Portland Oregon startups, tech, news, events, jobs, and community

Shame on me. I haven’t been closely tracking on this. But it’s coming up more and more often in conversations with startup founders and investors. “What is…?” you ask? The fact that disentangling Oregon tax law from federal tax law carries along with it language that basically eviscerates one of the most compelling tools that startups use to compensate founders, early employees, and investors: Qualified Small Business Stock. Rest assured, Oregon changing QSBS taxation could have demonstrable and irreparable impact on the Oregon startup community as a whole.

Here’s a roundup of interesting startup links I came across today:

Why Startup Ecosystems Fail at Scale: The Economic Development Playbook for Capacity Building

The problem is not that cities aren’t doing enough. The problem is that cities aren’t expanding their capacity to serve more of the entrepreneurs, mentors, and investors that a competitive economy now requires. As Brookings has pointed out in their analysis of innovation clusters, ecosystem performance is a function of network depth, institutional coordination, and resource density.

Here’s a roundup of interesting startup links I came across today:

Embrace the uncertainty

Nobody knows what the future of software engineering looks like, and that’s incredibly uncomfortable. But instead of waiting for someone to hand us the answer, I think the move is to embrace the uncertainty, because these moments of deep uncertainty have historically been moments of extraordinary opportunity.

I’m sure you already have your ticket for the Silicon Forest Tech Summit. I mean, it’s rapidly becoming the “must attend” annual event around these parts. (And if you haven’t, lighten up, Francis. There’s still time to grab a seat. And tickets are a-ford-able at $24 or a pay what you want sliding scale.) Let’s take a look at all of the awesome people taking the stage on March 14, 2026.

Here’s a roundup of interesting startup links I came across today:

Oregon film star Bruce Campbell diagnosed with incurable cancer – oregonlive.com

“I’m not trying to enlist sympathy — or advice — I just want to get ahead of this information,” he said in his announcement. “Fear not, I’m a tough old son-of-a-bitch and I have great support, so I expect to be around a while.”

When I first started working in local startups — like last century — so much of the activity occurred out in Hillsboro and Beaverton. With the advent of cloud infrastructure and the declining need for significant office space, the momentum of the startup community moved into Portland proper. These days? The energy is everywhere. And so are the support organizations.

Here’s a roundup of interesting startup links I came across today:

The State of Consumer AI. Part 1 – Usage

In consumer markets, once one product owns both the installed base and the flow of new users, the default outcome is further consolidation. ChatGPT has both. The question now is whether that usage is deepening into genuine habit or still behaving like a utility people visit briefly and leave. That’s the real battleground from here.

Every February, Stephen Green celebrates a series of amazing folks for Black History Month by posting one post a day for the entire month. This year, he focused his efforts on folks who participated in Pitch Black — the Portland-born movement that celebrates Black founders across the country. Then, it’s my turn to grab every single daily post and throw together a recap so that you can find them all in one place. It’s tradition.