For the second time in the past 60 days, former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz has penned an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal that takes direct aim at the state’s political leadership, calling Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson “inept” and noting that Gov. Bob Ferguson continues to “burden businesses with one tax increase after another.”

Like GeekWire contributing columnist Charles Fitzgerald earlier this month, Schultz also points out that Gov. Ferguson’s recently-formed economic development council has no real startup representation, and is packed with big institutions. 

In his piece, Schultz points specifically to Kent-based Stoke Space, the reusable rocket startup that has raised more than $1 billion in funding, as the kind of company Washington needs to fight to keep.

Schultz, who decamped for Miami earlier this year, is obviously concerned about the well-being of his former state. And the one-time presidential hopeful certainly has a lot of ideas for the place he just left — arguing that the reindustrialization of the U.S. could be sparked by matching entrepreneurs with young people seeking apprenticeship opportunities in the trades. 

In May, Schultz wrote a separate piece in the Journal titled: Seattle Turns Hostile to the Great Businesses It Made.

Schultz makes some good points, and he echoes the statements of many in the business community who are concerned about the current direction. We’ve also reported recently on how other states — including Ohio — are out to eat the lunch of Washington state.

And we’ve pointed out the the long slide in Washington state’s business climate, reporting on CNBC’s report this week that ranks Washington No. 11 for business. That’s down from No. 2 four years ago, and No. 1 in 2017.

But you have to wonder: Is the coffee magnate really the best messenger for what ails Washington state? And what’s his end game? It seems his words would carry more weight had he decided to stick around, and try to fix the broken system. 

Then again, Florida has its own challenges. Perhaps his next editorial will tackle a few of those.

— Mike Torres, a former executive at Amazon, Microsoft and Google, has joined Dropbox as the company’s first chief product officer.

“As a product leader, joining a company that helped pioneer product-led growth is energizing…” Torres said on LinkedIn. “In this role, my focus will be simple: help Dropbox ship the right things at the right time for our customers.”

Seattle-based Torres comes to Dropbox from Google, where he served as vice president of product for Chrome. Before that, he spent more than a decade at Amazon, most recently as VP of Kindle. At Microsoft, he led teams working on OneDrive, Windows Movie Maker and other products.

— T-Mobile appointed Chris Sambar as chief enterprise officer, effective no later than Oct. 14. Sambar will lead the Bellevue, Wash.-based company’s small- and medium-sized business, enterprise and government units.

Sambar joins from Public Storage, where he serves as chief operating officer. He was previously at fellow communications giant AT&T for more than two decades, most recently as a president of the company’s global network organization overseeing architecture, engineering, construction, operations, tower strategy and program management.

“Chris is a seasoned wireless industry leader with proven experience including expanding high-growth businesses and seizing market opportunities,” said Srini Gopalan, CEO of T-Mobile.

T-Mobile made two additional C-suite changes:

Chief Business & Product Officer Mike Katz has resigned to “pursue new professional interests,” according to a press release. Katz was with the company for more than 28 years and will remain in a strategic advisory role through the end of the year. Gopalan offered his “sincere gratitude to Mike for his incredible contributions to T‑Mobile.” Read more about his departure in this GeekWire story.

André Almeida‘s C-suite role has expanded and his title has been updated to chief marketing, brand and broadband officer. He previously served as chief broadband, enterprise and emerging business officer. In the new position, Almeida will help oversee the company’s consumer wireless and broadband businesses.

— After 37 years with Microsoft, Xbox Vice President Kevin LaChapelle was among those laid off this week, with the cuts hitting the gaming division particularly hard as the company aims to overhaul the division.

LaChapelle was hired by the Redmond, Wash.-based tech giant in 1989 as a software design engineer and joined the Xbox team in 2012.

“I will say my fondest memories are of leading the team of very talented engineers who built the Xbox Backward Compatibility program,” LaChapelle said on LinkedIn. When Phil Spencer, then head of Xbox, announced the program at the Electronic Entertainment Expo in 2015, LaChapelle added, “The audience’s reaction was unbelievable.”

— Adam Schoenfeld has resigned as chief marketing officer for Inflection.io. In April, the B2B marketing automation company acquired Keyplay, a Seattle startup co-founded and previously led by Schoenfeld. The deal reunited Schoenfeld and Inflection CEO Aaron Bird, who have known each other for many years and have collaborated and invested in each other’s companies.

Schoenfeld said on LinkedIn that he “had the best of intentions” when he committed to the acquisition, but then burnout hit him. “I was embarrassed and disappointed in myself. I dreaded telling the team. I didn’t want to bail and let people down… I’m sure others have been in this place,” he added. “After facing the hard conversations, I’m excited to look ahead.”

Schoenfeld remains a part-time CMO advisor for the business and also produces Adam’s GTM Report, which provides data-backed research, maps and tools for leaders and builders in the space.

— Kent, Wash.-based Stoke Space Technologies named former OpenAI executive Kevin Weil to its board. Weil has held leadership roles at Planet, Meta, Instagram and Twitter and also serves on the boards of Cisco and The Nature Conservancy.

Stoke Space builds reusable rockets and raised $860 million from investors in its latest round. It’s No. 6 on the GeekWire 200, a ranked index of the Pacific Northwest’s top startups.

— Skippy Shaw has joined fusion startup Helion Energy as director of Washington government affairs. The Everett, Wash.-based company is working to build what could be the world’s first commercial fusion facility in Central Washington. Shaw joins Helion from The Nature Conservancy, where she led state governmental relations for TNC’s Washington chapter.

— David Langworthy announced that he has resigned from Microsoft after nearly 25 years, leaving the role of architect for Azure OpenAI. Langworthy, who worked as a founding member of Azure OpenAI, GitHub Copilot, GenAI, MAC, and Azure AI Services, is the founder and CTO of a stealth startup based in Bellevue.

— Carissa Allen has also left Microsoft, departing as director of strategy for the company’s events, including Ignite and AI Tour. On LinkedIn, Allen called her resignation after nearly 30 years “my Valiant Reboot Project (no “retirement” here) because you know I’m not finished yet.”

— And in case you missed it:

• Bill Colleran, a veteran technology executive who previously led Impinj, has joined Seattle-based AI coding startup Adronite as CEO. Edward Rothschild, who co-founded and previously led the company, is transitioning to chief technology officer. Read more in this GeekWire story.
• Nick Parker, a 26-year Microsoft veteran who led the company’s worldwide commercial sales business, is leaving to become Nvidia’s new sales chief, effective Aug. 24. Read more here.