GeekWire

Amazon informed employees about a major change coming to their pay structure Monday morning. The company raised the cap for its base pay to $350,000 as part of its larger package of stock and cash compensation for corporate and tech employees. The maximum base pay has long been $160,000. The move has implications not only for Amazon employees but for the broader tech industry. 

Garry Straker, senior compensation consultant at salary.com, spoke with GeekWire's Todd Bishop about the Amazon news, the future of work and the major changes taking place in the world of employee pay.

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This week on the GeekWire Podcast: Amazon's latest results demonstrated its extraordinary flexibility and ability to overcome challenges in the broader economy using the built-in safeguards in its business, most notably the Amazon Web Services cash machine. Amazon spent an extra $4 billion to keep its business running smoothly despite a clogged economy.

Plus, Microsoft hires an Amazon veteran to take on "one of the greatest challenges of our time," and Seattle startup Cloud Paper raises $5 million in new funding for its environmentally friendly, tree-free toilet paper. 

With Todd Bishop and John Cook; Edited by Curt Milton; theme music by Daniel L.K. Caldwell

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The latest jaw-dropping deal in video games is Sony Interactive Entertainment's agreement to buy Bellevue, Wash.-based Bungie, maker of the Destiny series of online multiplayer first-person shooter games, originally known for developing Halo for Microsoft's Xbox.

Bungie was spun out of Microsoft in 2007 and has operated as an independent company in the meantime. It's expected to be an independent Sony Interactive Entertainment subsidiary and continue to operate under its current management. Bungie is promising to expand its 900-person employee base and move into new areas of entertainment as a result of the Sony deal.

Games writer Thomas Wilde joins us on this special episode to explain what the deal means for Sony, Bungie, Microsoft and the world of video games at large. 

RELATED: Analysis: Sony buying Bungie is the counter-move we were waiting for

The announcement Monday morning came two weeks after Microsoft struck a $68.7 billion deal for Activision Blizzard, the Call of Duty and Candy Crush maker. 

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Data journalist and entrepreneur Sherrell Dorsey is a Seattle native whose story is a powerful testament to the potential of kids in overlooked communities, and to the possibilities that emerge when their paths are cleared. Dorsey is founder and CEO of The Plug, a venture-backed news and insights platform covering Black startups and ecosystems. Her new book is Upper Hand: The Future of Work for the Rest of Us.

Read an excerpt from Dorsey's book on GeekWire: Seattle’s ‘Motown of tech’ changed Sherrell Dorsey’s life — now she’s passing it along

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Hope Cochran, managing director at venture capital firm Madrona Venture Group in Seattle, was previously the chief financial officer of King Digital, the maker of Candy Crush and other hit mobile games. She led King through its initial public offering in 2014, and its $5.9 billion acquisition in early 2016 by Activision Blizzard.

That gives her a unique perspective on Microsoft's deal this week to acquire video-game giant Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion. 

We also talk about Cochran's career, including her past role as the chief financial officer of Clearwire leading up to its $15 billion acquisition by Sprint; and her current role at Madrona investing in fintech and gaming companies, including Seattle-based VR gaming company Rec Room, where she's a board member.

We also discuss her leadership role in the Onboarding Women group created by Madrona and several other Seattle-area businesses to increase the percentage of women on public company boards. Cochran herself is on the boards of public companies Hasbro MongoDB and NewRelic.

Cochran majored in economics and music at Stanford, and she gave a fun and inspiring answer when asked to name the song that best represents her as an investor. Listen to the end of the show for that.

More: Hope Cochran on The Room podcast and Madrona's Founded and Funded podcast.

Editing and production by Curt Milton; Theme music by Daniel L.K. Caldwell.

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So much of what happens in the startup world comes from serendipitous moments, random interactions that lead to fresh insights and new collaborations. And so much of that has traditionally happened at events, meetups, coffee meetings, and other in-person gatherings.

Two years into the pandemic and remote work, what are the implications?

That's our first topic on this episode of the GeekWire Podcast, with entrepreneur, software engineer and investor Aviel Ginzburg, general partner at Seattle-based seed-stage venture fund Founders Co-op.

The former Techstars Managing Director for Amazon's Alexa Accelerator, Ginzburg was co-founder of social analytics platform Simply Measured, acquired by Sprout Social in 2017. Before that, he was one of the first software engineers at Appature, which was later acquired by IMS Health.

