"We're unfortunately less safe today than we were pre-9/11, so on September 10th, because of not the technology issues, but the people issues," said Max Stier.
A New Jersey police officer holds an American Flag before the start of the ceremony at the 9/11 Memorial on the 23rd anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, Wednesday, Sept. 11, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Pamela Smith)
"That allows them to ... honor those men and women who answered the call not only on that fateful day 25 years ago, but in service," said Stephen Holley.
A flower is visible on one of the benches at the National 9/11 Pentagon Memorial outside the Pentagon in Washington, Sunday, Sept. 11, 2022, on the morning of the 21st anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
Jay Clayton testifies during a Senate Intelligence Committee confirmation hearing to be the next Director of National Intelligence on Capitol Hill, Wednesday, July 15, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib)
"We can all have sensitivity to it, regardless if you knew someone or not, or experienced 9/11 or not. It's still a strong, powerful story," said Paul Morando.
An American flag is unfurled at the Pentagon in Washington, Saturday, Sept. 11, 2021, at sunrise on the morning of the 20th anniversary of the terrorist attacks. The American flag is draped over the site of impact at the Pentagon. In the foreground, the National 9/11 Pentagon Memorial, opened in 2008 adjacent to the site, commemorates the lives lost at the Pentagon and onboard American Airlines Flight 77. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Frank X. Shaw addresses the media at Microsoft on May 18, 2025, in advance of the Build conference. (GeekWire Photo / Todd Bishop)
It’s the end of an era at Microsoft: Frank X. Shaw, the executive who oversaw the tech giant’s communications for nearly three decades, first at an external agency and for the last 17 years as one of its senior leaders, is leaving at the end of the year.
Shaw, 64, said he’s not retiring, although he doesn’t have another job lined up. He plans to stop working for a while, do some of the things he hasn’t had time for, and then decide what’s next.
“I have had a ringside seat at some of the biggest leadership, technology, and business transformations that have ever taken place,” Shaw said, sharing the news of his departure (under embargo) in a phone call Thursday afternoon. “I just feel incredibly fortunate.”
He said he had been discussing his potential departure for some time with Takeshi Numoto, Microsoft’s chief marketing officer, looking for the right moment.
Microsoft has not announced a successor for his role as chief communications officer. In a LinkedIn post, Shaw said the company will consider internal and external candidates.
A statement from Shaw’s colleagues in corporate communications credited him for his many years shaping Microsoft’s “voice and reputation with intelligence, candor and wit. His leadership and contributions to the company are too extensive to list, as is the number of journalists who have, at one point or another, used his name in vain.”
A former Marine Corps public affairs officer, Shaw has worked with all three of Microsoft’s CEOs. He started on the agency side, at Waggener Edstrom — now known as We. Communications — when Bill Gates was still running the company.
He built his reputation defending and advocating for Microsoft through some of its hardest stretches: the antitrust years, the Windows Vista backlash, the scramble to replace Steve Ballmer as CEO, and the weekend in 2023 when OpenAI’s board fired Sam Altman.
As the company’s top communications executive, he has also told the story of Microsoft’s reinvention under CEO Satya Nadella, from the LinkedIn and Activision Blizzard deals to an AI push that has carried Azure past $100 billion in annual revenue.
Evolving with technology: Shaw has spent much of his career closely watching the tech landscape and moving Microsoft’s voice into new channels as they emerged.
“We’re always thinking about what is the art and science of communications,” Shaw told PRWeek. “How do we reach our audiences most effectively in a changing environment?” He called the arc from print to radio and TV to social media and newsletters a “constant evolution of influence.”
He turned the corporate blog into a place where the company argued its own case, writing “Microsoft by the numbers” himself in 2010 — a stat-by-stat comparison against Apple and Google that TechCrunch dubbed “fantastic passive-aggressive.”
He and his team experimented with different and risky methods of telling the company’s story, holding mass briefings under embargo and publishing documents known as the “Book of News” in advance of its major keynotes and conferences. The prospect of a reporter having to answer to “fxs” was no doubt a factor in ensuring the news (mostly) didn’t leak.
