GeekWire

This week on the GeekWire Podcast, we're joined by Ali Partovi, a technology investor, entrepreneur, and mentor who is the CEO of Neo, a startup accelerator, mentorship community, and venture firm.

Neo's accelerator this week announced a new AI track, working in collaboration with OpenAI and Microsoft to help startups build businesses on newly emerging artificial intelligence capabilities.

Partovi, who grew up in Tehran during the Iran-Iraq war, sold his startup LinkExchange to Microsoft in 1998, was an early investor in companies including Airbnb, Dropbox, Facebook, and Uber, and 10 years ago co-founded Code.org with his twin brother Hadi Partovi, who continues to lead the computer science education nonprofit.

On this episode, Ali Partovi discusses the role that AI will play in the startups, Microsoft's relationship with OpenAI, his experience at Microsoft reporting to a young Satya Nadella as his manager, Neo's approach to identifying and supporting a diverse group of technical and entrepreneurial leaders, the backdrop for the Silicon Valley Bank meltdown, and more.

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This week on the GeekWire Podcast ...

We catch up on the latest on the Silicon Valley Bank collapse, and consider the long-term implications of the meltdown on the startup ecosystem and the U.S. financial system.

Then, a point-counterpoint on the issue of the return to office, as Downtown Seattle Association President Jon Scholes laments the "affliction" of remote work, and Zillow Group CEO Rich Barton says the ways we work (and the places we work) have changed forever.

And finally, we catch up on the latest in the world of generative artificial intelligence, listening to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella's pitch for the company's new Microsoft 365 Copilot. We consider the potential of AI to change the way we work, the competition between Microsoft and Google, and touch briefly on antitrust issues.

With GeekWire co-founders John Cook and Todd Bishop.

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Startups and investors cheered the U.S. government's promise this weekend to fully protect deposits after the Silicon Valley Bank collapse. But the move left many unresolved questions and challenges for the U.S. financial system and the tech industry.

Our guests on this episode of the GeekWire Podcast discuss their recent experiences and offer their informed opinions on what could come next. Speaking with GeekWire co-founder John Cook are: Kirby Winfield, founding general partner of Seattle venture capital firm Ascend; and Aviel Ginzburg, general partner at Seattle VC firm Founders’ Co-op.

They both reflect on what happened last week, explaining how they and their portfolio companies navigated the second-largest bank failure in U.S. history.

But most of the discussion focuses on how things could play out from here — including Ginzburg's concerns about the likely impact on venture debt due to the loss of Silicon Valley Bank, and Winfield's more optimistic hypothesis about the potential for recent events to set the stage for a venture capital rebound later this year.

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This week, we go behind the scenes of Hype Aviation, a news aggregation site that you might think of as Techmeme for aviation, space and defense news. Our guests are Robin Koenig, who started the site, and Isaac Alexander, a Seattle-area aviation geek who serves as its chief content officer.

With GeekWire co-founder Todd Bishop; edited and produced by Curt Milton.

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What was previously a point of pride on Silicon Valley Bank's website now reads like a warning sign: nearly half of U.S. venture-backed technology and life sciences companies bank with the financial institution. Financial regulators on Friday morning shut down Silicon Valley Bank and put it in the hands of the FDIC, a jaw-dropping move that has created a crisis for startup founders and their financial backers.

Based in Santa Clara, Calif., Silicon Valley Bank has long been a key player in the Seattle region. GeekWire's reporting suggests that the percentage of tech startups in the Seattle area that used Silicon Valley Bank was even higher than the national average, upwards of 80% or more of the venture-backed companies in the area.

GeekWire co-founder John Cook, who started covering startups and venture capital before the dot-com bust, calls this an "absolute meltdown," the likes of which he hasn't seen before on the startup beat. On this special episode of the GeekWire Podcast, we talk about what caused the situation, what it says about the state of the tech economy, and what could be next for those impacted by the shutdown.

Related coverage: 

• Tech startup leaders concerned about making payroll following Silicon Valley Bank meltdown
• Regulators close Silicon Valley Bank in stunning downfall for financial mainstay of tech industry
• Seattle VC firms tell startups to assess positions with Silicon Valley Bank amid funding concerns

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The workplace and the job market are a volatile mix of variables these days, including the economy, tech layoffs, inflation, pay transparency, remote work, and a push by some companies to bring employees back to the office. So how are all of these changes impacting pay and perks? Our guest this week is Lexi Clarke, chief people officer at Payscale, the Seattle-based compensation software and data company, which just came out with its 2023 Compensation Best Practices Report. 

