Amazon Web Services
Facts
- HQ
- Europe
- Sectors
- Cloud computing, Artificial intelligence, Infrastructure, Marketplace
- Founded
- 2006
- Stage
- Public
Foundation Models Go Vertical with leaders from Open AI, Mistral, Clarify and Oumi
In this episode of Shift AI, Manos, CEO of Umi, Patrick Thompson, CEO of Clarify, Brian Hall, CMO of Mistral AI, and Ben Gaffney, Deputy General Counsel at OpenAI, join host Boaz Ashkenazy for a live panel recorded at Seattle Tech Week on who actually owns intelligence in the enterprise AI era. One panelist argues that any enterprise still treating a frontier model as its core intelligence layer is renting something it should own, and predicts that in two years we'll look back at CTOs defending that approach the way we look back at driving a Ferrari to the grocery…
Mike Kropp - Founder & CEO of Iridius
Mike Kropp is the Founder and CEO of Iridius, a Seattle-based company building compliance-ready AI infrastructure for highly regulated industries like pharma and biotech. A technology executive with over 25 years of leading engineering teams at Microsoft and AWS, Mike has played a crucial role in developing innovative products and expanding their global business adoption. Mike uses a collaborative, working backward approach to deliver products that help customers innovate and create high-impact solutions for their companies. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Amazon's next big business, Satya Nadella's DIY app, and a VC's rallying cry for Seattle tech
This week: Microsoft and Amazon both reported quarterly numbers, and both stocks rose on cloud results that beat expectations. Is AI spending is paying off in real business? And in related news, Microsoft sees a rare annual headcount decline, hitting product R&D hardest. Plus: Satya Nadella builds a Power BI dashboard out of an analyst's research report, and touts it on the earnings call to make a bigger point. Jeff Bezos names Amazon's chips business as the long-awaited fourth pillar. And AI House managing director Jacob Colker delivers a much-needed pep talk for Seattle tech, calling on the region to…
AI is not your strategy: Author and business advisor Brian Evergreen explains why vision comes first
Brian Evergreen worked in AI at Microsoft from 2016 to 2023, including a role helping Fortune 500 executives develop their AI strategies. He kept seeing the same pattern: most of those projects were failing. He set out to figure out why, and the answer became his book, Autonomous Transformation. In this live recording for GeekWire's Agents of Transformation series, presented by Accenture, Evergreen explains what companies keep getting wrong, and why vision matters more than technology. With GeekWire co-founder Todd Bishop. Edited by Curt Milton. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Elon takes the stand, Big Tech drops big numbers, and a small VC gets in on a billion-dollar deal
This week on the show: Todd reports from inside the Oakland federal courthouse where Elon Musk is suing OpenAI, Sam Altman, and Microsoft, with jury selection revealing just how hard it is to find anyone neutral about Musk these days. Meanwhile, Microsoft and OpenAI restructured their partnership the same morning the trial began — and less than 24 hours later, OpenAI's models landed on Amazon's cloud. Then, Microsoft and Amazon both dropped blockbuster earnings, with Azure up 40%, AWS posting its fastest growth in 15 quarters, and the two companies combining for nearly $400 billion in capital spending this year…
Microsoft's private OpenAI emails and Satya Nadella’s new AI catchphrase
Newly unsealed court documents reveal the behind-the-scenes history of Microsoft and OpenAI · including a surprise: Amazon Web Services was the Silicon Valley AI lab's original partner. Plus, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella debuts a new AI catchphrase at Davos, startup CEO Dave Clark gets attention for his "wildly productive weekend," Elon Musk talks aliens, and the latest on physical AI startups in the Pacific Northwest, including Overland AI and AIM Intelligent Machines. With GeekWire co-founders John Cook and Todd Bishop; edited by Curt Milton. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Seattle’s tech paradox: Amazon's layoffs and the AI boom — or is it a bubble?
Why is Amazon laying off 14,000 people during a massive AI boom? Todd and John analyze the Seattle tech paradox, digging into Andy Jassy's 'startup' reasoning and debating whether the AI frenzy is a bubble. Then, they take on the Cascadia high-speed rail: a necessary connector or a misguided project? Related headlines from the week Amazon layoffs Amazon confirms 14,000 job cuts, says push for ‘efficiency gains’ will continue into 2026 A tale of two Seattles in the age of AI: Harsh realities and new hope for the tech community Filing: Amazon cuts more than 2,300 jobs in Washington state…
How Chronosphere Solved Observability in Containerized Environments to Build $1.6B Company | Uber spin-out, 5x Cheap & Impact of AI in Observability | CEO Martin Mao | Startup Project #101
Martin Mao is the co-founder and CEO of Chronosphere, an observability platform built for the modern containerized world. Prior to Chronosphere, Martin led the observability team at Uber, tackling the unique challenges of large-scale distributed systems. With a background as a technical lead at AWS, Martin brings unique experience in building scalable and reliable infrastructure. In this episode, he shares the story behind Chronosphere, its approach to cost-efficient observability, and the future of monitoring in the age of AI. What you'll learn: The specific observability challenges that arise when transitioning to containerized environments and microservices architectures, including increased data volume…
Unscripted: What Happened After the Mic Went Off with Douwe Kiela
This bonus episode of Founded & Funded is a follow-up to Madrona Partner Jon Turow's conversation with Douwe Kiela, CEO of Contextual AI and co-inventor of RAG. In this quick chat, they dive into: 1) Why storytelling—not just GTM—needs to be vertical 2) How to build a platform by showing what's possible 3) The tension between "doing one thing well" vs. building the whole stack 4) Multimodal content moderation at Meta & what it taught Douwe This 10-minute post-show chat is a must-listen for founders thinking deeply about where to plant your flag — and when to break the rules.
