Get caught up on the latest technology and startup news from the past week. Here are the most popular stories on GeekWire for the week of Oct. 11, 2026.
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Most popular stories on GeekWire
Microsoft’s top science exec is leaving to fulfill a childhood dream: Joining a Formula 1 team
Peter Lee, the longtime Microsoft Research leader, plans to join the Mercedes Formula 1 team in a newly created AI advisor role. He’ll work on physics problems for the team’s car, predictive models and how F1’s regulators might govern AI. Read More … Read More
Leaked list shows what Microsoft, Amazon and other tech giants are giving for the White House ballroom
Microsoft committed $10 million to President Trump’s White House ballroom project, and Amazon and T-Mobile each committed $5 million, according to a donor list obtained by the Washington Post. The donations aren’t subject to campaign finance limits or disclosure requirements, raising concerns that companies could be buying influence or feeling pressured to give. Read More … Read More
Booking Holdings unveils AI travel startup Vayo, based in Seattle, with a planned $100M investment
Booking Holdings is launching a new Seattle-based travel startup called Vayo, led by serial entrepreneur Mike Fridgen, betting that AI agents built for travel can do a better job of planning and managing trips than general-purpose assistants from the likes of OpenAI and Meta. Read More … Read More
Robot on aisle 7: Customers react to autonomous inventory machine roaming a Seattle grocery store
An autonomous, camera-laden robot named Tally is scanning shelves — and triggering a mix of Jetsons-esque wonder, anxiety about job losses, and some customer privacy fears. Read More … Read More
Apple challenges Amazon’s Echo and Ring with its new smart home lineup
Apple’s $299 HomeView smart display goes up against the Echo Show, and new LG-made cameras, a video doorbell and a smart lock compete with Amazon-owned Ring. Apple has 7% of U.S. smart speaker owners, compared with about two-thirds for Amazon. Read More … Read More
Why Amazon might pay billions for Decart, a 3-year-old AI startup that hasn’t disclosed its revenue
Amazon is in talks to buy Decart for around $7 billion, The Wall Street Journal reported. The startup makes software that helps AI models run faster on different kinds of chips, including Amazon’s Trainium, and has already worked with AWS on its newest chip. Read More … Read More
Institute led by UW Nobel winner uses AI to build molecular scissors targeting disease proteins
Led by Nobel laureate David Baker, researchers at UW Medicine’s Institute for Protein Design have used AI to engineer reusable molecular “scissors” capable of repeatedly destroying target proteins linked to diseases like Alzheimer’s and ALS. Because these proteases chop up targets repeatedly instead of clinging to just one, they could treat complex conditions at far lower doses. Read More … Read More
Microsoft makes ‘biggest bet yet’ on its own silicon, unveils new AI chip to reduce reliance on Nvidia
Microsoft says its homegrown Maia chips will handle most of the AI work behind Copilot and its other products, with the new Maia 300 rolling out in 2027. The company says the new chip does more AI work with the same amount of electricity than the GPU-based systems that power most AI today. Read More … Read More
Microsoft’s Brad Smith pushes back on Vice President JD Vance’s visa fraud accusations
Someone “failed to inform the vice president accurately about our numbers” before blocking Microsoft from sponsoring foreign workers for permanent residency, asserts Brad Smith, the company’s president and vice chair, in an interview with Politico. Read More … Read More
LinkedIn just released its list of the top 10 Seattle startups: One problem, nearly half aren’t based in the region
LinkedIn’s list of Seattle’s hottest startups includes companies headquartered in California and Texas. We did a little digging and found a geography problem hiding in plain sight. Read More … Read More