— Xbox Chief Operating Officer Helen Chiang has suddenly left Microsoft after 21 years with the company, just months after landing the role in July. Her past roles include leading Mojang and the Minecraft franchise.

Verge first reported the news on Friday, citing a memo from Xbox CEO Asha Sharma that did not disclose the reason for her departure.

An Xbox spokesperson was likewise mum on details. “We don’t discuss individual personnel matters. We’re grateful for Helen’s years of service and wish her well,” the company said in an email to GeekWire.

Xbox has undergone a massive reorganization that included Chiang’s appointment, roughly 3,200 job cuts through the fiscal year — about 20% of the Xbox workforce — the spinoff of four game studios and a plan to dramatically flatten management.

— Seattle-based tech leader Philip Su has joined Anthropic as a member of technical staff on beneficial deployments. The management role focuses on AI applications in global health, life sciences, economic mobility and education.

Su started his tech career with 12 years at Microsoft and later worked for Facebook. He has launched multiple ventures, including Audere, a global health software nonprofit, and Superphonic, a podcast player. In 2021, he worked at an Amazon fulfillment center to experience the holiday rush.

Su also created and leads an annual course for University of Washington computer science students on how to maximize their personal and professional growth.

— More leadership changes are underway at SeekOut, a Bellevue-based recruiting startup launched in 2017. The company announced Monday that co-founder John Tippett is now president, moving from his role as chief client officer.

In April, SeekOut CEO and co-founder Anoop Gupta retired and passed the reins to enterprise software veteran Sean Thompson. In August, co-founder and chief technology officer Aravind Bala took over as CEO. Thompson is now listed as an adviser to the board.

Tippett will lead day-to-day operations and work with Bala “on the company’s direction,” according to a press release. SeekOut said it wants to integrate AI tools into customers’ operations to reduce recruiters’ workload.

SeekOut is No. 68 on the GeekWire 200, a ranked index of the Pacific Northwest’s top startups.

— Fred Hutch Cancer Center has appointed Michael (Mick) Merritt as vice president of strategy and partnerships, effective Dec. 7.

Merritt joins from Penn Medicine, where he was chief operating officer of Penn Signature Services. He has more than 25 years of experience in academic medicine, consulting, strategy, business development and operations.

— Industrial wastewater treatment startup Membrion has named Alexander Demihovsky as director of applications engineering. He joins the Seattle-based company from Xylem. His past employers include Evoqua Water Technologies and Bechtel National.

“Alex helps turn customer needs into viable project plans, mitigate execution risks and develop competitive proposals,” the company said.

Membrion is No. 160 on the GeekWire 200.

— Marine geothermal energy startup Endurance Energy has named Marty Calvert as the director of turbomachinery. Calvert joins the Seattle startup from Blue Origin. He was previously a turbomachinery engineer at NASA for more than 13 years.

Endurance completed its fifth deployment to the ocean floor last month, testing Adélie, a 100-kilowatt geothermal generator named for a penguin.

— Lattice Semiconductor, a Hillsboro, Ore.-based company, has added two directors to its board:

• Raejeanne Skillern, former VP and chief marketing officer of Amazon Web Services, who returns to Lattice after serving on the board from 2022 to 2024
• John McCool, senior vice president and special adviser to the CEO at Arista Networks

Seattle-based TriMagnetix has landed new funding and commitments totaling $1 million to continue developing a semiconductor chip that, according to initial lab testing, consumes 800 times less energy than a traditional chip to process the same amount of data.

The startup uses nanomagnetic technology that requires only electrical pulses rather than the constant power stream traditional chips need, dramatically reducing electricity consumption and heat generation. The design also makes the chip resistant to radiation, and it’s built to integrate with existing computing infrastructure.

The startup has made additional progress beyond the new funding:

• TriMagnetix is partnering with WaveWorks Technologies on its first paid pilot.
• It has joined the Plug and Play Semiconductor Accelerator.
• It was recently accepted into the Nvidia Inception program, which offers support including access to tech experts, introductions to Nvidia’s corporate clients and marketing.

Earthbound data centers struggling to curb energy use and heat output are seeking more sustainable chips, but the startup is particularly interested in satellite applications.

The Pacific Northwest, home to companies including Starcloud and SpaceX, is the “satellite capital of the world,” said Lucas Hahn, co-founder, president and chief strategic officer of TriMagnetix.

Satellite companies have told him they want semiconductors that are energy efficient and resistant to the radiation experienced in space, Hahn said. That makes TriMagnetix’s devices “a no-brainer.”

In addition to Hahn, the startup’s other employee is Madison Hanberry, who launched the TriMagnetix in 2023. Hanberry, who has served as chief of research and development, is transitioning to CEO. His sister, Aspen White, is also a co-founder.

The chips made so far by TriMagnetix are not the high-performance graphics processing units, or GPUs, used for applications such as AI and 3D animation. Nor are they simpler central processing units, or CPUs.

“It’s replacing specific compute in certain devices at a very low level,” Hahn said. “So not quite CPU yet, but it is at the core level doing similar things.”

TriMagnetix has contracted with the Washington Nanofabrication Facility at the University of Washington to use the site’s fabrication equipment. It aims to have a product available for commercial sales within the next year.

The round was led by Acequia Capital with participation from Athenaeum Ventures. Actuate Ventures has also committed to the round. The combined total from the three firms is $1 million. Last year, the startup received a $200,000 investment from climate venture fund SNØCAP.