Shaw hired Steve Clayton out of a technical role at Microsoft in London, where he had been blogging about the company unofficially out of frustration with how it was perceived, and made him chief storyteller. In the middle of the AI boom, Clayton and Shaw embraced the analog undercurrents in popular culture and launched Signal, a quarterly Microsoft print magazine for business leaders.
Clayton was VP of communications strategy by the time he left in January to become chief communications officer at Cisco, making Shaw’s planned departure the second high-profile exit from Microsoft’s comms team in a year.
Adapting to AI: In recent years, Shaw made his own team a testing ground for AI, publishing what worked and what didn’t. In a 2023 post he described using Copilot in Teams to pull story ideas out of conversations with spokespeople and anticipate coverage after interviews, and asking the AI to “poke holes in a statement we’re making on a tricky topic.”
He called it his corporal, a reference to Napoleon, who was said to bring one to meetings and ask whether his generals’ war plans made sense to him. A survey of 80 people in Microsoft’s communications and marketing organization found 84% did not want to go back to working without it.
Shaw was also known to use AI as a sounding board when a story frustrated him, offering him an objective take before he called and let a particular reporter have it.
He announced his departure Friday morning in a message to Microsoft’s communications team (reminding them he’s still there for a few months yet) and his public post on LinkedIn.
“Thank you as well to all the reporters, editors, writers, influencers and analysts who have put up with me over this time, enduring my early and late night calls, my off the record ‘no comments,’ my bad story ideas and my extended commentary on headlines and positioning,” he wrote.
“You all have incredibly hard and valuable jobs,” he added, “and while I’ve not agreed with everything said about us 😊 I appreciate you anyway.”
A new draft of the long-awaited crypto Clarity Act has dropped with amendments.
As first reported by Eleanor Terrett from Crypto in America and Punchbowl’s Brendan Pedersen, the updated bill contains changes including requiring non-decentralized DeFi protocols to register with the CFTC, and changes around how credit unions deal in crypto, according to reporters.
The specifics include that a decentralized finance app fails the test of being such a protocol test if someone can control or materially alter its functionality, if it doesn’t run solely on pre-established transparent encoded rules, or if someone can restrict or censor its use.
It also adds that a federal credit union may use a digital asset or distributed ledger system to perform, provide, or deliver any activity, function, product, or service it is otherwise authorized by law to perform.
JUST IN: An updated version of the Clarity Act has released ahead of next week's floor vote
"Latest changes include new DeFi requirements and credit union fix" — Punchbowl News
Lawmakers were hoping a crucial vote on the crypto market structure bill would go ahead in August before their five-week recess. It was delayed and the Senate will now vote on it on September 15.
The bill is not bipartisan yet, according to the reporters. Senate Republicans started circulating the updated legislation on Thursday.
The Clarity Act drafts a framework to formally divide oversight between regulators, distinguishing which digital assets are securities, commodities or stablecoins. Crypto industry executives have long called for such rules to be in place.
Though passed by the House of Representatives last July, it has been stalled this year, mostly because the banking lobby clashed with crypto companies over paying customers stablecoin yield.
A new draft tackling the issue of ethics started circulating in July, banning government officials from promoting or making money from crypto — something Democrats have criticized the Trump family for doing.
Despite the changes, a group of Democrats said the bill fell short and demanded amendments to the bill.
Pro-crypto lawmakers have blasted Democratic politicians who they think are deliberately holding back the bill.
President Donald Trump has urged lawmakers to get the legislation over the line. In August, he said that in order for the U.S. to remain the “undisputed leader in Bitcoin and crypto,” they had to pass the “very, very powerful legislation.”
"Based on these leading practices ... they should consolidate these programs and focus on all types of information, leverage expertise," said Joe Hackett.
FILE- In this Feb. 5, 2018, file photo, the seal of the Board of Governors of the United States Federal Reserve System is displayed in the ground at the Marriner S. Eccles Federal Reserve Board Building in Washington. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)
The commander and pilot of NASA's Artemis II mission have gained a new distinction five months after splashing down from the Moon: They're not fully retiring from the space agency.
Reid Wiseman and Victor Glover are the first astronauts to join NASA's emeritus program, enabling them to continue to support the work being done at Johnson Space Center in Houston. They will remain available to train and mentor the current workforce while still being able to pursue employment and opportunities outside of NASA.
