Building a website should feel exciting, not overwhelming. That’s why we’re thrilled to announce the beta launch of the Easy Site Editor on WordPress.com, a brand new way to create and customize your site through the power of conversation.
A friendlier way to edit your site
We’ve been listening closely to our community, and one thing has become clear: while WordPress offers incredibly powerful tools for those who want deep control over every pixel of their site, not everyone wants, or needs, that level of complexity. Many of you just want to get your site looking great and get on with sharing your ideas, growing your business, or telling your story.
Enter the Easy Site Editor.
How it works
The Easy Site Editor reimagines website building around something everyone already knows how to do: have a conversation.
The interface is refreshingly simple. On the left, you’ll find a chat panel where you can describe what you want in plain language. On the right, you’ll see a live preview of your actual website — exactly as your visitors will see it. Want to change your homepage headline? Just ask. Need to swap out a hero image, adjust your colors, or rewrite your About page? Type it in, and watch it happen.
Because the preview shows your real, live site, you can also click around and navigate between pages just like a regular visitor would. No more wondering “where am I?” or “how do I get back to that other section?”
Quick edits without the learning curve
For those moments when you want to tweak something directly yourself, the Easy Site Editor lets you make simple text and image edits. Just select the Edit option, click on what you want to change, and update it on the spot.
The best of both worlds
The Easy Site Editor doesn’t replace the full WordPress Site Editor — it complements it. The standard WordPress Site Editor remains the powerful, advanced tool that experienced users and designers love, with its granular control over blocks, templates, and theme settings. It’s an incredible piece of software for anyone who wants to dive deep.
But if you’re someone who’d rather just describe your vision and see it come to life, the Easy Site Editor will become your starting point. And whenever you’re ready to dig into the more advanced tools, they’re just a click away.
Watch this space
Once the Easy Site Editor is out of beta, we will be rolling it out to all WordPress.com paid plans. Keep an eye on this blog for more details about general availability.
The rooftop park on Ocean Pavilion offers views of the Seattle skyline and Elliott Bay. (GeekWire Photo / Kurt Schlosser)
While tech companies including Microsoft and Amazon call the Seattle area home, residents are voicing opposition to the construction of new data centers that underpin their operations.
Seattle City Council is considering a one-year moratorium on the computing facilities, and on Wednesday heard a wave of public comments laden with concerns. Residents expressed fear about AI, called the data centers “gifts to the rich” and shared worries about rising utility bills, diminished water supplies, environmental justice and climate harm.
Councilmember Joy Hollingsworth, a bill sponsor, offered a more measured take. “We’re not trying to hinder growth in our city,” she said, but added that the city needs to slow down and understand data center impacts as the sector rapidly expands. City staff explained that the facilities vary in size and impact, and that Seattle’s government relies on the infrastructure for its own operations.
The data center issue blew up in April after The Seattle Times reported on proposals to build five large computing facilities in the city, prompting Mayor Katie Wilson to raise the possibility of a moratorium. Since then, developers have scrapped plans for two of the five.
Seattle is not alone in its resistance. A March Gallup survey found that seven in 10 Americans oppose the construction of data centers for AI applications in their local area, with nearly half strongly opposed. Separately, Pew Research Center reports that half of U.S. adults are more concerned than excited about the growing role of AI in daily life.
The city is considering a resolution and legislation that define which data centers would face regulation and lay out a work plan for next steps:
Seattle City Light and Seattle Public Utilities are directed to examine water and electricity usage and recommend policies and rate structures that shield customers from cost increases — with deadlines of July 1 and Oct. 30, respectively.
The Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections is directed to determine zoning and development rules to reduce data center impacts, with deadlines extending into 2027.
The city is also weighing a framework for voluntary data center agreements that could benefit surrounding communities by addressing noise, heat, air and water pollution, workforce protections, water and energy use, as well as directing funding toward affordable housing, childcare and other social programs.
