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 Jan. 4, 2026.
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Most popular stories on GeekWire
Bill Gates makes nearly $8B payout to Melinda French Gates as part of divorce settlement
The money shows up in tax filings as a 2024 donation to French Gates’ Pivotal Philanthropies Foundation. … Read More
Tech Moves: Amazon leader lands at Anthropic; Microsoft government affairs vet retires
Steven Maheshwary, a former generative AI leader at Amazon, is now a go-to-market lead in strategic partnerships at Anthropic, the AI giant behind Claude and backed by Amazon. … Read More
Tech Moves: AWS VP switches roles; Seattle’s new economic development head; Microsoft Teams exec departs
An AWS VP is switching roles; Seattle gets a new economic development lead; a Microsoft Teams VP departs; and more in the latest tech moves. … Read More
Amazon tees up new private label golf balls — here’s how they stack up against Titleist and Taylormade
Amazon is taking a swing at golf balls, but are they worth buying? … Read More
Ring around the parking lot: Amazon’s security company unveils a $5,000 surveillance trailer
Amazon’s Ring is taking its home-security technology into the parking lot with a $5,000 solar-powered surveillance trailer aimed at construction sites, retail centers, and outdoor events — a move that puts the doorbell maker into more direct competition with commercial security providers. … Read More
Desney Tan leaves Microsoft after 21 years leading key research and healthcare initiatives
Microsoft Research leader Desney Tan is leaving the company after 21 years, closing a career that spanned breakthrough work in human-computer interaction, health “moonshots,” and products including Xbox Kinect and Microsoft Band. … Read More
Ex-Expedia employee gets 4 years for planting spy cameras across Seattle campus in voyeurism case
A former Expedia Group employee who secretly recorded women by hiding spy cameras throughout the company’s Seattle headquarters — including in bathrooms — was sentenced Friday to four years in prison. … Read More
Tech Moves: Amazon AI leader joins Google Cloud; Meta taps new chief legal officer from Microsoft
— Karthik Ramakrishnan, who spent the past 14 years at Amazon where he helped develop the company’s AI strategy, has taken a VP role within the Data Cloud organization at Google Cloud. … Read More
Trapped at a Tesla Supercharger: A comedy of errors and lessons learned from a first EV road trip
By the time we hit Kelso, it was clear my family’s post-Christmas EV adventure was hitting the skids. … Read More
Microsoft acquires data analytics startup Osmos to fuel push into ‘autonomous data engineering’
Instead of selling tools alongside data platforms, Osmos’ technology will live inside one. … Read More
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