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Thanks for putting up with my constant cajoling on the Oregon Governor’s Prosperity Council survey. I hope you got the chance to respond. Admittedly, I didn’t want to jaundice your response with my response. But now that the submissions have closed I wanted to share what I submitted. Again, my response was very myopically focused on the Portland startup community, as is my wont. I’m sure there were a wide variety of opinions and topic submitted. And I look forward to what the Prosperity Council does with all of this feedback.

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

You Are Not Your Job

These statements feel like facts, but they’re fictions we’ve constructed and believed so thoroughly that we can’t separate them from our actual selves. Our ability to believe our own stories is called the secret of our species’ success. Collectively we use our stories to build societies, culture, religion — on our own, we use our labor to build identity.

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

Why Tech Bros Are Now Obsessed with Taste | The New Yorker

For tech bros, the word seems to have a pragmatic function. By their definition, taste is inherently profitable; it is the ability to discern what will make the most money, whether by choosing your next big software concept or by convincing users that your product is necessary. “The recipe for great work is: very exacting taste, plus the ability to gratify it,” Graham wrote in an essay from 2002, which he referenced in his recent post.

You know what’s hard to do in Portland? Build a venture scale company. Not because the talent isn’t here — it is — but more often than not, the funding isn’t. So when a Portland company raises $45 million one year and then another $25 million the next? That’s worth noting. Even if they keep a fairly low profile locally.

Back in December, I talked about Governor Kotek’s Prosperity Roadmap — but then we had the whole QSBS trainwreck. And that seemed like somewhere that the Prosperity Council could have been helpful. And I’m sure there are any number of other ways that they might be helpful. And you probably have some pretty damn good ideas for the council. So — because the Prosperity Council is now actively seeking input — I wanted them to hear from you. Yes, you. Don’t look around like I’m talking to somebody else. YOU. You need to respond.

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

We Have Learned Nothing – Colossus

The truth is, anytime someone insists on a method for how to build a successful startup, you should do something different. The paradox is self-evident, once you think about it, but it contains the seed for how to move forward.

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

Dayo lets you bribe your teen to stay off their darn phone – Fast Company

Sure, it could be considered bribery. But Scholibo argues, quite simply: cash talks. “There’s something transactional about it, and that’s kind of the point,” he says.

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

AI’s Oppenheimer Moment | Andreessen Horowitz

It seems entirely reasonable to wish that nuclear weapons had never been invented, and to have objections about many of their potential uses. The same is true for superhuman AI.