Seattle already has about 30 data centers, but they’re relatively small. Larger facilities have historically gravitated to rural areas with more land and less expensive power. The five proposed urban projects would have collectively consumed up to 369 megawatts — roughly one-third of Seattle’s average daily energy use. Data centers also draw significant water for cooling their electronics.
Washington state leaders took a crack at data center regulations during this year’s legislative session but ultimately rejected a bill requiring utilities and operators to create agreements protecting ratepayers and disclosing environmental impacts. The city’s proposed measure revisits many of those same issues, with the added weight of a moratorium.
No state has enacted a data center ban, but local governments have been moving on their own. Jurisdictions including Denver, St. Charles, Mo., and a county near Dallas have all recently approved moratoriums.
The industry has taken some steps to ease public concern. Microsoft, for example, launched a community-focused initiative in January pledging to be a good neighbor where it operates data centers.
But the relentless push for AI infrastructure will likely keep straining public sentiment. Amazon spent $147.3 billion on capital expenditures over the past 12 months, ending in April. Looking ahead, Microsoft anticipates capital costs of $190 billion in capital in 2026, largely for AI.
The council committees will vote on the bill and resolution on June 3.
S. “Soma” Somasegar at AWS re:Invent in 2019. (GeekWire File Photo / Todd Bishop)
The tributes came quickly for S. “Soma” Somasegar, and they came from seemingly everywhere and everyone he touched across the technology and business community.
A consistent picture emerged: Somasegar was kind, generous with his time, humble, and a steadying presence. To many, those qualities mattered even more than the investments and decisions he made.
A key figure in Seattle tech, Somasegar died this week at age 59. His passing sent a wave of shock and grief across Microsoft, where he spent 27 years, Madrona, the VC firm where he worked the past 11 years, the many startups he invested in and guided, and the countless people he befriended and mentored.
Keep reading for remembrances we rounded up from LinkedIn and elsewhere:
Steven Sinofsky, the former Microsoft Windows and Office leader, called Somasegar “a champion of developers and startups” as he reacted to the news about his friend and colleague.
“We started at Microsoft months apart, both grad school dropouts,” Sinofsky wrote on LinkedIn. “Our work paths intertwined for more than two decades on everything from the first NT through dev tools with a good deal of college recruiting all along.”
Sinofsky said Somasegar’s contributions to Microsoft and culture “were as legendary as was the admiration and respect he earned from generations of the Softies he guided and led.”
Brad Anderson, a former Microsoft and Qualtrics executive, said Somasegar was “one of one,” and “the model of being a servant leader” when they were peers reporting to Bob Muglia and Satya Nadella. “Love that man,” Anderson wrote of Somasegar.
S. “Soma” Somasegar, second from left, and Anoop Gupta, center, with the SeekOut team. (Photo via LinkedIn)
Anoop Gupta, co-founder and executive chairman at SeekOut, called Somasegar “endlessly curious” and said that every conversation with him “left you thinking differently” because of a rare combination of intellectual depth, optimism, humility, and genuine kindness.
Over the years, Somasegar became more than an investor to SeekOut.
“He was a trusted friend; someone whose perspective I valued immensely,” Gupta wrote — and someone who wouldn’t hesitate to make time at 10 p.m. on a Saturday to talk through a problem.
Vijaye Raji, CTO of Applications at OpenAI, first got to know Somasegar nearly 20 years ago at Microsoft, and counted him as a good friend, teacher, and important part of his personal and professional life. Somasegar later led Madrona’s investment in Raji’s startup Statsig, which OpenAI acquired last year for $1.1 billion in one of the largest Seattle-area tech exits of 2025.
“Soma was one of the kindest people I have known,” Raji wrote. “He helped everyone around him, gave generously of his time and wisdom, and made people better simply by being in their corner.”
Raji said he learned a lot from Somasegar, and “his impact on Microsoft, the developer ecosystem, Seattle, the startup community, and so many individual lives will endure.”
Vetri Vellore, left, and Soma Somasegar. (Photo via LinkedIn)
Vetri Vellore, a Microsoft veteran and startup leader, first met Somasegar in 1991, when Vellore interviewed for a job at Microsoft — the start of a 35-year friendship.
