Amazon's drones finally take off, inside Anduril's Seattle-area buildup, and an AirTag leads to a secret Amazon facility

This week: Amazon's Prime Air drones are finally going national, nearly 13 years after Jeff Bezos unveiled the idea on 60 Minutes. GeekWire's John Cook goes inside Anduril's unmarked Bellevue office as the defense company builds toward 1,000 Seattle-area engineers. Plus: a reporter hides an AirTag in a rare book and tracks it to a secret Amazon book-scanning facility in Las Vegas.

With John Cook and Todd Bishop; edited by Curt Milton.

Related stories and links

Mentioned at the top

• Want to know what Jeff Bezos brings to Liverpool FC? Study Amazon's Leadership Principles

Amazon drone delivery

• Amazon drone delivery set to expand nationally, reaching nearly 500 U.S. cities and towns this year
• Amazon's big surprise: Working on autonomous flying delivery drones — GeekWire, December 2013
• Jeff Bezos unveils the Prime Air prototype on 60 Minutes — YouTube
• Amazon Prime Air drone delivery expansion — Amazon
• Andy Jassy's 2025 letter to shareholders — Amazon
• Walmart, Wing expand drone delivery coverage — Supply Chain Dive

The AirTag and the book-scanning facility

• How an AirTag planted by a reporter led to a secret Amazon site where old books are cut apart and scanned
• We tracked a shipment of rare books. It ended at an Amazon AI training facility — 404 Media
• AI companies are buying tons of old books because they're free of AI slop — 404 Media
• Trash Transparency Project — Basel Action Network
• America's e-waste: a GPS tracker tells all — PBS NewsHour
• Anthropic agrees to pay $1.5B to settle lawsuit with book authors — Associated Press

Anduril in the Seattle region

• Inside Anduril's AI warfighting buildup: Defense giant sees a path to 1,000 Seattle-area engineers
• Anduril exits Seattle shipyard following canceled Navy program and omission from new warship list
• Defense tech giant Anduril eyes new funding at $100B valuation as Seattle expansion draws protests — GeekWire, July 2026
• AI weapons under scrutiny as activists plan weekend protest at Anduril's Seattle office — GeekWire, July 2026
• Anduril lands $5B as defense giant builds autonomous warship operation in Seattle — GeekWire, May 2026
• Defense giant Anduril is quietly building autonomous warships on Seattle's historic ship canal — GeekWire, April 2026
• Military tech giant Anduril lands in Bellevue, doubling footprint in Seattle region — GeekWire, July 2025

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