Seattle restaurant owners sound off on delivery apps | Melinda French Gates’ $1B for women’s issues

As the Seattle City Council prepares to vote Tuesday on a controversial minimum pay law for food delivery drivers, we spoke with restaurant owners to learn about the impact of tech-fueled delivery platforms like Uber Eats and DoorDash on their businesses. Read more. Above, Spice Waala owner Uttam Mukherjee (left) and Smarty Pants owner Michelle Braash. 

Melinda French Gates is planning to grant $1 billion over the next two years to programs and people working on women’s and family issues. The news comes two weeks after French Gates announced her resignation from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Read more.

T-Mobile plans to acquire “substantially all” of U.S. Cellular’s wireless operations in a $4.4 billion deal that will help the Bellevue, Wash.-based company expand its coverage in rural areas. Read more.

Tech Moves: Seattle marketing vet Lynn Girotto joins Qualtrics as chief marketing officer; and more personnel changes in PNW tech.

Less than a year after the loss of Everett, Wash.-based OceanGate’s submersible and its five-person crew during a dive to the Titanic, Triton Submarines is planning a trip to the shipwreck in a completely different kind of vessel. Read more.

Seattle startup Humanly, which helps companies automate their recruiting functions, is acquiring Teamable, a San Francisco startup offering similar AI-boosted HR tools. Read more.

In an era when chatbots and generative AI are being plugged into seemingly everything, Seattle-based Help Texts is taking a simpler approach. The subscription service provides customized, supportive text messages pre-written by humans for people experiencing grief from a loss or in need of a mental health boost. Read more.

Hot Links:

• A “cybersecurity event” at the Seattle Public Library disrupted access to staff and public computers, online catalog and loaning systems, e-books and e-audiobooks, in-building Wi-Fi and more. (Seattle Public Library)

• Bill Gates loves a burger, and the Burgermaster that he grew up going to with his father. In a new video, Gates laments the closing of one of the chain’s locations. (Instagram)