Silicon Florist links arrangement for October 6, 2025

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

Portland’s rise: A city rebuilding through public-private partnership

Earnestness, community collaboration, and peaceful civic engagement are what brought Portland back from our hardest days. That unity is what will propel our city into a brighter future. It makes our democracy resilient and worth defending—and it will carry us through whatever comes next. We invite you to the city that we love and call home. We’ll welcome you to see for yourself the roses and the thorns.

AMD and OpenAI announce strategic partnership to deploy 6 gigawatts of AMD GPUs | OpenAI

AMD⁠(opens in a new window) (NASDAQ: AMD) and OpenAI today announced a 6 gigawatt agreement to power OpenAI’s next-generation AI infrastructure across multiple generations of AMD Instinct GPUs. The first 1 gigawatt deployment of AMD Instinct MI450 GPUs is set to begin in the second half of 2026.

YC Arena

Play a collection of fun, interactive games about the Y Combinator startup ecosystem. Test your knowledge, discover new companies, and challenge your startup savvy.

Economics and AI 

This is a long collection of notes about economics & AI, prompted by two excellent workshops I attended in mid-September: the Windfall Trust’s “Economic Scenarios for Transformative AI” and the NBER’s “Workshop on the Economics of Transformative AI”. I had just left OpenAI’s Economic Research team, after releasing our paper, How People Use ChatGPT.

Venture Capital’s Cautious Reawakening – Mass Tech Leadership Council

Venture activity is showing its first real signs of life since 2021: “discovery meetings” are on the rise, AI firms command an 85% valuation premium, and seed companies are pushing into Series A rounds. Despite deal counts still at decade lows, these shifts mark a definitive thaw in a market long frozen by high rates, constrained dry powder, and LP cash shortages.

Base, Best, Worst: Your 2026 Planning Framework

A tactical guide to building aligned annual plans with clear levers for growth, or course correction.

Show Up for Small Business Tickets, Wed, Oct 15, 2025 at 5:30 PM | Eventbrite

On October 15th we are headed out to the Array Food Hall in the Gateway district where you can support Cascadia Taphouse, Thai Carnation, and Poke Delight.

Other Oregon startup stories