Last chance for GeekWire Summit tickets | Meet Meta’s new Seattle leader

Get your GeekWire Summit tickets: The agenda is set, the speakers are ready, and we’re looking forward to seeing hundreds of you for the GeekWire Summit this Thursday and Friday in Seattle and online. If you haven’t yet registered for our signature business and technology conference, now is the time.

Above, some of the speakers at the event, clockwise from upper left: Hill Harper, founder of The Black Wall Street; Annie Kadavy, managing director at Redpoint; Charlie Bell, EVP for Microsoft’s security business, Ken Washington, Amazon consumer robotics leader; Chris Urmson, CEO of self-driving car company Aurora; U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell, and Stockton Rush of OceanGate.

Steve Ballmer in classic form: The former Microsoft CEO brought his trademark energy to Climate Pledge Arena on Monday evening, giving an impassioned speech before a preseason NBA game in Seattle. 

Meet Meta’s new Seattle leader: Paresh Rajwat is bullish about the role more than 8,000 employees in the region will play on Meta’s big bet on the metaverse. “We have an internal saying that the road to the metaverse passes through the Pacific Northwest,” he said. Read the GeekWire Q&A.

Amazon sues Washington state regulators: Amazon is asking a federal judge to declare that the state’s process for addressing allegations of serious workplace safety problems violates the due process clause of the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment. Read more. 

Amazon reportedly halts corporate hiring in retail business: The company is the latest to change hiring plans amid the broader economic downturn. Read more. 

Expedia removes vaccine requirement: The Seattle-based online travel giant says employees and others can now enter most of its worldwide offices without being vaccinated and boosted against COVID-19, as it accepts “a different phase of the virus.” Read more.

Startup fundings:

• Xembly raises $15M: The startup’s conversational AI is like a “chief of staff” that automates tedious tasks such as note taking, scheduling and to-do lists.

• QorusDocs lands $10M: The Bellevue, Wash.-based startup aims to speed up the process of creating and managing sales proposals.

• Portland startup protects device supply chains: Eclypsium raised $25 million to expand its efforts to secure hardware, firmware and software for its customers.

Going deep on octopus intelligence: A new novel titled “The Mountain in the Sea” puts the creatures and their brain power at the center of a sci-fi tale. Read and listen to GeekWire contributing editor Alan Boyle’s interview with author Ray Nayler and University of Washington neuroscientist and astrobiologist Dominic Sivitilli.

Thanks for reading, and have a great day. — GeekWire managing editor Taylor Soper, taylor@geekwire.com, and GeekWire reporter Kurt Schlosser, kurt@geekwire.com.