AI, tech talent, and regional innovation: A swan song from retiring WTIA CEO Michael Schutzler
Michael Schutzler, the newly retired CEO of the Washington Technology Industry Association (WTIA), joins us on this episode of the GeekWire Podcast to reflect on his 11 years running the not-for-profit trade association, assess the state of the tech industry in Seattle and Washington state, and discuss what's next for him. Schutzler, who has been succeeded as WTIA's CEO by Kelly Fukai, previously its COO, wrote about the extraordinary history of the state's tech industry in a recent post marking the WTIA's 40th anniversary and his retirement. See more highlights from the episode in this GeekWire post. Related coverage: WTIA…
From Dark Matter to Voice AI with Deepgram Founder Scott Stephenson
Today Madrona Managing Director Karan Mahandru and Scott Stephenson, Co-Founder and CEO of Deepgram, a foundational AI company building a voice AI platform providing APIs for speech-to-text and text-to-speech. From medical transcription to autonomous agents, Deepgram is the go-to for developers of voice AI experiences, and they're already working with over 500 companies, including NASA, Spotify, and Twilio. Today, Scott and Karan dive into the realities of building a foundational AI company, meaning they're building models and modalities from scratch. They discuss the challenges of moving from prototype to production, how startups need to out-fox the hyperscalers while also partnering…
Temporal Founders Bet on Open Source and Developers to Enable Invincible Applications
Madrona Managing Director Soma Somasegar hosts Temporal Co-Founders Samar Abbas and Maxim Fateev in studio. Temporal was founded in 2019 based on an open-source microservices orchestration engine project but is the result of a more than decade-long partnership between the two co-founders that spanned their time working on different iterations of the same thing at AWS, Microsoft, and Uber. In this episode, Soma, Samar, and Maxim dive into the challenges of building an open-source ecosystem while also working on a commercial offering and scaling a successful company, how to navigate and adjust a product roadmap in an ever-changing world of…
week of may 27: Coral Garnick Ducken - Madrona
Top Stories: 1. Expedia leaders are out Geekwire article/Seattle Times article 2. Synapse bankruptcy affects Seattle startup Geekwire article 3. Amazon AWS CEO change PSBJ article (CEO leaving) PSBJ article (new CEO) 4. OpenAI's new voice product Geekwire article 5. Local VC to launch startup community hub Geekwire article About guest co-host Coral Garnick Ducken - Digital Editor, Madrona: Prior to her current role as Digital Editor for Seattle VC firm Madrona, she was a content writer for Blueprint Technologies. Before that she was the Associate Editor at Puget Sound Business Journal after leaving Seattle Times as a business reporter…
Emily Pesce - CEO at Joon
Emily Pesce is CEO of Joon, whose mission is to make mental healthcare and well-being broadly accessible and effective for 13-24 year olds. Emily has over twenty years of experience across healthcare, e-commerce, grocery, supply chain, technology, mobile, and cloud computing. She has led product, marketing, design, technology, forecasting and replenishment teams, among others. Her primary operating experiences were at Amazon (AmazonFresh, Kindle, Gaming, AWS) and Nerdy (Product). Emily has also been an investor, providing early stage capital, sometimes the first money in, to over 30 companies (Working Lab Capital, Pesce Family Ventures, NextGen Venture Partners). See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy…
Building a Modern Database: Nikita Shamgunov on Postgres and Beyond
In this episode of Founded & Funded, Madrona Investor Paul Goel and Neon Co-founder & CEO Nikita Shamgunov dive into the database market and the importance of creating a killer developer experience while balancing that experience with performance and reliability. Nikita also shares just how bullish he is on AI, his excitement for AI agents like Devin, and advises founders to not wait on an idea they're passionate about. Full transcript here: (00:00) Introduction (00:46) Nikita's Background and the Genesis of Neon (02:50) The Right Time to Build Neon and Database Market Insights (05:17) Neon's Differentiation in the Database Market…
#73 Brian Bell - From Product Manager to Full Time Investor
Brian Bell is the Managing Partner at Team Ignite. Bell has experience in product development in AI at Microsoft, AWS, and startups. Full conversation includes: 🔸Transition from Product Management to full time investing 🔸Investing in YC 🔸Operating an investing Syndicate 🔸Growth hacks to grow your syndicate 🔸Is AngelList loosing its advantage? 🔸Red flags in pitch decks 🔸If money was not an object, what would you be doing? & more. Listen now 👇 Follow Brain on twitter here - https://twitter.com/brianrbell Follow Nataraj on twitter here - https://twitter.com/natarajsindam Follow 100 Days of AI here - https://thestartupproject.io/100-days-of-ai/ Subscribe now 👇 🔸Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/3Cx7Q5r9Ow9eikxQjsJjjq…
Can AI level the playing field? Nancy Wang of Advancing Women in Tech
