GeekWire - Bezos responds to endorsement backlash

Microsoft earnings preview: Investors and analysts will be watching the tech giant’s results closely this week for the latest signs of customer demand for artificial intelligence, amid growing concern about the company’s outsized spending on the infrastructure needed to train and run massive AI models. Here are the key numbers to watch. 

• Related: Read more about Microsoft’s history and ambitions in AI in the first chapter of our year-long series marking the company’s 50th anniversary. 

Priyanka Kulkarni loved working at Microsoft, but she always felt the itch to build something of her own. Yet when an opportunity to join Seattle’s AI2 Incubator arose, Kulkarni (above) faced a painstaking journey to apply for the right work visa. Now she’s using that experience to develop AI software that can shave weeks or even months off the visa application process. Read more.

Amazon is shutting down its Kindle Vella platform for serial and episodic stories and books in February 2025, acknowledging for the first time that the service, launched in 2021, didn’t live up to its expectations. Read more.

Moondream, a new Seattle startup led by former Amazon Web Services employees, raised $4.5 million to build out its “vision language model” used by customers in various industries. Read more.  

This “Stranger Things” property was turned upside down. Seattle real estate startup Arrived Homes bought the Byers house, used for exterior shots on the popular Netflix series, and turned it into an Airbnb rental that fans of the show can own a share of. (Above: Bret Neuman, left, and Alejandro Chouza of Arrived Homes.) Read more.

Shares of Seattle-based application delivery giant F5 were up more than 10% after the company’s latest quarterly earnings report. F5 also announced a new CFO. Read more.

“We’re growing faster than we ever thought we would,” said Read AI CEO David Shim, as the Seattle startup raised $50 million to fuel its “copilot everywhere” vision for enterprise software. Read more.

Hot Links

• Microsoft accused Google of running secret “shadow campaigns” that aim to discredit the company’s cloud business in Europe. (The Verge)

• Starbucks is threatening to fire corporate staff who don't comply with its new three-days-a-week office attendance policy. (Bloomberg)