GeekWire

To understand the future of space, it helps to start with the past.

On this special edition of the GeekWire Podcast, marking the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, we’ll hear from Alan Boyle, GeekWire's aerospace and science editor, and listen in on his conversations with three unsung heroes of the Apollo era: NASA flight directors Gerry Griffin and Milton Windler, and flight controller Poppy Northcutt. They each reflect on the historic mission and share the sentiment that America should go back to the moon and beyond.

This episode of GeekWire is part of the Destination Moon podcrawl, organized by Seattle’s Museum of Flight. Look for other episodes about the Apollo 11 50th Anniversary in the coming days from other participating podcasts: Flight Deck from the Museum of Flight; Sound Effect from KNKX Radio; The Truth from Radiotopia; and Stuff You Missed in History Class.

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Would you have guessed that nearly 25 percent of the Seattle region's top tech startups are led by CEOs with backgrounds at Microsoft? That was the surprising result of our analysis of the GeekWire 200, our index of the top privately held tech companies in the Pacific Northwest. And fundings for the region's startups bucked the national trend, as reflected in data from our new startup deal tracker. 

Nintendo unveiled a new iteration of its Switch game console; former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer pulled off what might be his greatest deal ever; and an Amazon employee showed the potential of artificial intelligence with a high-tech cat door.

GeekWire editor Todd Bishop and managing editor Taylor Soper recap and analyze the news on this episode of the show. Plus, listen for the debut of the new GeekWire Podcast theme song, by composer Daniel L.K. Caldwell. 

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"You've got all of this opportunity for places where you can interface with the physical world. I think it's just where business opportunity is going to live."

That was one of the takeaways from Microsoft CTO Kevin Scott's talk at the recent GeekWire Cloud Summit. On this special episode of the GeekWire Podcast, we're presenting highlights from his conversation with GeekWire's Todd Bishop.

The Microsoft CTO was previously vice president of engineering and operations at LinkedIn, led engineering and operations at mobile advertising company AdMob, and worked two stints at Google, starting as a senior engineering manager in 2005. He's also the host of the podcast Behind the Tech and is involved in diversity initiatives both inside and outside the company.

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Apple's new campus in Seattle, unveiled this week, will accommodate as many as 2,000 workers, doubling the company's previous commitment to expand its engineering operations in the city. But beyond the sheer numbers, the prime location positions the company to compete more aggressively for talent against rivals including Amazon, Google and Microsoft.

It also promises to make Seattle a bigger epicenter for cloud engineering, artificial intelligence and voice technologies. 

We explore the implications of Apple's move on this episode of the GeekWire Podcast, with GeekWire's Monica Nickelsburg, Kurt Schlosser, and Todd Bishop.

Plus: Bill Gates and Jeff Bee-zos, Windows 95 makes a cameo at the Supreme Court, Teen Vogue's transition, Russell Wilson makes memes come true, and Slack meets Slack.

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If you tuned into the news this week, you heard one company’s name over and over again. Slack, the workplace communication and collaboration technology company went public and instantly saw its share price spike by 50 percent. But with competition from Microsoft, Facebook, Google and others, where does Slack go from here? Today on GeekWire, the future of Slack, and the competition among tech giants to change how we communicate, collaborate and get work done. With Paul Condra, lead analyst for emerging technologies at PitchBook, and Nat Levy, GeekWire reporter.

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Workplace chat and collaboration technology company Slack is going public on Thursday, with implications for a wide variety of companies in the Seattle region and beyond. Microsoft is Slack’s primary competitor with its Teams service, and Slack is a big Amazon Web Services customer. And many companies that sell technologies to businesses will be watching Slack’s stock market debut closely to assess their own potential in the public markets.

So how does Slack work behind the scenes? On this episode of the GeekWire Podcast, we’re featuring a conversation with a co-founder of Slack, Cal Henderson, the company’s chief technology officer, recorded during the recent GeekWire Cloud Summit.

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Salesforce surprised the tech world this week with its agreement to acquire Tableau Software for $15.7 billion -- but maybe it shouldn't have been a surprise after the Seattle-based data visualization company was listed among the cloud giant's acquisition targets in a leaked internal slide deck a while back. With Salesforce co-CEO Marc Benioff declaring Seattle the new HQ2 for the San Francisco company, GeekWire's John Cook and Todd Bishop tell the story behind this record-setting deal and consider the implications for the West Coast tech 'megalopolis.'  

Plus, a Seattle startup entrepreneur unveils a smart new tool for finding candidates with views similar to your own, a Pioneer Square Labs spinout wants to help podcasters raise money from their most passionate listeners, and we debate the merits of dogs in the workplace after several Seattle tech companies rank high a list of pooch-friendly places to work.

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The past decade has been a period of incredible growth for the technology industry in Seattle and the Pacific Northwest. One of the primary engines of that growth is the University of Washington's Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering in Seattle. Computer scientist Hank Levy has been a quiet force behind the program as its leader for the past 13 years.

During his tenure, the program positioned itself as one of the top 5 computer science programs in the country, after MIT, Stanford, Berkeley, and Carnegie Mellon in the minds of many in the industry. It grew its faculty by 30 positions, or 70 percent; doubled its space with the addition of the Bill &  Melinda Gates Center for Computer Science & Engineering; tripled its undergraduate enrollment and doubled its graduate enrollment; and developing strengths in areas such as robotics, data science, security, sensors and machine learning.

Levy will step down as Allen School director effective July 1 but will remain involved with the program. Speaking with GeekWire this week, in advance of the Allen School commencement Friday evening, Levy reflected on the huge changes during his tenure, the transformation of technology during his career, and the challenges still facing the UW and the tech industry.

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In the 13 years since Maria Klawe took over as president of Harvey Mudd College, she has surprised skeptics and achieved a milestone that has confounded most institutions of higher education. Today, 50 percent of Harvey Mudd graduates with degrees in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics are women, and students of color are on the rise at the elite technical college.

The shift is no accident; Klawe made diversity her top priority when she took the helm at Harvey Mudd, in Claremont, Calif. And while she's made strides, she's also faced big challenges during what she describes as the most difficult years of her professional career.

Klawe is a noted computer scientist and academic and a former Microsoft board member. Before becoming the first woman to lead Harvey Mudd, she served as dean of engineering at Princeton University and dean of science at the University of British Columbia. Klawe will share insights from her journey as a leader in computer science and champion for diversity when delivering the 2019 commencement address for the University of Washington's Paul G. Allen School for Computer Science & Engineering this Friday, June 14.

We caught up with Klawe for a preview of her remarks and a broader discussion of the opportunities and challenges facing the technology industry. Listen to the podcast below, subscribe to the GeekWire Podcast in your favorite podcast app, and continue reading for highlights from the conversation.

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Amazon gave a detailed look at its new warehouse robots and delivery drones, discussed its plans for a satellite constellation, and talked about the future of artificial intelligence, machine learning and automation during a multi-day conference in Las Vegas this week. GeekWire's aerospace and science editor Alan Boyle was in Las Vegas to cover it all, and he joins us with a recap and analysis.

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