Tech Moves: Read AI hires GitLab veteran as product VP; Microsoft legal chief steps down; Truveta co-founder exits; Marchex CEO out

Tech Moves: What product leaders can use right now

Leadership shifts signal where strategy is headed. Here are the moves across Pacific Northwest tech that matter for product development, and what to do with them.

Read AI hires Justin Farris as VP of Product

Justin Farris, former product leader at GitLab and Zillow, joined Read AI as vice president of product. Read AI, founded in 2021, started with a meeting notetaker and now offers enterprise productivity tools; it raised a $50 million Series B last year. The company launched an "Agentic Workflow Suite" and is led by CEO David Shim. Farris called Read AI the "Cursor for productivity," citing parallels to GitLab's all-in-one approach for developers.

• Signal: AI agents are moving from demos to workflow orchestration. Expect consolidation of meeting notes, tasks, and automations in one surface.
• Action: Audit your product's "work comes together" moment. Reduce context switching by integrating capture, decision, and execution in one loop.

Truveta co-founder Lisa Gurry departs

Lisa Gurry is stepping down after helping launch Truveta in 2020 and serving as CMO, COO, and chief growth officer. Truveta hit unicorn status this year after raising $320 million and aggregates de-identified medical records to connect treatments with outcomes. CEO Terry Myerson continues to lead the company. Gurry said she's excited for her next move but did not share details.

• Signal: Data platforms in healthcare are scaling, but go-to-market and operations are evolving.
• Action: If you build data products in regulated spaces, double down on outcome-linked narratives and measurable clinical utility.

Microsoft chief legal officer Hossein Nowbar steps down

Hossein Nowbar is leaving Microsoft after nearly three decades; he became chief legal officer in 2023. He highlighted work clearing antitrust hurdles for Nuance and Activision Blizzard King, supporting product launches, and introducing Microsoft's Customer Copyright Commitment. Jonathan Palmer, a 15-year Microsoft veteran and corporate vice president, will take over as chief legal officer.

• Signal: Legal frameworks around AI, IP, and antitrust are shaping product scope early, not late.
• Action: Bake IP indemnity and training-data posture into your product narrative. See Microsoft's policy for context: Customer Copyright Commitment.

Marchex CEO Edwin Miller exits; new leadership structure

Edwin Miller is stepping down as CEO of Marchex after two years and will serve as senior advisor to Chairman Russell Horowitz. Promotions include Troy Hartless to president (also CRO), Francis Feeney to COO (also chief corporate and legal affairs officer), and Brian Nagle to CFO. Marchex focuses on call and conversation analytics.

• Signal: Conversation intelligence remains a core buyer pain, but GTM and operating cadence are being tightened.
• Action: If you ship analytics, prioritize adoption loops (insight → action → revenue impact) over dashboard volume.

Redfin's Bridget Frey becomes Rocket's chief data officer (continues as Redfin CTO)

Following Rocket's acquisition of Redfin in July, Bridget Frey is now Rocket's chief data officer while remaining Redfin's CTO. Frey built Redfin's ML capabilities and will guide a combined data vision across the orgs. Goal: connect the homeownership experience end-to-end.

• Signal: Post-acquisition data integration is a product. Expect unified customer graphs spanning search, finance, and closing.
• Action: Treat data contracts as first-class artifacts. Align models to a single customer journey metric (e.g., time-to-close).

AWS adds senior leaders: David Richardson and Joe Hellerstein

AWS hired David Richardson as vice president of AgentCore; he previously spent 16 years at AWS and worked at Stripe. Joe Hellerstein, a UC Berkeley professor, is joining as vice president and distinguished scientist. The hires point to deeper bets on agent frameworks and data systems.

• Signal: Agent platforms will standardize primitives (tools, memory, routing) similar to how serverless standardized compute.
• Action: Design your product's "agent API" early: tool schemas, safe actions, and quality guardrails.

Juicer Energy brings on Ty Wolfe-Jones as head of operations

Ty Wolfe-Jones joins Seattle-based EV charging startup Juicer Energy to lead operations. He previously held roles at Assurance, Wrench, DoorDash, and Uber. Juicer, led by OfferUp co-founder Nick Huzar, is rolling out EV charging infrastructure at apartments and other properties.

• Signal: Multifamily charging is shifting from pilot to scale.
• Action: For hardware+software products, build for uptime SLAs, energy pricing transparency, and property manager workflows.

CityBldr founder Bryan Copley joins Blue Fern Development as CPO

Seattle entrepreneur Bryan Copley is now chief product officer at Blue Fern Development after the firm acquired real estate data startup CityBldr. He aims to blend AI insights with human judgment to increase housing output.

• Signal: Vertical AI meets real asset delivery.
• Action: Prioritize explainable site selection and permitting timelines as core product features, not add-ons.

Upbound names Sarah Strobhar as chief revenue officer

Cloud infrastructure startup Upbound appointed Sarah Strobhar as CRO. She led go-to-market at AWS for more than five years and headed sales at Onera. Upbound, founded in 2017 by Bassam Tabbara, helps enterprises streamline infrastructure workflows and raised $60 million in 2021.

• Signal: Platform teams want opinionated workflows, not generic primitives.
• Action: Package golden paths with measurable time-to-provision and policy compliance baked in.

Jennifer Adair moves to UMass Chan Medical School

After 17 years at Fred Hutch, Jennifer Adair joins UMass Chan as professor and vice chair in the new Department of Genetic and Cellular Medicine. She helped lead gene therapy research at the Adair Lab and held faculty roles at Fred Hutch and the University of Washington.

• Signal: Translational science is aligning with clinical deployment.
• Action: For medtech product teams, standardize evidence generation: trial readiness, manufacturing quality, and reimbursement pathways.

Pablo Brown-Rodriguez launches Operative Partners

Former Amazon Health GM Pablo Brown-Rodriguez founded Operative Partners to acquire and operate mid-market healthcare businesses. Focus: protect legacy, culture, and people with long-term, operator-led stewardship.

• Signal: Operator-led roll-ups will favor durable, cash-flowing products over hype cycles.
• Action: Build products that reduce cost-to-serve and boost clinician productivity within existing workflows.

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