GeekWire

This week on the GeekWire Podcast: How the antitrust case against Facebook could impact the rest of the tech industry; the state of Seattle as "Cloud City"; and first impressions of SpaceX's Starlink satellite broadband service from a user of the company's "Better Than Nothing Beta." Our guest commentator this week is Seattle-area angel investor Charles Fitzgerald, co-organizer of the Cloud City Meetup and a tech industry veteran who worked in product management and platform strategy with companies including Microsoft, Mozy and VMware. He blogs at platformonomics.com.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Did you get sick with flu-like symptoms in the first few months of this year, or know someone who did? Do you suspect it might have been COVID-19? On the Season 5 premiere of the GeekWire Health Tech Podcast, we revisit the early days of the pandemic in a quest to figure out a mysterious illness, and share what we learned along the way from experts at University of Washington Department of Medicine, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research and ZOOM+Care.  We're sharing the episode here as a bonus but to get future Health Tech episodes, be sure to subscribe in your favorite podcast app, or go to geekwire.com/healthtech.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Amazon is often described as innovative, creative, experimental and ruthless. It's also very, very big — and getting bigger. With a market value of $1.6 trillion — nearly the equivalent of Russia's gross domestic product — Amazon now dwarfs many of its retail rivals who've struggled to compete with a fast-moving organization whose expansive appetite seems endless. But some retailers are finding ways to exist, even thrive, in a world increasingly dominated by Amazon. In today's special episode of the GeekWire podcast, we take a close look at Amazon and hear from former Amazon executives, leading third-party sellers and competitors who are trying to survive in the shadows of the world's most powerful retailer. We also hear from critics who feel Amazon's power has grown so immense that the only way to curb the company's power is through government intervention. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week on the GeekWire Podcast: Salesforce strikes a deal to acquire Slack for $27.7 billion; Amazon Web Services makes some surprising news at its annual re:Invent cloud conference; and a new tech giant arrives in our backyard. Joining us on this episode is Matt McIlwain, managing director at Seattle-based venture capital firm Madrona Venture Group, offering his commentary on the implications of these developments in the world of cloud and enterprise technology. Special bonus: Listen to the end of the show for a new installment of our GeekWire Podcast trivia contest, with a chance to win a GeekWire mask or socks.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Amazon's big move into the pharmacy business last week wasn't a surprise at all, and it's just part of a larger plan to reinvent a trillion-dollar industry. Coming soon from Amazon: health insurance, predicts serial entrepreneur and NYU marketing professor Scott Galloway in his new book, "Post Corona: From Crisis to Opportunity." "Amazon knows a great deal about its best customers: what do they eat, do they buy exercise equipment or video games, do they have children, and are they in a relationship," Galloway writes in the book. "Between Amazon and Whole Foods purchases, the Amazon card, and all the 'pay with Amazon' merchants, the company has vastly more individualized data than any insurance actuary." That might sound like the makings of an Orwellian future, but it's just one of the ways that the crisis of the past year has rapidly accelerated the inevitable in the economy and society, as Galloway sees it. After going through years of change in a matter a months, he writes, the result will be a very different landscape on the other side. The book looks ahead to the day when we put this pandemic behind us and find that some of the most powerful companies in the world have only become more powerful, for better or worse for the rest of us. So where does that leave us? Scott Galloway joins us for a conversation about the "Post Corona" world on this episode of the GeekWire PodcastSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A group of architects released their concept for a Seattle skyscraper suited to life in the post-pandemic world, where you might live and work all in the same place. Seattle 2030 would stand 1,030 feet tall and have a cloud walk observatory and drone ports at the top. But will it ever be built? Wheels, the latest electric scooter share service to launch in Seattle, has a unique feature: a seat. We took one for a ride over bumpy streets and railroad tracks on a wet and miserable day earlier this week. In other words, a typical Seattle commute. Listen to see if we liked it. And we have a winner of last week's Trivia Contest! The question focused on satellite broadband venture from the 1990s, and the two Seattle tech billionaires who  funded it. Listen to the third segment for the answer and the winner.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We’re excited to introduce you to our new podcast, 2025: Tomorrow, Today, produced by GeekWire Studios, and co-hosted by someone who will be a familiar voice to GeekWire Podcast listeners, GeekWire’s John Cook, along with Jordon Voss of Northern Trust, our partner on this new show. They will be exploring the future of retail, work and more on this new podcast with help from leading experts in each field. Coming up, you’ll hear the first episode of 2025 Tomorrow Today, digging into the question of whether the shopping mall will survive. Be sure to subscribe to 2025: Tomorrow, Today in any podcast app. Go to geekwire.com/2025podcast for links to subscribe.  Here’s a special first look at the premiere episode of 2025: Tomorrow Today.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Here’s what we’re talking about on the GeekWire Podcast this week: OthersideAI thinks it can help you be more productive by using artificial intelligence to write your emails for you. But is that really a good idea? The months-old firm announced a $2.6 million seed round this week. It's one of several startups creating email products based on OpenAI's GPT3 language processing technology. We talk about the long-term implications for the industry and for humanity. Tom Alberg was an internet financial pioneer when he became one of the first investors in Amazon in 1995. He didn't stop there. He was also one of the founders of Madrona Venture Group, a venture capital firm that has backed some of the Northwest's biggest tech companies. But what's especially notable about Alberg, at age 80, is his continued focus on what's next. We share highlights and takeaways from this new GeekWire profile of Alberg by journalist Lisa Stiffler. And the GeekWire Trivia Challenge is back! Listen to the third segment of the show for the question, and details on how to enter the contest. From the pool of correct answers, we'll pick one person at random to win a rare and special GeekWire face mask. With GeekWire’s Todd Bishop and John Cook. Produced by Curt Milton. Theme music by Daniel L.K. Caldwell.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Here’s what we’re talking about on the GeekWire Podcast this week: Just before the election, Joe Biden's campaign released a list of its top "bundlers," people who raise big donations to the campaign. Several well-known Seattle tech names were on the list. We look at who they are and why they were raising money for Biden. Amazon released a Smart Shelf that can keep track of things like your toilet paper and then automatically reorder them when you start to run out. Another Seattle firm, Bottomless, has a similar gadget to keep you in fresh coffee beans. Cool concepts but ... do we really need these gizmos? Robo-commerce: Amazon’s auto-reordering Dash Smart Shelf goes on sale for $19.99 Built to scale: Seattle startup weighs its own success as Amazon releases similar smart shelf Valve's Gabe Newell announced this week that he has arranged to launch a garden gnome into space. The interesting part of the story is why he's doing it and, even more interesting, is where Newell has been since last March. With GeekWire’s Todd Bishop and John Cook. Produced by Curt Milton. Theme music by Daniel L.K. Caldwell.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The past year has brought a pandemic, a national reckoning over race, plus antitrust investigations and charges against major tech companies, with massive swaths of the tech workforce working from their bedrooms. But also record profits, a booming IPO market, and trillion-dollar valuations at the same time. Does this suggest a disconnect, or point to a “correction” in the future?  That's the first question we posed this week on our GeekWire Summit panel, "View from the Press Box: Tech in 2020 and Beyond," with Ina Fried, chief technology correspondent for Axios and editor of its daily tech newsletter, Login; and Karen Weise, Seattle tech correspondent for The New York Times. This week's episode of the GeekWire Podcast features highlights from the discussion, including thoughts on the direction of the tech economy, the future of Amazon and Microsoft, the antitrust cases against US tech giants and the potential implications of the upcoming election.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.