| TODAY'S TOP STORIES | | | The Washington House passed the so-called “millionaires tax” after more than 24 hours of debate, teeing up the bill for final approval today or tomorrow. The controversial measure creates a 9.9% tax applied to taxable, personal annual income that exceeds $1 million. -
"I look forward to signing it,” Gov. Bob Ferguson said, adding that the tax “will apply to less than one half of one percent of Washingtonians, but make life more affordable for millions.” -
Some tech leaders and entrepreneurs worry the tax could undermine their sector by souring Washington’s relatively favorable tax laws for startup founders, investors and high-wage earners. -
That concern took a high-profile form as Howard Schultz, the billionaire former CEO of Starbucks, disclosed that he and his wife have relocated to Miami. Read more. Related opinions: -
Jesse Proudman, a serial tech entrepreneur in Seattle, detailed why he’s saddened by the tax as it comes at the “worst possible moment” amid the AI boom. -
Brian Fioca, another longtime Seattle-area startup leader who joined OpenAI last year, struck a different tone, explaining why he’s skeptical that the tax will drive founders and business away from Washington. -
Jason Mercier of Mountain States Policy surfaced Washington state’s Department of Commerce website in 2012 that touted the lack of personal income tax as a competitive advantage. Microsoft filed a friend-of-the-court brief in Anthropic's lawsuit against the Department of War, urging a judge to block the Pentagon's supply chain risk designation. The move reflects the companies' growing alliance and Microsoft's history of taking on Washington, D.C. Read more. 
A longtime Seattle Seahawks fan launched a community effort to buy the team, stressing that the treasured franchise should be owned by all 12s rather than one super rich billionaire. Abel Charrow admits the initiative is more of an “art project” than a serious effort to raise billions of dollars, but he hopes it sparks a meaningful discussion among fans. Read more.
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Amazon launched its "Health AI" assistant across its website and app, providing U.S. customers with free medical advice and integration with One Medical providers. (TechCrunch) -
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory is launching a nationwide initiative to accelerate scientific discovery by integrating AI and robotics into autonomous laboratories. (PNNL) -
Founders from Yoodli and Gradial discuss the specific strategies and hurdles involved in selling AI-native products to Fortune 500 companies. (Madrona) -
Dropzone AI founder and CEO Edward Wu details a new framework for leveraging AI agents to automate threat detection and response in federal cybersecurity. (LinkedIn) -
Amazon-owned Zoox plans to make its robotaxis available to hail on the Uber app in Las Vegas later this year. (TechCrunch) -
The Allen Institute for AI released MolmoSpaces, an open simulation ecosystem for training robots, and showed that models trained entirely in virtual environments can transfer to physical machines without any real-world data or fine-tuning. (Ai2) Thanks for subscribing to the GeekWire newsletter, and have a great day. — 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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