Techie-turned-lawmaker uses Microsoft chops as state senator | ‘Acquired’ podcast hosts raising fund

Sen. Joe Nguyen (above) spent a decade in the tech industry, including eight years at Microsoft, before making the move to the Washington State Legislature in 2019. Since taking office, Nguyen has helped pass significant laws related to climate change, facial recognition technology, and computer science education. He credits his success in part to applying tech tools and strategies to his legislative duties. For his civic work, Nguyen is being honored at the GeekWire Awards with this year’s Public Policy Champion for Innovation Award. Read more about Nguyen.

Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal, the hosts of popular business podcast “Acquired,” are raising an investment fund. Read more.

Heads up, hockey fans: If you’re an Amazon Prime subscriber, you’ll be able to stream Seattle Kraken games starting next season. Here’s why.

Non-compete ban: The FTC voted this week to get rid of non-competition agreements. Critics of these deals say the ban can help tech companies. Read more.

Hoffman on Hoffman: LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman (above) wanted to experiment with AI and video, so he built a deepfake digital twin and produced this mind-boggling interview.  

Impinj stock was up more than 20% this morning after the Seattle-based RFID maker beat earnings expectations.

Space Force contract: Marysville, Wash.-based Gravitics will adapt its space station architecture for U.S. Space Force tactical response platforms in a $1.7 million deal.  

“Resist the urge to chaos”: That’s the mantra from Zillow Group CEO Rich Barton, in regard to the fallout from sweeping changes coming to the real estate industry. Read more.

“Good to Go!” scam warning: The Washington State Department of Transportation is warning Good to Go! customers to be on the lookout for fraudulent emails or texts seeking payment for past due toll bills. Read more.

Hot Links:

• The AI industry “has an even sharper gender imbalance than tech as a whole does,” says Margaret O’Mara, a University of Washington professor and tech historian. (Substack)

• Amazon’s new grocery delivery offering is the latest example of tech companies adding more fees to existing subscriptions. (Axios)

• TikTok black box: A University of Washington researcher studied how TikTok’s algorithm is personalized and its impact on users. (UW News)

• OpenAI's GPT-4 gave heart-stopping results when tested against standard diagnostic tools for predicting the risk of a cardiac event, giving less accurate and inconsistent evaluations. (UW Medicine) 

Thanks for subscribing to the GeekWire newsletter, and have a great day. — GeekWire editor Taylor Soper, taylor@geekwire.com; and GeekWire reporter Kurt Schlosser, kurt@geekwire.com.