Amazon adds three to ‘s-team,’ holds firm on RTO policy, faces suit over Blue Origin deal

Trolls are leaving their giant footprints in the Seattle area. Danish storyteller  and environmental artist Thomas Dambo has constructed four of his six pieces as part of the public exhibition, “Northwest Trolls: Way of the Bird King.”

• Made from scrap wood and assembled with the help of volunteers, the trolls tell a tale of protecting nature and keeping waste out of landfills. 

• “There are so many people who want to be a part of a positive change,” said Dambo (above, with Jakob 2 Trees). “Make people happy, they come and help you.” Read our Q&A and see photos from Issaquah, Wash.

Amazon named three more executives to its senior leadership team: Swami Sivasubramanian, VP, AWS Data & AI; Aicha Evans, CEO, Zoox; and David Brown, VP, Compute Services. That brings Amazon’s influential “s-team” to 32 execs. We compared the prior roster to the new one to reveal some notable changes in executive roles and titles. Read more and check out the list here.

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy wants employees to stop grumbling about the company’s return-to-office policy. It’s time to “disagree and commit,” or find someplace else to work, he reportedly said in a recent internal meeting. That’s our first topic on a new episode of the GeekWire Podcast. 

Did Amazon wrongly favor its founder’s space venture in awarding a lucrative launch contract for its Project Kuiper satellite constellation? That’s the allegation in a new lawsuit against Amazon, which questions the company’s relationship with Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, and claims Amazon didn’t give due consideration to Elon Musk’s SpaceX for the work. The case could offer a window into Bezos’ ongoing influence inside Amazon. Read more. 

Hot Links:

• ChatGPT in schools? Good luck. Open AI released a Teaching with AI guide for educators, and acknowledged the ineffectiveness of automated tools for detecting ChatGPT-based cheating. (Insider)

• Lawsuits over real estate agent compensation could have “a seismic impact," says former Zillow CEO Spencer Rascoff. (Real Estate News) 

• Goodbye, Visual Studio for Mac: Microsoft is retiring its integrated development environment for Apple computers. (Bleeping Computer)