Hello, it's Monday.

⛅ Today's weather: Partly sunny, with a high of 68.

• After a weekend that had us reaching for wool socks, sunnier days are in the forecast, with highs in the mid-70s expected Wednesday through Friday.

Today's newsletter is 966 words, a 3½-minute read.

Seattle has become dangerously dependent on a handful of tech giants that powered the city's decades-long economic boom, according to a new city-commissioned report.

Why it matters: The sweeping analysis says Seattle's tech success has left its jobs, tax base and economic future vulnerable to the fortunes of just a few companies.

• And that vulnerability comes as AI upends the tech industry.

Driving the news: Mayor Wilson released the 127-page report Wednesday and signed an executive order aimed at keeping businesses here while diversifying the economy.

• The order calls for a business and labor task force, a new economic development fund and faster permitting.
• Wilson wants the city to lean into clean tech, life sciences, and the space and maritime industries.

What they did: Economists crunched regional data and interviewed dozens of business executives, civic leaders and national experts, benchmarking Seattle against comparable metros.

By the numbers: Just four companies account for 25% of software engineer job postings in Seattle, compared with 18 companies in San Jose and 39 in San Francisco, per the analysis.

• 10 companies generate 75% of Seattle's JumpStart payroll tax revenue, nine of them in tech-related industries.
• Meanwhile, Amazon and Microsoft have cut more than 10,000 Seattle-area jobs since 2023.

Yes, but: Seattle remains a tech powerhouse, home to 23% of the nation's AI engineers — second only to the Bay Area — and its tech employees generate more than twice the national average in economic output per worker, according to the report.

The bottom line: The goal isn't to replace tech. It's to hang onto the companies and talent Seattle already has while building an economy that doesn't depend quite so heavily on a handful of them.

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Seattle Reign beat Bay FC 2-0 at Lumen Field on Saturday, picking up their third straight win as they push for a playoff spot.

State of play: Sofia Huerta scored on a penalty in the 53rd minute before Brittany Ratcliffe added one more goal in stoppage time, per Sounder at Heart.

What's next: The eighth-place Reign visit ninth-place Angel City FC Wednesday before heading to 10th-place Denver on Saturday.

🏨 Washington's longest hotel strike ended after workers at Seattle's Embassy Suites won a new contract that union leaders said includes higher wages and year-round health coverage. (KIRO 7)

🏗️ Seattle has the fewest office construction plans in the works of any major U.S. market, amid weak demand and vacancies near 25%. (Puget Sound Business Journal)

💸 Seattle-area inflation has cooled, but everyday prices are still squeezing residents. (Seattle Times)

🎬 A plan to reopen the Egyptian Theater could bring a landmark movie house back to life. (The Stranger)

🌿 A Seattle cement plant has been blocked by regulators from burning more tires for fuel after testing found the increase would release too much toxic cadmium. (KUOW)

🗞️ McClatchy laid off more than 90 journalists and media workers — about 30% of its unionized workforce — including reporters in Tacoma, Olympia, Bellingham, the Tri-Cities and Boise. (NewsGuild)

🎒 A potential Shoreline schools strike was averted after support staff and the district reached a tentative contract deal Friday. (LFP Town Crier)

The northern spotted owl is close to extinct in large parts of the Pacific Northwest, according to new research.

Why it matters: The spotted owl became the symbol of the Northwest's bitter timber wars — blamed by many loggers and timber towns for lost jobs and the unraveling of a way of life.

• More than three decades later, after all that fighting and upheaval, the owl is disappearing anyway.

Catch up quick: The owl was listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act in 1990 amid widespread loss of its old-growth habitat.

• Four years later, the Northwest Forest Plan sharply reduced logging on federal lands.
• The changes hit timber-dependent communities hard and fueled years of protests and political battles.

State of play: Logging, wildfires and invasive barred owls continued to squeeze the imperiled bird.

Zoom in: Wildlife biologists used listening devices and machine learning to track both species in Oregon, Washington and northern California.

• Barred owls were heard eight times more often than spotted owls across 2.1 million hours of recordings.
• No spotted owls were detected in the Cascades north of Seattle, and the species is "approaching functional extinction thresholds" in Washington and on the Oregon coast.

Between the lines: Functional extinction means the owls may be present, but can no longer fill their ecological role or reproduce enough to persist.

The bottom line: The Northwest changed dramatically in an effort to protect the spotted owl, but it may not have been enough.

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Can you guess where we were when we snapped this photo in Seattle? Here's a haiku clue:

Broken and scattered

Details carved in hard granite

A place to sit, watch

Submit your guess and prove to the world how well you know your city!

• You can email us here (or just hit reply).

👣 Melissa is enjoying exploring her old neighborhood, Wallingford, and seeing what's changed.

🐿️ Clarridge is battling a bold squirrel that keeps trying to get inside.

This newsletter was edited by Hadley Malcolm.