GoDaddy plans engineering outpost in Seattle region, hires key Microsoft vets

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Internet domain giant GoDaddy is expanding to the Seattle region in search of technical talent, GeekWire has learned — becoming the latest big tech company to establish an engineering outpost within poaching distance of Microsoft, Amazon and others. The planned office is part of a broad reshaping and expansion of GoDaddy’s strategy under new CEO… Read More…

GameHouse chief Matt Hulett leaving RealNetworks for mystery job

Matt Hulett

Matt Hulett, the Seattle startup vet who overhauled RealNetworks’ GameHouse games division, is leaving the company to accept an unspecified “executive opportunity out of state,” according to a regulatory filing this morning. Hulett, the former AdXpose (Mpire) CEO and Expedia Corporate Travel president, isn’t yet saying publicly what he plans to do. Hulett led GameHouse,… Read More…

Ex-Facebook engineer Ari Steinberg’s stealthy travel startup makes first hire: A former Redfin and Microsoft coder

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Ari Steinberg has been pretty quiet ever since he left Facebook last year to start a new online travel startup. And while we still don’t know too much about what Steinberg is cooking up, we do know who is joining him on the voyage. Shahaf Abileah, a former engineer at Microsoft and Redfin, has joined… Read More…

Tech Moves: Wiki creator Ward Cunningham joins New Relic; John Doerr named to Zynga board; and more

Ward Cunningham. Photo via Wikipedia

Ward Cunningham, the Portland software developer who is credited with developing the wiki, has joined New Relic as a staff engineer. He will continue to be based in Portland, where New Relic has a growing engineering staff. “New Relic has changed the way software gets built by introducing production usage data into agile development processes,”… Read More…

Tech Moves: Oracle sales vet joins Microsoft; Zynga changes; SNUPI snags Paulsen from Impinj; etc.

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Judson Althoff has been named president of North American sales and marketing at Microsoft, joining the company from Oracle where he worked for 14 years. At Oracle, he most recently served as senior vice president of worldwide alliances and channels and embedded sales. Before that, he worked with EMC. Althoff will report to Microsoft chief operating officer Kevin… Read More…

Domain name operator Donuts passes background checks, names new CTO

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Donuts, the heavily-funded Bellevue startup, has made it through initial evaluation tests conducted by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). The evaluation included a look at the company’s financial and technical fitness, as well as background checks of the company’s staff. The initial tests were conduced in this instance around Donuts’ efforts to… Read More…

PopCap Games’ Bejeweled executive producer departs

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PopCap Games is losing the executive producer of its Bejeweled franchise. Giordano “Gio” Contestabile is stepping down from the EA-owned property, news that comes just a few days after EA CEO John Riccitello announced his plans to resign. He worked at PopCap for six years. Contestabile has joined Tilting Point, an independent game publisher where All… Read More…

Serial entrepreneur David Bluhm returns to Medio

David Bluhm, President and CEO of Z2Live, speaks at the GeekWire Summit. (© Karen Ducey 2012)

Typically, when founders leave companies, they never return. Or, if they do, they come back as CEO as was the case with Steve Jobs at Apple or Howard Schultz at Starbucks. But serial entrepreneur David Bluhm, the co-founder of mobile analytics startup Medio, is returning to the company in a new role as chief marketing… Read More…

EA CEO John Riccitiello to resign as game maker seeks new leader amid weak results

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Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello announced today that he’s stepping down from the game maker effective March 30. The company, which owns Seattle-based PopCap Games, also warned that its revenues and earnings per share for the fourth quarter ”will be at the low end of, or slightly below previously issued guidance.” Riccitiello is the co-founder Elevation Partners, a… Read More…

Tech Moves: Opscode hires former Likewise CEO Barry Crist; Hulu changes; etc.