We also dive into NFTs, crypto, Web3, and the Metaverse, getting his take on each as an investor and entrepreneur (and longtime World of Warcraft gamer).

We discuss how he and Chris DeVore, the Founders Co-op managing partner, are looking to differentiate themselves from other VCs and investors at a time when so much funding is sloshing around.

And we take a look at our newly published list of unicorn companies in the Seattle area, which include some of Founders Co-op's portfolio companies, as well as one big one that got away. 

With GeekWire's Todd Bishop and John Cook. Edited by Curt Milton. Theme music by Daniel L.K. Caldwell.

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Alexa, open the pod bay doors.

Amazon's voice assistant hasn't quite reached the level of HAL, the iconic AI from 2001: A Space Odyssey. However, we learned this week that Alexa is going to space later this year, and around the moon, for a technology demonstration on the Orion deep-space capsule as part of NASA’s Artemis 1 mission.

Veteran space reporter Alan Boyle, GeekWire contributing editor, joins us on this episode of the GeekWire Podcast to explain what Alexa will be doing during the mission, and what the partners on the demonstration — Lockheed Martin, Amazon and Cisco — hope to prove in the process.

Then we discuss some of the key milestones from the past year in space, including Blue Origin taking the first paying passenger on a suborbital commercial flight, plus highlights from SpaceX, Virgin Galactic and others. And we look ahead to upcoming events to keep an eye on, as detailed by Alan in his annual space recap and preview.

And in our final segment, we come back to Earth, as podcast producer Curt Milton and I discuss celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay's surprising disclosure about what we thought was a well-known Amazon company.

Also check out Alan's podcast, Fiction Science.

By the way, we used Alexa Skill Blueprints to get Alexa to impersonate HAL in the opening of this week's show. You'll hear a very different response if you ask Alexa the same question on your own device.

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This year was a bit of a blur — fighting through waves of Delta and Omicron. But there was other important news this year, too. And before we wave goodbye to 2021, we thought it would be fun to test your geek knowledge.

Spoiler alert: we give the answers as we go, so if you want to test your knowledge first, you can take an interactive version of the quiz in the post for this episode at geekwire.com, then come back here and listen. 

Edited by Curt Milton; theme music by Daniel L.K. Caldwell.

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Looking at GeekWire’s most-read stories for 2021, this series of headlines stands out as a symbol of the past year, not just for Amazon but for the world at large.

• March 31, 2021: Amazon updates remote work guidance, plans to ‘return to an office-centric culture as our baseline’
• June 10, 2021: Amazon adjusts return-to-office guidance, says employees can work two days a week remotely
• October 11, 2021: Amazon will leave remote work decisions to individual team leaders in new policy twist

In short, no one knew what was going on, or what to do. In the sports world, they would call it a rebuilding year, setting the stage for something better. GeekWire's John Cook puts it more succinctly in our year-end podcast: “It sucked.”

At least, that’s the cynical view, which is why it was refreshing to have Ed Lazowska join us again for this year-end show. A professor at the University of Washington’s Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering, he’s a longtime Seattle tech leader, and an “inveterate optimist,” in his own words.

“Yeah, COVID has thrown us all thrown us all kinds of loops,” he acknowledges, but then offers a few examples of a more upbeat way to look at this year’s list.

Listen to the episode for more, as Lazowska joins us again on the GeekWire Podcast to discuss the year's top stories. We also look ahead to the upcoming year, and talk about a few key stories we'll be watching in 2022.

Related: As reported recently on GeekWire, several prominent tech leaders have been working establish a series of UW professorships in Lazowska's honor. Learn more about the initiative here.

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This week on the GeekWire Podcast: How the pandemic is changing attitudes toward work, jobs, geography. Plus, the market for IPOs and acquisitions, and the future of downtown Seattle from the perspective of a newly public company.

Our guest, Zig Serafin, has a unique window into all of these topics as the CEO of Qualtrics, the experience management technology company based in Seattle and Provo, Utah. Qualtrics’ technology helps companies survey employees, customers and other stakeholders, and take action on the resulting insights.

With GeekWire co-founders Todd Bishop and John Cook. Produced and edited by Curt Milton. Theme music by Daniel L.K. Caldwell.

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