Amazon’s new AI wearable, Booking's return to Expedia's backyard, and LinkedIn’s not-so-Seattle startup list

Todd Bishop (0:02)

These new wearables, they'll listen to your conversations, and they will listen for like offhanded remarks. Like, I need more toilet paper, or did you order that food that we needed for the week, or whatever?

John Cook (0:15)

Or, holy crap, Jen's pregnant.

Todd Bishop (0:21)

Right, and at which point, on your Amazon account, there would be a pregnancy test or baby clothes waiting for you, because that's what they're gonna do.

John Cook (0:29)

And then it shows up for my wife to see, you know? Oh, no!

Jen's just a friend, I swear.

Todd Bishop (0:45)

Hi, and welcome to GeekWire. I'm GeekWire co-founder Todd Bishop.

John Cook (0:48)

And I'm GeekWire co-founder John Cook.

Todd Bishop (0:50)

We are coming to you from Seattle, where we get to report each day about what's happening around us in business, technology and innovation. What happens here matters everywhere, and every week on this show, we talk about some of the most interesting and important stories and trends in the news. Coming up this week, Travel Giant, Booking Holdings is building an AI travel startup in Seattle, and it solves a mystery about one of our recent GeekWire podcast guests.

LinkedIn ranked Seattle's top startups, and the list is so flawed that we were almost beside ourselves when we were reading it. We'll tell you what was wrong with it and what LinkedIn has to say for itself. Do you know the thing where we're all convinced that our devices are listening to us and serving up ads and content and promotions based on what they hear us saying?

John Cook (1:37)

Say what, Alexa?

Todd Bishop (1:39)

Exactly. Amazon just made it a product feature as one of its devices, and you have to pay for it to happen. That'll be coming up later on in the show.

Finally, a much less convoluted GeekWire trivia challenge than the one we had last week. So stick around for all that. We're back home, John. You feel comfortable, huh? I feel a lot more comfortable here. Yeah. Yeah.

John Cook (2:01)

This is your place.

Todd Bishop (2:02)

It's been about a month since we've been able to record the show just in our normal offices here.

John Cook (2:07)

Seaplanes flying overhead.

Todd Bishop (2:09)

Right. Exactly. It was fun to be in the studio and the sound was a lot different editing the show last week.

John Cook (2:15)

All that cool old gear and equipment was fascinating.

Todd Bishop (2:18)

That's right. So a big thanks again to Seth Paul for hosting us at Frontburner Studios. You can hear that show if you missed it last week. John, a while back on GeekWire, we gave up comments. It was sort of becoming a bit of a, as you would say, a cesspool.

That's one way to describe it.

John Cook (2:35)

So I still enjoyed it, but not everybody on the team enjoyed moderating the comment section of GeekWire.

Todd Bishop (2:42)

So I was reminded of the love-hate relationship that I have with comments this past week when I got a notification that we had a new comment on Spotify. And when I was in journalism school back at California State University, Chico, I had a journalism professor, Glenn Blesky, who used to say to me, you know, what really matters in this profession, most of all, is to have a thick skin because you are going to need it.

John Cook (3:09)

Absolutely agree with that.

Todd Bishop (3:11)

Totally. And it's something I struggle with a little bit. So anyway, I saw this comment and I went in. What nice thing did somebody have to say? Somebody really loves us out there. Obviously. Yeah. If they took the time to comment on this Spotify episode. Here we go.

John Cook (3:25)

No, no one ever has anything good to say about somebody.

Todd Bishop (3:29)

So as you recall, last week, we were talking at length about immigration issues and the federal government's case against Microsoft effectively over the use of the PERM program to convert visa holders into green card holders and to permanent residents and all that.

John Cook (3:47)

And you really want to go back and revisit this?

Todd Bishop (3:49)

In part because this was the comment. It was from a Spotify listener who goes by the name Strawpile.

This Strawpile, he or she said, quote, I'm pretty sure we could find some immigrants who would be willing to come to Seattle and cover the tech scene better than these two schmucks do. Is that the extent of the comment?

John Cook (4:13)

I'm sure you could. If anybody wants to and is willing to, I think that's entirely possible.