With GeekWire co-founder Todd Bishop; edited and produced by Curt Milton; Theme music by Daniel L.K. Caldwell. 

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This week on the GeekWire Podcast: What happened when Microsoft's new Bing AI search chatbot was called upon to help report a story for a small-town community newspaper. Plus, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy's back-to-office plan draws opposition from the company's employees and support from Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell. And Jeff Bezos appears serious about buying an NFL team.

With GeekWire's Todd Bishop and Kurt Schlosser.

Stories and topics discussed on this week's show.

• Report: Jeff Bezos using investment firm to explore bid for NFL’s Washington Commanders
• Seattle mayor praises Amazon’s back-to-office policy in ‘State of the City’ address
• Wall Street Journal: Amazon Corporate Workers Face Pay Reduction After Shares Slip
• Amazon changes back-to-office policy, tells corporate workers to come in 3 days a week

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Software developer Patrick Husting is excited about the potential of generative AI to transform daily work and life, but he's also cautious about the role of big tech companies -- and he sees an opportunity for independent operators such as himself to unlock the potential of artificial intelligence for users across different platforms. 

Husting is the developer of a new third-party add-in called Ghostwriter that lets users query OpenAI’s ChatGPT in a Word sidebar and watch content generated by the natural language chatbot unfurl directly in the document they’re drafting. It's available for Microsoft Word, Outlook, Excel, and other Office products coming soon.

Husting, a Seattle-area business leader, serial entrepreneur, and software developer who worked in Microsoft’s consulting business in the late 1990s. He came up with the idea last fall when he was using ChatGPT for writing assistance, and got tired of cutting and pasting, and switching between windows. 

Related Stories

• Microsoft Word gets ChatGPT integration with new ‘Ghostwriter’ third-party add-in
• Microsoft now says AI-powered Bing chatbot is ‘not a replacement or substitute for the search engine’
• More news outlets get caught up in nasty conversations with Bing chatbot over facts
• Arguing with AI: My first dispute with Microsoft’s brilliant and boneheaded Bing search engine

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Yusuf Mehdi is a Microsoft veteran of more than 31 years, who has been involved in the development and launch of some of the company's biggest products, including Windows 95 and Windows 11, the Xbox One console, and past versions of Microsoft's search engine. He's currently the corporate vice president and consumer chief marketing officer. 

He spoke with GeekWire's Todd Bishop on the Microsoft campus on Tuesday, a few hours after introducing the new Bing search engine and an updated version of Microsoft's Edge browser with a sidebar that uses AI to generate and analyze web content.

Topics of the discussion include the potential impact of AI search on content creators, Google's preemptive response to Microsoft's announcement, the precautions Microsoft is taking to prevent another "Tay" moment, and both the capabilities and limitations of this new generation of AI.

The new Bing, along with an updated version of Microsoft’s Edge browser, are available in a limited preview, with a wait-list for those who want to try the AI search and web copilot as they roll out more broadly.

Related Coverage

• Arguing with AI: My first dispute with Microsoft’s brilliant and boneheaded Bing search engine
• Microsoft reveals new search engine and browser with AI ‘copilot,’ escalating battle with Google

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Popular methods of artificial intelligence have an "explainability problem," the inability to understand exactly what's happening between input and output, and this black box will hinder new advances from neural networks

That's one of the predictions for 2023 from Mark R. Anderson, founding chair and CEO of Strategic News Service (SNS) and the Future in Review Conferences. An author, scientist, and entrepreneur, he's known for using pattern discovery to accurately predict the future, and his predictions are part of the reason SNS has been followed closely in the industry since 1995.

Anderson happens to have vested interest in his take on neural networks as the CEO of machine learning company Pattern Computer, which uses an alternative approach, focusing on pattern recognition.

On this episode of the GeekWire Podcast, Anderson explains Pattern's approach and shares details from two more of his predictions for 2023: skeptical takes on the near-term future of autonomous systems and the metaverse.=

The full list of predictions is available to SNS subscribers. Anderson is also the featured speaker at an upcoming dinner event, Feb. 9 in Bellingham, Wash., benefitting the Rotary Club of Bellingham. Tickets available here.

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