“He was a friend first, but also a mentor through every inflection point,” Vellore wrote, adding that Somasegar invested in his second startup, Ally.io, and led the seed round and joined the board for his third, Rhythms.
“We had just wrapped a board meeting a few days ago. It was energizing, full of ideas, and we somehow ended up bantering about which Indian restaurants we should use for catering,” Vellore said. “That was him: serious about the work, warm about the people, always game for the small joys in between.”
Joe Duffy, founder and CEO of Pulumi, also met Somasegar decades ago at Microsoft. When Somasegar told Duffy he was leaving for Madrona, Duffy confided that he was planning to leave Microsoft, too, and start a company. Somasegar asked to hear the pitch first — and then led Pulumi’s first investment and joined its board.
“Soma was the first person I would call anytime I faced a tough situation,” Duffy wrote. “His calmness and ability to see right through to clarity instantly centered me and revealed the path ahead as though it were sitting there the whole time without me realizing it.
“He was always there, no matter what time, where we were, or what we had going on. That he could do this while also playing that role for countless others is remarkable.”
Soma Somasegar, fourth from left, and Nikesh Parekh, second from right, at Madrona offices in Seattle. (Photo via LinkedIn)
Nikesh Parekh, a Seattle tech veteran who served with Somasegar on the board of his company Suplari, remembered him as “a true friend and mentor.”
“If you spent any time in Seattle tech over the last 30 years, you knew Soma,” Parekh wrote.
He described Somasegar’s advisory style as almost Socratic.
“Like Yoda or Bodhidharma, he would give you the advice you actually needed, usually framed as a puzzle or question you had to answer yourself: ‘You tried it. What did you learn? Pick yourself up. Try the next thing. Keep moving.'”
For five years, the two co-hosted sessions at Madrona where Microsoft employees donated to the GIVE campaign for time with Soma, discussing careers and entrepreneurship. His advice was characteristically concrete, Parekh said: spend 80% of your time doing your core job exceptionally, 20% on things that help the broader team. His example: standing up Microsoft’s India Development Center in Hyderabad as a side project. It became one of the company’s most important engineering hubs.
Manuela Papadopol, executive director of the Microsoft Alumni Network, told GeekWire that Somasegar “embodied the very best of Microsoft.”
“He was a world-class technologist and investor, but what set him apart was his generosity with his time, wisdom, and encouragement,” Papadopol said. “He was my mentor, advisor, and most of all, a steadfast supporter of the Microsoft Alumni Network, always looking for ways to help others succeed. His impact will live on through the countless founders, developers, leaders, and alumni whose lives he touched.”
S. “Soma” Somasegar gives a tour of the Microsoft Developer Division offices in 2014. (GeekWire File Photo / Todd Bishop)
Dayakar Puskoor, an entrepreneur and investor who knew Somasegar first as a colleague at Microsoft and later reconnected through the venture ecosystem, called him “a dear friend, a mentor, and one of the finest people I have had the privilege of knowing.”
The two shared many conversations over the years about startups, leadership, and venture capital, and Somasegar was a supporter of Puskoor’s firm, Dallas Venture Capital.
“Whether speaking with first-time founders, engineers, investors, or friends navigating difficult moments, Soma always made people feel supported and encouraged,” Puskoor wrote.
Daniel Dines, founder and CEO of UiPath, called the passing of Somasegar “one of the saddest days” he could remember.
Somasegar “was the most genuine and kind human being I have ever met, and his loss is incalculable,” Dines wrote. “A mind of unparalleled clarity. A sterling reputation. A life that inspired all of us lucky enough to be near him.”
Recalling board meetings and their time together during UiPath’s IPO, Dines said Somasegar was an honest and steady presence.
“He never raised his voice. He never reached for the easy answer. He just thought carefully and told you the truth,” Dines said. “I lost a friend. A mentor. An inspiration. A model for how to live a life. A board member I trusted completely. A human being I trusted completely.”
