Docker, Qualtrics leaders join Seattle startup | DoorDash rips Seattle over minimum wage law

Seattle startup Mason is adding some horsepower to its executive suite, hiring former Docker COO Webb Stevens as its new CEO, and former Qualtrics CTO John Thimsen as its CTO. Read about the changes, and other personnel swaps, in our latest Tech Moves post. (Above, from left: Stevens; Mason President Nancy Xiao; Mason founder Jim Xiao; and Timsen)

DoorDash isn’t happy with Seattle laws. That's one takeaway from the food delivery giant's latest earnings report. Read more. 

Where did the Amazon CEO’s union talking points cross the line? Andy Jassy’s comments to Bloomberg, The New York Times and CNBC broke the law when he said unions would make it harder to get things done quickly in warehouses, an NLRB judge ruled. Amazon disagrees and plans to appeal. Read more.

Assurance IQ shutting down: After paying $2.35 billion to acquire the Seattle-area insurance tech startup in 2019, Prudential is now closing the business. More than 100 workers will be laid off in Seattle. Read more.

Make room, Ken Griffey Jr. The Seattle Mariners’ ownership group has new members. Microsoft President Brad Smith and his wife Kathy Surace-Smith purchased a stake in the team. They’re the first new additions to the partnership group since Griffey in 2021. Read more.

A computer programmer and laboratory scientist are the founders of Dreamward Ventures, a new Seattle-based emerging fund that aims to help boost the number of Black founders and investors in tech startups. Read more.

Creative Destruction Lab, a nonprofit accelerator that does not take equity in startups, just graduated another cohort from its Seattle program. Meet the 17 startups.

Video game fans will step inside the worlds of Super Mario and Donkey Kong when a new “Super Nintendo World” theme park experience opens in Florida next year. Read more.

The GeekWire Awards finalists are set. The big event is May 9 in Seattle. Now all you have to do is grab a ticket! Come help us celebrate the leading innovators, entrepreneurs, scientists and business leaders in the PNW.

Hot Links:

• WeWork will hold on to two additional spaces in the Seattle region, as part of the latest updates to its restructuring process. (WeWork)

• Emails from 2019 made public as part of the DOJ antitrust case against Google reveal how Microsoft was “very, very worried” about Google’s AI capabilities. (Business Insider)

• Rivian leased a warehouse south of Seattle. (Puget Sound Business Journal)

• University of Washington researchers will use a $12.6 million grant to create a predictive AI tool to help identify the severity of hallucinations. (UW Medicine) 

• Seattle Seahawks star receiver D.K. Metcalf is a new investor in Bazooka Candy Brands. (PR Newswire)