This week's guest, Nancy Wang, is a technology product and engineering executive, advisor, and investor. A former Amazon Web Services general manager and former Google lead product manager, she is a venture partner at Felicis Ventures, where she invests in early-stage startups in cybersecurity, enterprise infrastructure, and business-to-business software as a service. She is also founder and board chair of Advancing Women in Tech, and a contributor to Forbes. With GeekWire co-founder Todd Bishop. Edited by Curt Milton. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Amazon's AI strategy, how AI startups can stand out, and hope for AI and humanity
This week on the GeekWire Podcast, we look at how Amazon is positioning itself in the emerging era of generative artificial intelligence. We play and assess clips of Amazon CEO Andy Jassy explaining the company's AI strategy on its earnings call this week. We also discuss the history of AI usage by startups, and consider advice from investors and startup leaders at Seattle Tech Week for emerging tech companies looking to stand out with their own AI applications and solutions. And finally, we reconsider our approach to interacting with machines and contemplate the possibility of artificial intelligence reflecting not just…
Investor Spotlight with Jon Turow
Get to know Madrona Partner Jon Turow. Learn why he got into VC, what he looks for in founders, where the opportunities lay for founders when it comes to generative AI, and what he enjoys doing outside the office. (00:00:00) Introduction (00:00:39) Jon Turow's background (00:01:19) Why venture capital (00:02:27) Why Madrona (00:03:20) Opportunities in generative AI (00:05:35) What Jon looks for in founders (00:07:02) Jon's book recommendations (00:08:58) What Jon does for fun
Panther Labs Founder Jack Naglieri on Cloud-Native SIEM and Self-Growth
This week on Founded & Funded, Madrona Partner Vivek Ramaswami talks to Jack Naglieri, Founder and CEO of 2022 IA40 winner Panther Labs. Jack founded Panther, a leading cloud-native security information and event management platform, because he had experienced first-hand the threat detection challenges companies have at cloud scale. Growing frustrated with the compromises required by traditional SIEM platforms, Jack took his experiences from Yahoo and Airbnb and set out to build a solution that detects and responds to suspicious activity in real time. In this IA40 spotlight episode, Jack shares where the inspiration to launch his own company came…
Common Room's Viraj Mody on Building Community, Foundation Models and Being Relentless
Madrona Managing Director Soma dives into the world of intelligent applications and generative AI with Common Room Co-founder and CTO Viraj Mody. Madrona first invested in Common Room in 2020 — and we had the pleasure of having the founders join us on Founded & Funded the following year. Common Room is an intelligent community growth platform that combines engagement data from platforms like LinkedIn, Slack, Twitter, Reddit, GitHub, and others with product usage and CRM data to surface insights from across an organization's entire user community. Customers like Figma, OpenAI, and Grafana Labs use Common Room to better understand…
Investor Spotlight with Matt McIlwain
Get to know Madrona Managing Partner Matt McIlwain. Learn where he gets his spark to work with entrepreneurs, what he looks for in founders, where the opportunities lay for founders when it comes to generative AI, and what he enjoys doing outside the office.
Data Visionary Bob Muglia on the Modern Data Stack and Lessons from Snowflake
In this week's episode which is leading up to our Intelligent Applications Summit on November 2nd, Soma speaks with Bob Muglia. Bob has thought deeply about the Modern Data Stack and they speak about it here - what is needed in the data stack to enable Intelligent Applications (or data driven apps as Bob calls them) and the opportunities for new companies to innovate. Bob is also well known as the CEO that took Snowflake from a promising application for the public cloud to success by focusing on the problem of scaling a data warehouse in the cloud, and building…
IA40 Spotlight: Fivetran CEO George Fraser on Data Replication and Connectors
This week Madrona Investor Sabrina Wu talks with Fivetran Co-founder and CEO George Fraser. Fivetran is fundamentally a data replication company — that's how George explains it. But the company actually started out trying to solve a completely different problem when it was founded in 2012 and pivoted to strictly data integration in 2015 after multiple customers started asking for help. But in attacking that problem differently than it had ever been done before — by only focusing on replicating people's data into the desired destination w/o getting sucked into any of the workflows that the user intended to do…
Amazon defies gravity, Microsoft's biggest challenge, and one startup's quest to wipe out deforestation
This week on the GeekWire Podcast: Amazon's latest results demonstrated its extraordinary flexibility and ability to overcome challenges in the broader economy using the built-in safeguards in its business, most notably the Amazon Web Services cash machine. Amazon spent an extra $4 billion to keep its business running smoothly despite a clogged economy. Plus, Microsoft hires an Amazon veteran to take on "one of the greatest challenges of our time," and Seattle startup Cloud Paper raises $5 million in new funding for its environmentally friendly, tree-free toilet paper. With Todd Bishop and John Cook; Edited by Curt Milton; theme music…