Jill Ratkevic, a longtime developer tools marketing leader and founder of Silicon Valley strategy firm Black Swans, called Somasegar “one of a kind.”
“I know I’m not alone in my stories of being young [and] gently schooled,” Ratkevic wrote. “His generosity in helping me solve the insolvable. RIP. Love to all.”
S. “Soma” Somasegar at the Madrona IA Summit in December 2025. (GeekWire File Photo / Todd Bishop)
Stefan Weitz, a Microsoft vet who is currently co-founder and CEO of HumanX, called Somasegar one of his “favorite managers and human beings on the planet.”
“I am so sad tonight that one of the smartest, hardest working, kindest, and highest integrity people in tech and venture has left us,” Weitz wrote. “Soma was proof positive you didn’t have to be an asshole to be brilliant, nor a braggart to be an inspiring leader. He will be and deserves to be missed by those who will come after him in our increasingly inward looking industry.”
Preeti Suri, founder and CEO of AdventureTripr, said that when she moved from London to Seattle to start her company, she didn’t know anyone. Somasegar was one of the first people she spoke to.
He connected her to people with backgrounds in travel investing and startups, she wrote, and whenever she “needed guidance, felt disillusioned during fundraising or faced predatory terms, he was there — always available, even at short notice, to give wise, honest counsel.”
Somasegar showed her again and again “how someone can rise above selfish motives and genuinely help others,” Suri said. “He restored my faith in humanity when I needed it most.”
Vamshi Reddy, CEO of Bellevue-based Quadrant Technologies, called Somasegar “not only a great technology leader, but also a very humble human being,” crediting him for guiding entrepreneurs, startup founders, developers, and community members.
“Soma always made time to mentor people, encourage founders, and support the community with kindness and simplicity,” Reddy wrote. “So many people grew because of his guidance, advice, and belief in them and his support from Madrona. His impact went far beyond business and technology.”
From left, Sharath Katipally, S. “Soma” Somasegar, and the Seattle Orcas cricket team mascot. (Photo via LinkedIn)
Sharath Katipally, head of enterprise AI at Cornerstone, knew Somasegar through both the Seattle tech and cricket communities, and remembered him as “a foundation and guiding presence.”
The two first met through a JPMorgan client event, but the relationship deepened over time into genuine mentorship. Katipally recalled a conversation during a period when he was navigating the transition from large leadership roles back to an individual contributor path. Somasegar opened up about going through a similar adjustment after leaving Microsoft.
“It was a simple conversation, but it stayed with me because it came from a place of honesty, humility, and lived experience,” Katipally wrote. “He never made conversations transactional. Be it career, cricket, sponsorships, or simply showing up when someone needed support, he always made time for people.”
Pritam Parvatkar, a tech veteran who is chief alliance officer at AlonOS, said that Somasegar “changed the lives of many” as a brilliant leader, role model, mentor and passionate cricket fan.
“You will be missed but will continue to inspire every young entrepreneur dreaming of future success — whether in AI, cloud, or even the challenging field of cricket,” Parvatkar wrote. “You demonstrated how to turn passion into a successful career and create a bright future.”
At Madrona, where Somasegar joined as venture partner in 2015 and was named managing director in 2017, he was remembered as a brilliant and generous spirit.
“He was unique at every level and raised the bar on what we expected of ourselves professionally and, more importantly, personally,” the firm wrote in a tribute post. “We all loved Soma, as everyone who knew him did.”
On Monday May 18, we detected and contained a compromise of an employee device involving a poisoned VS Code extension published by a third party. We removed the malicious extension version, isolated the endpoint, and began incident response immediately.
Our current assessment is that the activity involved exfiltration of GitHub-internal repositories only. The attacker’s current claims of ~3,800 repositories are directionally consistent with our investigation so far.
We have no evidence of impact to customer information stored outside of GitHub’s internal repositories, such as our customer’s own enterprises, organizations, and repositories. Some of GitHub’s internal repositories contain information from customers, for example, excerpts of support interactions. If any impact is discovered, we will notify customers via established incident response and notification channels.
