We visited the world’s biggest carbon capture plant | Measuring engineer productivity

Visiting the world’s biggest carbon capture plant: On a recent trip to Iceland, GeekWire reporter Lisa Stiffler made a pit stop at Climeworks, a startup taking advantage of the country’s dynamic geology to capture and mineralize carbon dioxide, a key pollutant stoking climate change. Microsoft today announced a 10-year carbon removal deal with Climeworks. Read the story. 

Gates Foundation boosts giving: The foundation says it will increase its annual payout in grants and other financial assistance by 50% to $9 billion by 2026, responding to what it describes as “compounding global crises” including the pandemic, inflation, the war in Ukraine, and climate change. Read more. 

Measuring engineer productivity: Seattle startup Uplevel, which helps engineering teams analyze the effectiveness of developers, raised $20 million. The company also said it will continue its 4-day workweek experiment through 2022. Read more. 

Tech Moves: Twilio hires former Microsoft engineering leader; Nintendo adds exec; and more personnel changes. 

Capital gains tax update: Ballot measures opposing the new tax in Washington state did not collect enough signatures to qualify for the November ballot. Here’s what’s next.

Feast your eyes on a celestial smorgasbord: Stunning images from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope demonstrate the $10 billion telescope’s ability to analyze planetary atmospheres and record scenes of stellar birth and death in unprecedented detail. Read more.