Washington lawmakers are weighing a bill that would let Rivian and Lucid sell EVs directly to consumers — with an assist from some unlikely allies: local auto dealers. The legislation would extend Tesla-style direct sales to the two EV makers while keeping traditional franchise protections in place, potentially heading off a broader ballot initiative this fall. Read more.
Microsoft has entered the debate over data center regulation in Washington state, urging lawmakers to significantly rewrite a bill that it describes as “uniquely anti-competitive.” Read more.
Carbon Robotics got another big shoutout from Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The nation’s health policy leader touted the Seattle startup's weed-zapping machines on a new episode of The Joe Rogan Experience as a way to reduce chemicals in food production. Read more.
On the GeekWire Podcast this week, we dig into Anthropic's acquisition of Seattle startup Vercept, the public LinkedIn feud between two of the company's early investors, and what it all says about the viability of AI startups going up against the giants. Plus, our thoughts after reading the futuristic AI job crisis report that rocked the stock market this week.
We also break down the New York Times report on Jeffrey Epstein's past connections inside Microsoft, and talk about what turned up when we searched the Epstein files for "GeekWire."
And on a lighter note, this week’s trivia segment revisits a key moment in Xbox history.
Read more and listen here, and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.
Upcoming events: Tech and startup community gatherings on our radar in Seattle and the Pacific Northwest.
Hot Links:
-
Om Malik opines that Amazon’s $50B OpenAI deal shows how badly AWS misread the GenAI moment, now paying a premium for scraps of influence after Microsoft locked up the real leverage. (Om)
-
Progressive Washington state lawmakers stripped a major corporate tax break from the proposed millionaire’s tax. (KUOW)
-
Compass will offer its “Coming Soon” and private‑exclusive listings on Redfin, a reversal from Redfin’s earlier pledge to ban pre‑MLS listings, as Rocket looks to bulk up Redfin’s inventory. (Real Estate News)
-
Seattle investor Diego Oppenheimer shows how replacing a CRM with simple markdown files in a git repo lets an AI agent handle tracking and updates far faster than conventional tools. (LinkedIn)
Thanks for subscribing to the GeekWire newsletter and have a great weekend. — GeekWire editor Taylor Soper, taylor@geekwire.com; and GeekWire co-founder Todd Bishop, todd@geekwire.com.
No comments:
Post a Comment