"I have asked NASA ... to not use the term 'retire' as much, but technically emeritus is a retirement program," Glover told collectSPACE.com on Wednesday. "It's something we have typically done for scientists when they have groundbreaking research, and they want to go back to academia to teach or to research and publish."
Seattle’s foundation as a hub of technology, science and innovation runs deep. Its confidence should, too. (GeekWire Photo / Kevin Lisota)
[Editor’s Note: Jacob Colker is co-founder and co-managing director of AI House.]
Seattle is one of the most talented, creative and inventive places in the world. But if we want the rest of the country to see us that way, we have to start acting like we believe it ourselves.
First, we need more pride around here.
Let’s talk about what it means to be proud.
My mother grew up in Tarnów, Poland. She escaped communism and came to the United States in 1978 looking for a better life. She found one, built a family, and has lived in America for nearly 50 years.
But my mom is still very, very Polish.
Several times a year, I get a message: “Jakub. Did you see this?”
I already know what’s coming.
Some Polish person did something. A Polish athlete won something. A Polish scientist discovered something. Some guy with a Polish grandmother finished third in a regional Nebraska chess tournament. Doesn’t matter. Poland.
“Jakub. Look at this person.”
Okay, Mom. Who is she?
“POLISH.”
That’s it. That’s the story.
And I love it, because Mom has this completely indestructible pride in where she comes from. Plenty of us know someone like this: a Greek mom, Vietnamese dad, Indian uncle or Nigerian aunt. Somebody from their corner of the world did something great, and you are going to hear about it.
There is power in that instinct. Not because your people are better, but because you believe your place matters.
Seattle could use more of that.
We are almost pathologically humble. Our response to notable achievements is often a polite nod before everybody gets back to our regularly scheduled Seattle freeze.
That humility is working against us.
Second, Seattle isawesomeand the evidence is everywhere.
I see Seattle’s potential every day working alongside dozens of entrepreneurs building startups. Some of the most ambitious and talented people in the world are already here.
We have many billion-dollar startups across the region and more than 200,000 people working across technology, science, space, health and startups. That is more than enough talent to build yet a dozen more unicorns.
Nearly 40% of the world flies every day on airplanes built here. Blue Origin and SpaceX build rockets here. Starbucks, Amazon, Costco, REI and Nordstrom reshaped how the world shops. Microsoft helped put computing into our homes. AWS and Azure helped make the cloud the infrastructure of modern life. The University of Washington ranks among the world’s best. Seattle medical breakthroughs have helped save tens of millions of lives. We are pushing forward fusion energy, aerospace and maritime innovation. And let’s not forget: we just won the darn Super Bowl.
And so, so much more.
So why, despite all the evidence, do we still seem to have a communal case of imposter syndrome?
This is not a city lacking accomplishments.
It is a city with a branding problem.
Third, we have let other people tell our story for far too long. This ends, today.
Cities have brands whether they intend to or not. Silicon Valley is where ambitious people build companies. Nashville is music. Los Angeles for film and television.
Seattle’s cultural humility mostly assumes our accomplishments speak for themselves.
They don’t.
Reputation gets built one story at a time. You hear one story and it is interesting. You hear 10 and you notice a pattern. You hear 50 and your beliefs begin to change: That’s where important science happens. That’s where talented people live. That’s where I should invest, build or work.
Those beliefs shape real decisions about where people move, where companies get built and where investors put their money.
So to fix Seattle’s branding problem, here’s what we need to do.
Step 1: Let’s tell one clear story — Seattle’s talent pool is ridiculous.
Seattle is where deep technical talent meets deep domain expertise to build consequential things: AI, aerospace, cloud computing, medicine, fusion, robotics, maritime technology and enterprise software.
We do not need 50 slogans. We do not need another consultant-led branding exercise. We need one simple idea that people outside this region can remember: Seattle’s talent pool is ridiculous.
There is a reason some of the world’s most important companies have built major engineering centers, research hubs and second headquarters here for decades. They come for the talent.
And that talent is why Seattle will not just participate in the future. We will lead in building it.
Step 2: Let’s use the megaphones we already have.
