AI, tech talent, and regional innovation: A swan song from retiring WTIA CEO Michael Schutzler

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Michael Schutzler, who plans to focus in part on music after retiring from his role as WTIA CEO, checks out Mike & Mike’s Guitar Bar near the GeekWire offices in Seattle’s Fremont neighborhood after recording an episode of the GeekWire Podcast. (GeekWire Photo / Todd Bishop)

Michael Schutzler, the newly retired CEO of the Washington Technology Industry Association (WTIA), joins us on this episode of the GeekWire Podcast to reflect on his 11 years running the not-for-profit trade association, assess the state of the tech industry in Seattle and Washington state, and discuss what’s next for him.

WTIA is in a much different position than it was in 2013. That’s when Schutzler arrived at the association, after selling LiveMocha to Rosetta Stone, for what he assumed would be a turnaround effort lasting a couple of years.

Under Schutzler’s leadership, WTIA launched programs and initiatives including Portalus, a for-profit provider of healthcare and retirement plans for startups and small tech companies; the U.S. Blockchain Coalition; and Apprenti, a technology apprenticeship program that was recently spun out as an independent company.

Of course, the wider tech world is in a very different place, as well.

Schutzler, who has been succeeded as WTIA’s CEO by Kelly Fukai, previously its COO, wrote about the extraordinary history and evolution of the state’s tech industry in a recent post marking the WTIA’s 40th anniversary and his retirement.

On the podcast, Schutzler said the companies that build strong, productive cultures of hybrid work will ultimately prevail, due to their greater access to talent.

However, Schutzler said he believes the location of a company’s headquarters and its decision-makers still matters, as the nexus of its relationship with the community. This is a central issue for regional tech trade groups like WTIA.

As an example, he distinguished between the relationships that Amazon and Microsoft have to the Seattle region and Washington state, where they’re based, in contrast with the Silicon Valley giants that with major outposts here.

“Really the power of the organization is still in California. … If you get large enough in a satellite office, then you’re going to build local relationships, just as Google and Apple and Salesforce and many other California companies have done here. But Microsoft and Amazon, they throw a lot more weight around here because they’re here, and their relationships in this region are very different than their relationships in other states.”

We also discussed Seattle’s long-term status as an AI hub, and where Schutzler sees the value emerging in the AI landscape overall. Here’s what he said on that topic.

“The actual power of AI isn’t the tool itself. It’s not the software. It’s the application. What are you doing with artificial intelligence? That’s the radical transformation that’s underway.

“ChatGPT is really awesome demo software. It’s fun to play with. It’s very clever. It’s very interesting. Does some fun stuff. The actual power is, how do you take an LLM and apply it to medical technology? How do you apply that to manufacturing processes? How do you apply that to cyber security, both on the attack side as well as on the defense side?

“This is where AI is really going to make a big impact.”

Other topics include the interplay between tech giants and startups, and the entrepreneurial activity generated by people who leave large companies. Amazon alumni haven’t made as much of a mark in that way, so far, but Schutzler said he believes this will change based on the company’s evolution over the years.

“Amazon is a logistics company. It was a retailer from day one. It had to become masterful at certain technologies, but their core DNA couldn’t be more different. So you’re not going to hire creatives. You’re going to hire people that are efficient … and really, really good at perfecting the systems.

“Until cloud. When they figured AWS, they were like, ‘Holy shit, margins, let’s take on the world!’ and they become super creative since then. Now, with AI, and this next generation of ex-Amazon folks, I think we’ll see more and more of that [entrepreneurial activity] coming out of Amazon.”

One of the things that’s next for Schutzler — in addition to continued angel investing, startup advising, and five weeks in silent meditation at a Zen monastery — is pursuing his love of music. He is already spending time in a recording studio, and we talked about how he’s using AI to augment his own musical efforts.

But before we wrapped up the podcast and showed him our favorite neighborhood guitar shop, we asked if he had a parting message for the tech and innovation community in Washington state.

Schutzler started by describing his good fortune in landing here in the 1990s. He wasn’t quite sure what to do initially when his wife relocated from Chicago for work. He ended up becoming a serial entrepreneur, angel investor, startup founder, CEO, and senior executive at a variety of tech companies in the years that followed.

“Man, did I land in the right place at the right time in 1995,” he said. “Super grateful. It’s been an incredible experience to have a career and raise a family here.”

And these were his closing thoughts — unsolicited advice, as he called it — for the tech community in Seattle and Washington state.

“For the most part, we’re all hat and no cattle. We talk a good game about working together. We don’t. We talk a good game about supporting startups. We’re really terrible here. We have literally tens of thousands of multi-millionaires printed by this industry, living in this region, and yet, in per-capita participation as angel investors compared to the Valley or Vancouver, B.C., we’re paltry.

“That just bothers me, because we like to think of ourselves as progressive. We like to think of ourselves as communal. But it feels a little bit like, ‘Hey, I made my millions. Guess I’ll go buy my third house and go hang out with my friends.’ … I would just challenge this community to be really, truly focused on building together. Because we don’t. We don’t build together.

“And if we did, I think we might actually become the next Silicon Valley.”

Listen to the full episode above, including a guitar outro from Schutzler. Subscribe to GeekWire in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.