Most popular stories on GeekWire Microsoft will offer voluntary retirement to thousands of employees in a first for tech giant Microsoft is offering a one-time voluntary retirement program for the first time in its 51-year history, giving thousands of long-serving U.S. … Read More Former advisor to Steve Jobs says new Apple CEO is exactly what’s needed: an engineer from the inside Tim Cook is stepping down as Apple CEO, handing the reins to hardware engineering chief John Ternus. … Read More Amazon names AWS exec Prasad Kalyanaraman to S-team, promotes Dave Brown to SVP Amazon CEO Andy Jassy added AWS infrastructure leader Prasad Kalyanaraman to the company’s S-team and promoted Dave Brown to senior vice president, according to an internal memo viewed by GeekWire. … Read More A nuclear first: TerraPower officially starts construction on next-gen Natrium plant in Wyoming TerraPower is officially moving dirt on its facility in Wyoming, making it the first company in the U.S. … Read More Tech Moves: Microsoft quantum lead joins IonQ; Heptio co-founder now CTO at Stacklok; Amazon departure Longtime Microsoft exec and former quantum lead Jeff Henshaw takes a role at IonQ while Heptio co-founder Joe Beda joins Stacklok. … Read More Microsoft’s new Xbox chief makes first major change, cutting Game Pass price, but with a catch Microsoft is dropping Xbox Game Pass Ultimate from $29.99 to $22.99 a month, but future Call of Duty games will no longer be available at launch. … Read More Opinion: You can’t blame data centers in Seattle for our skyrocketing electricity prices Seattle’s mayor is exploring a moratorium on new data centers, but the city’s real utility challenges — skyrocketing electricity prices, a looming capacity gap, and an eastside water defection — have nothing to do with data centers. … Read More Opinion: Which capitalism are we defending? Seattle venture capitalist Nick Hanauer responds to Chris DeVore’s recent call for Democrats to embrace capitalism, arguing that the real question isn’t whether to support free markets but which version of capitalism America should be building. … Read More Internal memo: Five senior execs out at Qualtrics as new CEO restructures leadership team Qualtrics CEO Jason Maynard shook up the company’s senior leadership team on Friday at its dual headquarters in downtown Seattle and Provo, Utah, less than three months after taking the helm of the experience management technology company. … Read More Starbucks cuts tech jobs as new CTO reshapes organization Starbucks is laying off workers in its technology organization as new CTO Anand Varadarajan, who joined from Amazon in January, restructures the team. …