Highlights from today’s top stories. Subscribe here to receive this rundown daily.
Greetings, GeekWire readers! The last 24 hours have been among the newsiest in recent memory on the Seattle tech beat, including a major Amazon acquisition, an Amazon arena naming deal that initially seemed like a joke, and Microsoft’s surprise decision to permanently close its physical retail stores.
• Let’s start with Amazon’s purchase of autonomous vehicle company Zoox. When news site The Information broke the story Thursday, the logical assumption was that Amazon was picking up the technology to bolster its delivery and logistics infrastructure. But it’s actually more interesting than that.
Confirming the deal on Friday morning, Amazon said Zoox will continue to operate as a standalone business, developing an on-demand, autonomous ride-hailing service. In other words, Amazon has suddenly emerged as a major competitor for Uber and Lyft in the race to deploy robotaxis in the year ahead.
“We now have an even greater opportunity to realize a fully autonomous future,” said Aicha Evans, CEO of Zoox and Intel’s former chief strategy officer, in a statement. Amazon says Evans will continue to lead Zoox along with Jesse Levinson, the company’s co-founder and chief technology officer.
• Microsoft’s decision to close its retail stores is a surprise twist for the company, and for the future of the retail industry writ large.
In some ways, the stores were a vestige of the Steve Ballmer era and a holdover from Microsoft’s obsession with going head-to-head with Apple. The move brought to mind the moment, more than a decade ago, when Kevin Turner, then Microsoft’s chief operating officer, declared that its retail strategy would basically involve opening up next to every prime Apple location.
Even so, for many years, the Microsoft Stores seemed like a valuable connection point between the company and its customers. In that way, the move is one more example of the pandemic completely upending the way things were. It comes amid a wave of bad news for physical retailers as they grapple with the new realities of operating in the age of COVID-19.
• “Our behavior and our contact tracing is not working well. We continue to have a very large case spread. It is embarrassing versus Europe or other countries.” Bill Gates is becoming increasingly critical of the U.S. response to COVID-19, as evidenced by his comments to Anderson Cooper and Dr. Sanjay Gupta in a return appearance on CNN, amid a new surge in cases.
• Greenpeace is not a fan of “Climate Change Arena.” And it has nothing to do with the goofy name. The environmental group slammed Amazon’s naming rights deal for Seattle’s renovated sports arena as a “meaningless and costly PR stunt,” saying the tech giant is trying to “greenwash its climate pledges.”
• We’re No. 9! Really, that’s it? Seattle moved up three spots in Startup Genome’s annual global startup ecosystem rankings, cracking the top 10. That’s great, but any study that puts New York City seven spots ahead of us, at No. 2, is highly suspect in our view. At any rate, you can read more about this here.
Related: Check out our GeekWire 200 index of top Pacific Northwest startups.
• Your ideas wanted: Do you know a Pacific NW company that has permanently altered its business strategy and found better opportunities in the pandemic? We’re not looking for companies pivoting to masks this time, but for those that have found enduring opportunities and a brighter future in the midst of the economic crisis. Send tips to reporter Lisa Stiffler, lisa@geekwire.com.
• Coming up this weekend on GeekWire: An interview with Seattle entrepreneur Matt Salsamendi, the co-founder and former CEO of Mixer, about Microsoft’s decision to close the game streaming service four years after acquiring the startup, then known as Beam. Plus, what’s next for him … at age 22.
Thanks for reading! Send story ideas, news tips, internal emails and industry gossip to tips@geekwire.com, and subscribe to receive this rundown daily.
