How Apptio defied the skeptics on its 16-year journey to $4.6B IBM deal

• CEO Sunny Gupta and early investor Matt McIlwain of Madrona Venture Group shared lessons from Apptio’s journey, including asking customers about their problems, accumulating valuable data, and thinking long-term in the face of skepticism.

• "You’ve just got to keep grinding every day,” Gupta said. “You’ve got to keep showing up with the same passion, with the same commitment to innovation and customers, and let the results speak for themselves.” Read more. 

Amazon is partnering with the office supply chain Staples to add nearly 1,000 drop-off locations for customer returns. The e-commerce giant now allows label-free, box-free returns at more than 8,000 locations, including Amazon stores, Whole Foods and more. Read more.

A new AI Skills Initiative from Microsoft includes a global grant challenge, free online courses, and a training toolkit for teachers. Part of the company’s effort to address a technical skills gap, it’s also a way to further position itself at the center of the AI boom. Read more.

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• A couple who sued OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush for a refund of their $210,000 payment for a canceled trip on the Everett, Wash.-based company’s Titan submersible is dropping the suit after the sub imploded, killing Rush and four others. (Insider)

• T-Mobile is shedding 330,000 square feet of office space around its Bellevue headquarters, adding to the surplus in the area. (Puget Sound Business Journal)

• A newly unveiled Amazon Web Services no-code tool called AppFabric will stitch together a variety of software-as-a-service apps, with AWS promising future support for a generative AI assistant as part of the tool. (TechRadar)