Amazon’s big quarter reveals its post-pandemic potential | Go deeper on tech giant’s earnings

Junior Geek of the Month | New perch planned for one pink elephant | Winery uncorks NFTs ADVERTISEMENT [GeekWire]( SPONSOR MESSAGE: The GeekWire Awards return May 20, 2021: [Celebrate the Pacific Northwest's leading innovators, entrepreneurs and technologists at one of the most-anticipated tech events. Register today!]( TODAY'S TOP STORIES “This is the company of a generation, and they’re continuing to eat the world.” That’s the take from GeekWire’s Day 2 podcast co-host Jason Boyce as we dig into Amazon’s astonishing quarterly earnings report in the latest episode. With year-over-year growth of 44% and record first quarter sales of $108.5 billion, the Seattle-based e-commerce giant is providing a glimpse of its strong position as the world emerges from the pandemic. [Read and listen here.]( Go deeper on Amazon earnings: - Amazon blew away expectations on Thursday. [Check out the numbers]( from AWS, advertising, shipping, Prime, physical stores and more. - In the midst of phenomenal growth, Amazon did [shed 27,000 employees]( in Q1, following its usual boost in numbers for the Q4 holiday. One Junior Geek’s lofty goal: Nigel Barnett has spent his childhood designing, building, destroying and tinkering. The Seattle high school senior will pursue his engineering dream at MIT, and hopes to someday take his love for building stuff to the International Space Station as an astronaut. [Meet our latest Junior Geek of the Month.]( Amazon picks a perch for pink elephant: The tech giant plans to put the smaller, iconic Elephant Car Wash sign that it acquired last year on prominent display outside one of its Seattle headquarters towers so everyone can continue to enjoy it. [Read more.]( Zulily co-founder’s SPAC raises $300M: Mark Vadon, who also co-founded Blue Nile, is the CEO of a new “blank check” company called Big Sky Growth Partners that’s on the prowl for the next e-commerce superstar. [Read more.]( Winery uncorking its NFT ambitions: A Washington state winery with tech connections is [tapping into the hype around non-fungible tokens]( with a sale of three unique digital artworks commemorating the release of a limited bottling of a cabernet sauvignon. Meet our STEM Educators of the Year: This new GeekWire Awards category recognizes a select group of the Pacific Northwest’s top teachers. [Learn more]( about Lauren Bricker, Cathi Rodgveller and Kim Williams. Also, today is the last day to [vote]( in the rest of the categories for the May 20 Awards! Thanks for reading and have a great weekend! — GeekWire reporter Kurt Schlosser, kurt@geekwire.com. SPONSOR MESSAGE [Welcome to How Wonderful Gets Done 2021, by Intel]( Performance made flexible by the launch of the 3rd Gen Intel® Xeon® Scalable processors as well as Intel’s latest hardware and software portfolio and solutions. Catch-up with what Intel’s partners are saying about this industry-leading performance and flexibility from the edge to the cloud. [Learn more today!]( LATEST HEADLINES [Zulily co-founder’s SPAC raises $300 million]( [Optimal Prime: Amazon’s big quarter reveals its post-pandemic potential]( [Junior Geek of the Month: Nigel Barnett will pursue engineering at MIT, and later, his astronaut dream]( [Viral sensation ‘Among Us’ is coming to PlayStation 4 & 5 later this year]( [Amazon plans to install smaller Elephant Car Wash sign outdoors on its campus ‘for everyone to enjoy’]( SPONSORED: GEEK REAL ESTATE [Island Living: Rare Opportunity to Own an Entire Point on Vashon Island]( [Amazon sheds 27k employees in Q1 in return to traditional post-holiday jobs pattern]( [‘We are airborne!’ Stratolaunch sends the world’s biggest plane on second test flight]( [Digital health startup Engage Technologies Group raises $15M for patient education tools]( [Microsoft ups the ante against Valve by offering more money to PC game developers]( [GeekWire Awards 2021: Meet the remarkable STEM educators who are inspiring next-gen geeks]( [Amazon crushes earnings estimates with $108.5B in Q1 revenue, up 44%, profits of $8.1B, up 224%]( [Remote cardiac monitoring startup Vector Remote Care raises $12.5M]( GEEKWORK: TODAY'S TECH JOBS - [Horry-Georgetown Technical College: Network Engineer]( - [Symetra: Software Developer]( - [INRIX: Director of Financial Planning and Analysis]( - [Chewy, Inc.: Senior Director, Software Engineering]( - [Chewy, Inc.: Software Engineer II]( - [Wave Broadband: Enterprise Account Executive]( - [Chewy, Inc.: Principal Product Manager (Bundling)]( - [Chewy, Inc.: Staff Data Scientist]( - [Chewy, Inc.: Director, Pick Planning]( - [Vulcan: UI/UX Designer, EarthRanger]( [FIND MORE JOBS ON GEEKWORK]( [HIRING? 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