Barry Crist

Barry Crist, the former CEO of Likewise, has joined Opscode as vice president of enterprise. He will report to CEO Mitch Hill, and assist in the adoption of the company’s Chef, Hosted Chef and Private Chef products. He most recently served as an executive-in-residence at Ignition Partners, the Bellevue venture capital firm that is an… Read More…

Kate Matsudaira departs Decide, starts Pop Forms

Kate Matsudaira (GeekWire Photo: Annie Laurie Malarkey)

Kate Matsudaira has left Decide.com, and started a new  company called Pop Forms that’s developing software to help employees and managers be more productive. Matsudaira previously served as vice president of engineering at Decide.com, and before that served in a similar role at SEOMoz. She joined Decide.com, which is backed by Maveron, Madrona and others,… Read More…

Vittana founder Chakrabarti steps down as Lovell takes the helm

Kushal Chakrabarti

Kushal Chakrabarti is stepping down from the educational microloan non-profit Vittana, handing the reins of the organization over to Rebecca Lovell who has been named interim CEO. “This is a big opportunity for Vittana. The last five years have been incredible. The next five will be epic,” said Chakrabarti, the former Amazon.com employee who founded Vittana in… Read More…

Todd Sawicki’s next gig: Slovenian startup Zemanta

Todd Sawicki at Ignite. Photo via Randy Stewart

We’ve been wondering where Todd Sawicki would land ever since he stepped down from the chief revenue officer post at Cheezburger last October. Now, we know. He’s headed to one of Slovenia’s hottest startups: Zemanta. Sawicki, who is joining the venture-backed startup as president, will be sticking around Seattle. But he tells us that he’ll… Read More…

F5 CEO John McAdam joins the board of Apptio

John McAdam, right, interviewed by Ed Lazwoska, at the Tech Alliance luncheon in Seattle

John McAdam is a man in high demand. The CEO of F5 Networks, the Seattle networking and software powerhouse, joined the board of Tableau Software two months ago. Now, he’s aligning himself with another of the region’s most promising enterprise software companies: Apptio.  McAdam today was announced as the newest board member of Apptio, a fast-growing… Read More…

Tech Moves: Drugstore.com vet takes helm at Allrecipes; Cascadia hires investment banking vet; etc.

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Former drugstore.com vice president of e-commerce Stan Pavlovsky has been named president of Allrecipes.com, an appointment that comes after longtime exec Lisa Sharples announced that she’d be leaving the company next month. Founded in 1997, Allrecipes was acquired a year ago by magazine publisher Meredith for $175 million. “Stan has the ultimate combination of marketing… Read More…

Marc Barros steps down from wearable camera maker Contour, says it’s time for ‘fresh legs’

Marc Barros

Marc Barros is stepping down as CEO of Contour, the fast-growing Seattle maker of helmet-mounted cameras used in action sports such as mountain biking and snowboarding. In a blog post titled “Moving On,” Barros writes that it was time for a change at the company. “It’s hard to believe that over nine years has passed since… Read More…

RealNetworks shakes up mobile business, hires former Dada CEO as division president

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RealNetworks this morning announced a new president and a broader strategy for its newly renamed Mobile Entertainment Division. Max Pellegrini, the former CEO and chairman of mobile web company Dada.net, is joining the Seattle company to lead the division as part of RealNetworks chairman Rob Glaser’s bid to revive the company that he founded 18… Read More…

Report: Lisa Sharples to leave AllRecipes.com in March

Lisa Sharples

Lisa Sharples is stepping down as the top chef at AllRecipes.com, the popular online recipe service that was acquired 13 months ago by Meredith for $175 million. All Things D reports that Sharples notified staffers on Thursday that she will be leaving the company at the end of March to spend more time with her family…. Read More…

Amazon Kindle VP Mike Nash makes leap to HP

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Mike Nash, a former vice president at Amazon.com’s Kindle unit, has made the leap to HP where he’s now working as vice president of product management for consumer PCs and solutions. Nash worked at Amazon.com for three years, and before that spent nearly two decades at Microsoft. Nash, who joined HP last month, is based in… Read More…

Startup incubator Upstart Labs adds new partners, looks to fill series A funding crunch

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It sometimes feels like there’s a bit of incubator mania going on. In the past two weeks alone, we’ve written about two relatively new startup incubators in the Seattle area. Fledge specializes in getting socially-conscious companies off the ground, while 9Mile Labs is looking to make its mark by focusing on enterprise software startups. Now, here comes another… Read More…