Seattle already has outlets (including this one) telling this story — publications, podcasts and social channels that document the region’s startups, breakthroughs and product launches.
Every day, startups are raising money, scientists are making breakthroughs, companies are launching products, engineers are building technology and institutions are pushing this region forward.
That is not just tech news. That is the raw material of Seattle’s reputation. So let’s use it.
When you read or hear about a Seattle startup doing something remarkable, share it. When you see a story about a breakthrough at Fred Hutch or the University of Washington, send it to someone outside the region. When a local company raises money, lands a major customer or gets acquired, don’t just scroll past it. Amplify it.
Step 3: Let’s treat every local win as Seattle’s win.
When a local robotics company ships something remarkable, that is Seattle’s story.
When a maritime startup reinvents how ports operate, that is Seattle’s story.
When our AI research labs, or hometown heroes in Amazon and Microsoft, create breakthroughs, that is Seattle’s story.
When a biotech company lands a major breakthrough, when a game studio creates a global hit, when a clean-energy company reaches a milestone, that is Seattle’s story.
Our companies, universities, hospitals, labs, investors, civic organizations and business leaders should act like an amplification network for one another. Stop treating somebody else’s success as somebody else’s news.
Their win is our collective proof.
Step 4: Let’s put Seattle on the label.
Founders need to say where they are building. “Made with ❤️in Seattle” should be on the bottom of every website. Put Seattle in the press release. Put it in the LinkedIn post. Mention it onstage. Say it in interviews. Tell investors. Tell customers.
Silicon Valley companies have spent decades attaching their success to their geography. We should do the same. If you build something extraordinary here, make sure the world knows it was built here.
Step 5: Let’s do a better job of selling Seattle.
Every venture capitalist, founder, executive and civic leader in this region should be able to explain in 60 seconds why somebody should build a company here.
Not defend Seattle. Not apologize for Seattle. Sell Seattle.
Reminder: It’s the talent.
(And also cream cheese on hot dogs.)
When investors and founders from New York, Boston or San Francisco come to town, show them the region. Introduce them to engineers, researchers and entrepreneurs. Bring them into the community. Let them see what is happening.
The best branding campaign is somebody getting on a plane home saying, I had no idea all of this was happening in Seattle.
If we’re going to succeed, we need tobelievefirst.
Insert all the Ted Lasso jokes you want, but this stuff matters.
There is no giant Seattle marketing department coming to save us. There is no national referee who will eventually review the evidence and declare that Seattle deserves more respect.
When somebody here does something extraordinary, act like it. Read the story. Share the post. Send the article to your team. Text it to your friend in New York. Put it in the group chat. Bring it up over dinner. Tell your kids.
Basically, become my Polish mother.
My mom doesn’t give a hoot that Kraków ranks No. 6 on some list or Warsaw is No. 8 on another. She doesn’t need a clickbait listicle to tell her Poland matters. She already believes it does.
We have to build our reputation ourselves. The good news is that we already have everything we need: extraordinary companies, world-class institutions, ambitious people, groundbreaking science and media documenting it all.
What we have been missing is the confidence to start being more loud. Stories become patterns, patterns become reputation, and reputation becomes gravity.
Gravity is what creates influence and respect.
Pride is not something somebody else gives you. You don’t wait until the rest of the country decides your home is important. YOU decide it is. Then you act like it.
They joined as part of a funding round that totals $13 million, according to a Form D filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. NLM has reported at least $26 million in funding since 2018, according to SEC filings.
The company offers a way to move more data without burning more power. Inside a data center, information travels between chips and servers as pulses of light. The part that puts the data onto the light beam, called a modulator, is normally made of silicon. It limits how much data a link can carry, and how much power that takes.
NLM’s technology, sold under the name Selerion, is an organic electro-optic material that goes on as a liquid and hardens in place on the chip, taking over the modulator’s job from the silicon underneath. The company says it does the work 10 to 15 times more efficiently.
Applications for the technology include fiber-optic networking equipment and the links between servers in AI data centers. NLM says it could also be used in quantum computing.
Five existing investors participated in the round, which the company described as a Series A2: Emerald Technology Ventures, Oregon Venture Fund, Idemitsu, Tokyo Ohka Kogyo and StoryHouse Ventures. Private investors and company employees also took part.
