GeekWire

Amazon's shift to one-day shipping as the core benefit of its Prime membership program promises to significantly alter Amazon’s financial picture and accelerate the pace of global online commerce. On this special episode of the GeekWire Podcast, reporter Nat Levy joins us to look at the implications of this move for Amazon, its customers, competitors, investors and the shipping + logistics industry. 

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What do Pinterest, Lyft, Uber and Slack have in common? Yes, they're all newly public or about to make their initial public offerings. But they also share a common characteristic on the bottom line -- proceeding with their IPOs with lots of revenue and growth but, so far at least, without the consistent profits to show for it.

And they're part of a trend. Eighty-three percent of IPOs in the first three quarters of 2018 were made by companies that hadn't posted profits in the prior 12 months. 

So what's the future of these companies? On this episode of the GeekWire Podcast, we're joined by someone who has spent a lot of time looking at the financials of many of these companies: Ben Gilbert, co-founder of Seattle's Pioneer Square Labs, and co-host of the podcast Acquired, which tells the stories of major companies, acquisitions and IPOs. He and his co-host David Rosenthal have been focusing on these companies on their recent episodes, starting with Lyft and Pinterest.

Since we recorded this episode, Slack has also released its S-1 registration statement, revealing a $138.9 million net loss in its most recent fiscal year.

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Founded in 2015, Seattle startup Arivale aspired to pioneer a new sector called scientific wellness, combining genetic testing with personal coaching to improve the health of its members. Its founder, genomics legend Lee Hood, said the company "really stands a chance of being the Google or Microsoft of this whole arena." But four years later, Arivale abruptly closed its doors this week. We explain what happened with special guest, GeekWire chief business officer Daniel Rossi, an Arivale member whose experience in the program was chronicled in our 2017 series.

Plus, Microsoft breaks the trillion-dollar mark, Bill Gates serves as a surprising role model for other dads, and there's a new set of guidelines for kids' screen time.

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Seattle has a new unicorn, Outreach, the sales and marketing automation company that raised a $114 million funding round this week, pushing its valuation to $1.1 billion. The news sends John and Todd on a startup odyssey, exploring the hidden connections among the new wave of public companies and tech behemoths in Silicon Valley and Seattle, including Uber, Lyft, Convoy and others. Plus, Amazon and Microsoft are preparing to challenge Apple's AirPods,. And on the Random Channel, Melinda Gates has a message for the tech industry, and John is determined to be a "Never Throner."

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Almost every week at the end of the GeekWire Podcast, we feature our "Random Channel" segment, discussing all the random items of questionable relevance that we were buzzing about behind the scenes during the course of the week. This week, with several of us out of the office, we decided to forgo our regular news conversation and go "full random," you might say. We hope you enjoy getting to know some of the offbeat interests of our team, including Kurt Schlosser, Monica Nickelsburg and Taylor Soper. And don't worry, we'll be back on topic next week with our regular show.

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The news that Amazon is shifting its Seattle-based worldwide operations team to Bellevue, Wash., raises a ton of questions about its future in the region. GeekWire's Monica Nickelsburg, who broke the story, joins Todd Bishop and John Cook to discuss the implications. Plus, Howard Schultz gets sued for text messages sent to voters by his team, and the GeekWire Awards finalists have been revealed.

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With the 50th anniversary of the historic Apollo 11 Moon Landing on the horizon, Mark Armstrong, son of the late astronaut Neil Armstrong, first person to walk on the moon, talks with GeekWire's Alan Boyle at the Museum of Flight in Seattle. 

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Microsoft is putting Amazon into a difficult position by advocating a tax increase on both companies in their home state. Meanwhile, Apple is placing an even bigger bet on privacy as a feature. We explain a surprising startup investment by two Seattle tech veterans. Plus, the return of the Random Channel.

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Every year, Amazon and Jeff Bezos hold an elite, invitation-only conference called MARS, for Machine learning, Automation, Robotics and Space, which doubles as an excuse for the Amazon founder to test out the latest in autonomous vehicles, robots and personal aircraft. GeekWire aerospace and science editor Alan Boyle joins us with a rundown. Plus, 15 years after Google started a wave of engineering outposts in the Seattle area, the region's startups are figuring out how to co-exist with Silicon Valley tech giants. And how DNA is inspiring the next generation of data storage technology at Microsoft and the University of Washington.

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After a year of privacy scandals, consumers are beginning to realize that the volume of data tech companies collect on them exceeds what they could have imagined. Marketplace Tech host Molly Wood has been helping listeners untangle the complex web of the data economy on her show. She visited Seattle last week to discuss those issues with Giri Sreenivas, CEO of private email server startup Helm, Ryan Calo, co-director of the University of Washington Tech Policy Lab, and Monica Nickelsburg, GeekWire’s civic editor, during an event hosted by KUOW.

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