Is Seattle Ready for Its Next Big Growth Spurt?

With the AI gold rush heating up, a UW professor reflects on what we got wrong last time—and how we can get it right this time. If any city knows tech booms, it’s Seattle. We’ve ridden those waves before. First, Microsoft turned us from a sleepy coffee town into a software hub. Then, Amazon exploded and reshaped our downtown almost overnight. Now, talk of artificial intelligence is everywhere. Is this just another flash in the pan, or is it the real deal? I recently spoke with Jeff Shulman, a professor at the UW Foster School of Business who has a front-row seat to our city’s economi