This week on the GeekWire Podcast, we consider Microsoft's latest AI product, the $20/month Copilot Pro, compare it to the likes of ChatGPT Plus, Claude Pro and Otter.ai — and realize in the process that one of us is already paying way too much for AI assistants on a monthly basis.

Plus, a deep dive on Zulily bolsters a hypothesis about the motives of the private equity firm that acquired and later shut down the online retailer.

And finally, we compare, contrast, and appreciate the very different approaches taken by Costco and Amazon for authenticating the identity of customers at store entrances and check-out.

With GeekWire co-founders John Cook and Todd Bishop.

Related Stories:

• Copilot Pro vs. ChatGPT Plus: Microsoft’s new paid service offers alternative to OpenAI subscription
• Zulily’s downfall: How the high-flying online retailer soared, sank, and shut down
• Zulily sues Amazon, alleging that price-fixing and supplier coercion sank its attempts to compete
• Scanning against scammers: Costco testing membership card readers at store entrances

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Liz Hamren has been CEO of Amazon's Ring business for almost a year, as the successor in the role to Ring founder Jamie Siminoff.

Hamren previously held technology and business leadership positions at companies including Dropcam, Microsoft, Oculus, and Discord, and was involved in product launches including Xbox consoles and Meta VR headsets. In addition to Ring, she leads Blink, Amazon Key, and Amazon Sidewalk in her current role. She spoke with us recently in her first public interview since becoming Ring CEO last year.

With GeekWire co-founder Todd Bishop; Audio editing by Curt Milton.

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This week's guest, Nancy Wang, is a technology product and engineering executive, advisor, and investor. A former Amazon Web Services general manager and former Google lead product manager, she is a venture partner at Felicis Ventures, where she invests in early-stage startups in cybersecurity, enterprise infrastructure, and business-to-business software as a service. She is also founder and board chair of Advancing Women in Tech, and a contributor to Forbes.

With GeekWire co-founder Todd Bishop. Edited by Curt Milton.

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Our guest this week on the GeekWire Podcast is computer scientist and entrepreneur Oren Etzioni, assessing the past year in AI, and looking ahead to what's next. Etzioni, an AI leader for many decades, is professor emeritus at the University of Washington, Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence board member, AI2 Incubator technical director, and Madrona Venture Group venture partner.

In the first segment of the show, GeekWire's John Cook and Todd Bishop discuss the big AI news of the week: The New York Times Co.'s landmark lawsuit against Microsoft and OpenAI over their use of the newspaper's articles in AI models.

• The New York Times sues OpenAI and Microsoft for training AI chatbots on its copyrighted work
• NYT v. GPT: Microsoft finds itself on the other side of an industry-defining copyright dispute
• Francesco Marconi in the WSJ: AI and Journalism Need Each Other

Audio editing by Curt Milton. 

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Our guest this week is Kristi Coulter, whose latest book is Exit Interview: The Life and Death of My Ambitious Career. It’s a memoir about what she learned in her 12 years at Amazon about work, gender bias, and herself. Exit Interview is Coulter's second book. Her first, Nothing Good Can Come From This, is a collection of essays about quitting drinking. As you’ll learn from this podcast conversation, it intersects with her Amazon career. 

Guest hosting is Ross Reynolds, whose voice is well-known in the Seattle region from his 34 years at KUOW, the public radio station from which he retired in 2021.

Production assistance from Curt Milton.

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GeekWire's reporters have spent the past month profiling a group of six “Uncommon Thinkers”: Seattle-area inventors, scientists, technologists and entrepreneurs transforming industries and driving positive change in the world.

This editorial series, presented in partnership with Greater Seattle Partners, was based on the deliberations of a panel of outside judges who chose the Uncommon Thinkers from nominations submitted by GeekWire readers. 

Working on these profiles helped us identify the commonalities among our honorees, including their inspirations, mindsets, and approaches. On this week's GeekWire Podcast, we talk with four of our Uncommon Thinkers in interviews recorded backstage at the GeekWire Gala, where we honored them this week.

Read the six “Uncommon Thinkers” profiles here:

• UW prof and entrepreneur Shwetak Patel has a rare ‘creative brilliance’
• Elizabeth Hansen uses her job as an anesthesiologist to cut carbon emissions
• Boundless CEO Xiao Wang on his quest to fix the immigration process
• For USAFacts’ Poppy MacDonald, ‘facts are paramount’ for democracy
• Blake Resnick finds a larger purpose in tech, making drones for public safety
• MagniX CTO Riona Armesmith geeks out over electric aviation

With GeekWire co-founder Todd Bishop.

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AI was the big theme inside the long-running Amazon Web Services re:Invent cloud conference in Las Vegas this week, where the company's announcements included a new AI assistant for work called Amazon Q. We spoke with Matt Wood, AWS vice president of product, about the new service and the new era of AI for business. 

Related Coverage:

• Sphere of influence? Google’s big Vegas ad buy clouds the landscape at Amazon re:Invent
• AWS unveils ‘Amazon Q’ AI assistant, jabs at Microsoft and OpenAI at re:Invent
• Inside the AI chip race: How a pivotal happy hour changed Amazon’s strategy in the cloud
• Amazon puts Fire TV Cube to work, repurposes streaming device for desktop computing

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This week on the GeekWire Podcast, we assess the outcome of the drama at OpenAI, considering what the removal and ultimate return of its CEO Sam Altman, and everything that happened in between, means for Microsoft.

While Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella earned kudos for masterfully navigating the mess, the situation also showed how the company was vulnerable to being blindsided due to OpenAI's convoluted structure.

And while for-profit interests are likely to get more influence on OpenAI's reformulated board, it's not yet clear if Microsoft will end up with a seat on that board, leaving the ultimate outcome for Microsoft unclear, for now.

We also look at Amazon's move into car-buying, and examine the Seattle region's dwindling flock of unicorns.

With GeekWire co-founders Todd Bishop and John Cook.

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The surprise removal of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is the buzz of the tech industry — raising questions about the company’s role in the AI revolution, the ambitions of Altman and his team, the impact of his exit on the rest of the tech industry, OpenAI’s complex corporate structure, and its unusual partnership with Microsoft.

This week, we recap the latest developments in this fast-moving story, and then talk with Matt McIlwain of Madrona Venture Group about the broader implications of Altman's ouster for Microsoft, Amazon, and the tech industry.

RELATED STORY: Sam Altman’s ouster puts a new twist into OpenAI’s complicated relationship with Microsoft

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Fei-Fei Li's new book is the story of her journey from China to the U.S., from small business to Big Tech, and from academic research to corporate life, and back again. But more than that, it's the story of the dawn of artificial intelligence, as told through her experience as one of the people summoning this new day and standing there awestruck, excited and concerned about what it will mean for humanity.

Dr. Li joins us on this episode to discuss the book, The Worlds I See: Curiosity, Exploration, and Discovery at the Dawn of AI, published by Moment of Lift Books, an imprint from Melinda French Gates and Flatiron Books.

Known for her foundational contributions to AI and computer vision, Dr. Li is the inventor of ImageNet, a large-scale dataset of images that enabled rapid advances in deep learning for visual recognition. She is a professor of computer science at Stanford University and a co-director of the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence, who worked as Google Cloud's chief scientist for AI/ML during a 2017-2018 sabbatical.

Note: GeekWire's Todd Bishop will be speaking further with Dr. Li on Monday evening Nov. 13 at Town Hall in Seattle. See this site for details and tickets.

Edited by Curt Milton.

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