---
title: 'Silicon Florist links arrangement for August 26, 2025'
date: '2025-08-26T09:34:39-07:00'
type: post
word_count: 455
char_count: 4308
tokens: 592
categories:
  - Portland
---

# Silicon Florist links arrangement for August 26, 2025

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

[Opinion: Reforming Portland’s high-tax system will protect programs, not gut them – oregonlive.com](https://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/2025/08/opinion-reforming-portlands-high-tax-system-will-protect-programs-not-gut-them.html)
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I’m not relocating my business. I’m not pulling my kid out of school. I’m not joining the quiet exodus to Clark County or the loud one to Arizona. I still believe in this place – deeply. But belief has its limits, and as a resident, taxpayer and business owner in Multnomah County, I’ve hit mine.

[Nick Clegg on tech bros, Trump and leaving Silicon Valley | Nick Clegg | The Guardian](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/aug/23/facebook-nick-clegg-tech-bros-trump-leaving-silicon-valley)
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“But here’s the interesting thing.” His tone grows more scathing. “In Silicon Valley, far from thinking they’re lucky, they think they’re hard done by, they’re victims. I couldn’t, and still can’t, understand this deeply unattractive combination of machismo and self-pity.”

[Global Investor Jeremy Kranz On Why Not ‘Everything Important Happens In Silicon Valley’](https://news.crunchbase.com/venture/global-investor-ipo-ai-qa-kranz-sentinel/)
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An early investor in Zoom, Coinbase and Snowflake, Kranz went on to launch his own venture firm, Sentinel Global, in August 2022 with the goal of “connecting visionary founders with real-world adopters.” In June, Kranz announced the close of the San Francisco-based firm’s inaugural fund, Sentinel Fund I, with committed capital totaling $213.5 million.

[Skylight’s TikTok alternative adds community curators to the mix | TechCrunch](https://techcrunch.com/2025/08/26/skylights-tiktok-alternative-adds-community-curators-to-the-mix/)
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With Skylight’s 2.0 launch, the company is focusing on improved curation. Users can now create their own “curator” feed by posting and reposting videos or by using third-party tools to build their own custom feed. Soon, the company will integrate technology from the custom feed-building platform Graze to allow Skylight users to create those custom feeds inside its own app, as well.

[Are AI unicorns starting to move beyond hype? – CB Insights Research](https://www.cbinsights.com/research/ai-unicorns-commercial-maturity/?utm_source=tldrai)
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But beyond the hype, CB Insights Commercial Maturity scores highlight a shift toward increasing maturity among the AI companies hitting unicorn status. We highlight the trend below.

[Exclusive | Inside Intel’s Tricky Dance With Trump – WSJ](https://www.wsj.com/tech/inside-intels-tricky-dance-with-trump-c03f729c?st=6z2WWU&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink&utm_source=tldrnewsletter)
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But the truce came with a cost: In return for Trump’s support, the administration proposed taking an equity stake in the company. It decided to convert nearly $9 billion in grants—promised to Intel as part of the 2022 Chips Act—into a 10% equity stake in the company, an unusual arrangement that makes the government Intel’s biggest shareholder.

More Portland startup stories
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