It was a pitch-perfect night for students from the University of Washington, who got to share their startup ideas with some of Seattle’s most influential investors. The event, at Pioneer Square Labs, is the culmination of a 10-week entrepreneurial class in which teams of students from multiple campus disciplines create a business plan and product demo and then get constructive, real-world feedback from VCs. Read more.
Seattle’s Allen Institute for AI (Ai2) will begin the search for a new leader after CEO Ali Farhadi announced he is stepping down after two and a half years at the nonprofit research institute. Ai2 grew into a key player in the world of open-source artificial intelligence, but Farhadi wants to pursue his research ambitions at the frontier of large-scale AI. Read more.
Turning a new corner on EV sales: At the start of next year, Washington state shoppers will for the first time be able to visit showrooms for Rivian and Lucid Motors, take a test drive, discuss financing, and walk out with keys to their new electric vehicle. State lawmakers this week passed Senate Bill 6354, allowing the two EV makers to join Tesla in selling their vehicles directly to consumers. Read more.
Seattle’s traditional growth engine — the tech sector and downtown employment — is beginning to sputter. While the city finally gains ground on perennial challenges like crime and transportation, business leaders warn that record-high taxes are turning the city into a costly outlier, threatening its competitive edge against neighbors like Bellevue. Read more from this week’s State of Downtown event.
GeekWire news: Taylor Soper, our longtime editor and first editorial hire straight out of the University of Washington, is leaving after more than 13 years to join AI2 Incubator as director of AI House. We'll miss him deeply, and we're excited to see what he does next. Read more about Taylor's new role plus a little about what's ahead for GeekWire as we continue our mission to cover Seattle startups and the tech community.
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Amazon is increasing the price of its ad-free Prime Video subscription from $2.99/month to $4.99. (Variety)
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Hackers with links to Iran’s intelligence agencies that claimed responsibility for infiltrating medical technology company Stryker reportedly used a Microsoft service for its attack. (KrebsOnSecurity)
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Washington state is rolling back recent increases to its estate tax amid approval of the new "millionaires tax." (Seattle Times)
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Madrona invested in a $200 million round for Axiom, an AI startup with 20 employees that’s now valued at $1.6 billion. (New York Times)
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A new study led by a UW grad student sheds light on planetary collisions. (Cosmic Log)
Thanks for subscribing to the GeekWire newsletter, and have a great weekend. — GeekWire editor Taylor Soper, taylor@geekwire.com; co-founder Todd Bishop, todd@geekwire.com; and reporter Kurt Schlosser, kurt@geekwire.com.
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