This week on the GeekWire radio show and podcast: Seattle is the third best tech city in the U.S., according to a study released this week by real estate services company CBRE. The study ranked the U.S.’s top tech cities using 13 metrics, including education level, wages, and number of tech employees.
The Emerald City beat out hubs like New York and Boston, and came behind the San Francisco Bay Area and Washington, D.C., which ranked a surprising second. This comes a month after New York-based venture capitalist Fred Wilson ranked Seattle a “third-tier” startup city, behind cities like Boston and L.A., sparking vigorous debate on the benefits of Seattle’s tech community.
But is No. 3 the right ranking? On this week’s show, GeekWire’s John Cook and Todd Bishop make the case for Seattle as the No. 2 tech region in the country, behind Silicon Valley.
In science news, researchers from the University of Washington and Microsoft broke records by encoding 200 megabytes of data in synthetic DNA. GeekWire aerospace and science editor Alan Boyle joins us to discuss the potential impact of this technology on computing.
Meanwhile, we discuss the impact of Microsoft COO Kevin Turner, who announced this week that he will be leaving the company to head an investment firm. Turner was characteristic of major players in Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer era, and had been with the company for over ten years.
We also hear a first-hand experience of using Amazon’s new Play-Doh Dash Button, and jump into the world of Pokémon Go with our App of the Week.
Listen via the audio player above, or download the MP3 here.