Pangaea Ventures, which has offices in Canada, the United States and Japan, backs startups built on advances in materials, chemistry and biology. It says it has invested in more than 40 companies over more than 20 years. David Weekes of Pangaea is joining NLM’s board, which already includes Frank Balas of Emerald.
Diamond Edge Ventures, led by president Curtis Schickner, has $200 million to invest through 2030. It backs companies in Mitsubishi Chemical’s core markets, including advanced materials, polymers and electronics, and its portfolio includes Boston Materials, DigiLens and Eridan.
Hamamatsu Photonics, which invested previously, is not part of this round but is still a shareholder, according to the company.
The company was incorporated in 2018 as Nonlinear Materials Corp. It licensed its patents from the University of Washington, building on 25 years of research there in the labs of chemists Larry Dalton and Bruce Robinson. Robinson is one of the company’s co-founders, as is Lewis Johnson, a longtime UW researcher who is chief technology officer.
Pack Ventures, the UW-affiliated venture fund, is an investor in NLM and is also listed among the advisors to its board.
GeekWire covered NLM’s launch in 2019, when the company was raising a $1.25 million seed round and running a small production lab on campus.
NLM Photonics CEO Brad Booth. (NLM Photo)
Brad Booth, who spent nine years at Microsoft and joined NLM’s board in 2023, took over as CEO in 2024 from co-founder Gerard Zytnicki, who is now a corporate advisor to the company. The company raised $1 million from Tokyo Ohka Kogyo and Hamamatsu in 2023.
Last year NLM said outside testing confirmed that a 1.6-terabit chip combining silicon with its materials ran at 224 gigabits per second on each of eight channels. It started sending samples of 1.6- and 3.2-terabit chips to customers in March.
NLM is not alone in trying to build a better modulator. Lightwave Logic, a publicly traded Colorado company also working with organic materials, named NLM among its smaller competitors in its annual report for 2024.
Some of the company’s rivals have raised a significant amount of funding. HyperLight, a Harvard spinout that uses a crystal called lithium niobate instead of an organic material, has raised $117 million, including $80 million in June led by MediaTek.
NLM has worked to get its materials onto other companies’ production lines. In March the company said the chips going out to customers were made at GlobalFoundries, and that it had built modulators using Tower Semiconductor’s high-volume silicon photonics process.
"The department really has had to change the way it is thinking and its approach to brain health effects from blast over pressure," said Alyssa Hundrup.
"We knew a size standard evaluation was coming, but it appears from everything we've gathered that the Hill did not get a lot notice," said Jim Carroll.
The Capitol is seen under early morning skies in Washington, Thursday, Dec. 20, 2018. The Senate approved legislation to temporarily fund the government late last night, a key step toward averting a federal shutdown after President Donald Trump backed off his demand for money for a border wall with Mexico. The House is expected to vote before Friday's deadline, when funding for a portion of the government expires. Without resolution, more than 800,000 federal workers would face furloughs or be forced to work without pay, disrupting government operations days before Christmas. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
"The exclusion bar can be for the rest of your lifetime or for several years, but it effectively halts your ability to participate," said Alice Harris.
FILE - In this Sept. 14, 2021, file photo, a syringe is prepared with the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine at a clinic at the Reading Area Community College in Reading, Pa. Millions of U.S. workers now have a Jan. 4 deadline to get a COVID vaccine. The federal government on Thursday, Nov. 4, 2021 announced new vaccine requirements for workers at companies with more than 100 employees as well as workers at health care facilities that treat Medicare and Medicaid patients.. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)
File - In this Aug. 9, 2018, file photo, firefighters keep watch the Holy Fire burning in the Cleveland National Forest in Lake Elsinore, Calif. Researchers have expanded a health-monitoring study of wildland firefighters after a previous study found season-long health declines and deteriorating reaction times. (AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu, File)
The new lawsuit comes after a federal judge ruled that a preliminary injunction motion over the USDA reorganization belonged as its own separate legal action.
"Somewhere along the way we've lost the tolerance for federal workers to make a mistake when they're trying to do the best job that they can," said Rob Shriver.
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