-scenes conversation with former Docker and Concur CEO Steve Singh, managing director of Madrona Venture Group, which was hosted for finalists in advance of the awards by GeekWire co-founder John Cook.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The pandemic upended education in extraordinary ways, and shed new light on the social, economic and racial disparities in schools and communities across the country. But how can teachers, students, parents, schools and the system as a whole apply lessons learned from the past 18 months to ultimately end up in a better place? On this special episode of the GeekWire Podcast, we look ahead with a group of remarkable educators who focus on science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) from different perspectives. They are our STEM Educators of the Year for 2021, presented by DreamBox Learning, as part of our upcoming 2021 GeekWire Awards celebration: Lauren Bricker, a former Lakeside School teacher now on the faculty of the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering, University of Washington. Cathi Rodgveller, CEO and founder of IGNITE Worldwide, which works with school districts to promote STEM education and career advancement for girls and non-binary youth. Kim Williams, science department head, science club faculty advisor at Cougar Mountain Middle School. Joining GeekWire's John Cook to guide the discussion is Jessie Woolley-Wilson, CEO of DreamBox Learning and a former GeekWire Awards CEO of the Year honoree.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Reports of the death of coastal cities are greatly overblown. At least that’s the view of renowned urbanist and author Richard Florida who spoke earlier this week with GeekWire contributing editor Monica Nickelsburg about the future of cities as part of the annual Crosscut Festival. “I am just amazed at the amount of gloom and doom pessimism,” said Florida, adding that any out-of-city migration appears to be temporary and is really only happening with small subsets of people. “Net-net, it doesn’t look like we’ve had a great urban exodus.” That’s just one of the fascinating observations from Florida, author of the Rise of the Creative Class and a professor at University of Toronto’s School of Cities and Rotman School of Management. In the interview, Florida talks about the impact of falling birth rates on cities; why Miami appears ready to emerge as a significant tech hub; and how central business districts will need to change to embrace a post-pandemic world.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.