We moved quickly to reduce risk. We rotated critical secrets Monday and into Tuesday with the highest-impact credentials prioritized first.
We continue to analyze logs, validate secret rotation, and monitor our infrastructure for any follow-on activity. We will take additional action as the investigation warrants.
We will publish a fuller report once the investigation is complete.
Release Preview channel updates (including 26H1 for the first time? - A preview of the June Patch Tuesday updates - Shared audio, NPU usage in
Task Manager, multi-app camera support, Magnifier improvements.
Taskbar updates come to Insiders! Also in Canary, weʼre throwing them a bone this time.
Enshittification remedies all around
Microsoft just held a WinHEC for the first time since 2018 and thereʼs a new Windows Driver Initiative!
Microsoft will soon let us remap Copilot key to Right Ctrl, which is what it was in the first place.
A Linux privacy nut YouTuber confuses privacy and security and doesnʼt understand Windows 11 so...
... Paul wrote a complete guide to the local account de-Microsoft experience in Windows 11
Microsoft Edge will stop loading all passwords into clear text on startup like a big boy browser.
Hardware
Paul came home to an ASUS Zenbook A16 and ohmygodohmygodohmygod
Surface
Microsoft finally revs Surface Laptop and Surface Pro for Business, with Intel chips and VERY high prices.
Snapdragon X2 variants in late 2026 because of supply issues wa-waa-waaaaa.
AI
MDASH is Microsoftʼs answer to Anthropic Mythos, in-house only.
Elon Musk and Sam Altman are both terrible but a jury decided against Muskʼs frivolous lawsuit.
OpenAI and Apple might head to court over Siri promises
OpenAI Codex is on mobile via the ChatGPT app
Google unleashes an AI tsunami at Google IO this week. A few relevant takeaways:
Overview of the major announcements
Google advances Android as a developer platform
Chrome is turning into a proactive assistant
Google AI subscriptions are an incredible value
Related: The Gemini Intelligence feature for Googlebooks and more has steep hardware requirements - 12 GB of RAM, flagship SoC So Pixel 10 series/Galaxy S26 series and newer only etc.
Just a reminder that Microsoft makes a Linux distribution ... for Azure specifically
More dev
WWDC schedule is up for June 8 opening day
Build 2026 kicks off June 2 in SFO
After another boring .NET 11 preview release, we finally get our first look at a major change: MAUI is switching from the Mono runtime to the CoreCLR runtime.
And we should pause for a moment to remember S "Soma" Somasegar, who sadly passed away this week.
Xbox and Gaming
Next Xbox Elite controller leaks and it is glorious
Related: An Xbox Cloud-Connected controller leaks too and it is less than glorious.
Forza Horizon 6 is here, and itʼs on Game Pass on Day One.
Be sure to read Laurentʼs detailed review.
Haters gonna keep hating: Fans want Xbox exclusives because their heads are still in the sand.
Sony is allegedly returning to this model for single player experiences
Related: Sony raises prices on PS Plus
Fortnite comes back to the Apple App Store worldwide *excluding Australia for some reason.
Tips and Picks
Tip of the week: Google AI Studio.
Vibe-code your next app with this incredible free tool.
Related: A look at Markdown editors.
App pick of the week: DeskScapes 2026
Stardock DeskScapes 2026 is normally $9.99 but it will cost just $6.99 during the launch period.
Also: Firefox 151 is a big update on desktop and mobile, the latter gets the AI kill switch
RunAs Radio this week: UEFI Secure Boot with Richard Hicks
Brown liquor pick of the week: Daftmill Winter Batch Release
Google I/O unveiled Omni, Gemini 3.5 Flash, Antigravity 2.0, and Gemini Spark, framing a push toward multimodal generation and agentic tools. Omni showcased powerful video-to-video editing and fine-grained steerability. Gemini 3.5 Flash emphasized speed at the expense of token efficiency and cost, while Antigravity 2.0 and Spark targeted coding agents and personal assistants amid product sprawl and enterprise token-cost pressure.
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