Here’s a roundup of interesting startup links I came across today:
The Customer of Venture Capital Isn’t the Founder, It’s the Investor
If a car company blamed consumers for not buying a faulty vehicle, we’d laugh. But in startups, we treat it as noble suffering. Founders and cities rally behind “capital deserts” promising networking events, demo days, and warm intros, instead of facing a simpler truth: if capital isn’t flowing to your region, your product isn’t compelling enough.
Oregon Startup Center relaunches under new leader Jim Chi – Portland Business Journal
Chi, an active angel investor and seasoned product management executive, took over the OSC role on April 1 following the retirement of Jim McCreight. In addition to this role, Chi is president of the angel investor network Oregon Sports Angels, which led him to OSC.
‘Too dumb to fail’: Ring founder Jamie Siminoff promises gritty startup lessons in upcoming book – GeekWire
Siminoff promises to tell the unvarnished story in his debut book, Ding Dong: How Ring Went From Shark Tank Reject to Everyone’s Front Door, due out Nov. 10.
Meet the Metro Region Innovation Hub | Metro Region Innovation Hub
This session is your chance to connect with the Metro Region Innovation Hub, ask questions, and explore how this initiative can support your goals or community efforts.
What Early Stage Founders Should Know About Comp: The Rules To Break (And A Few You Should Actually Follow)
There’s no shortage of advice on how to structure compensation. Here’s how to know which of it applies to you — with insights from Clay, Google and Instacart.
Mapping AI Agent Adoption Across 217,000 GitHub Repositories
I scanned 217,000+ active public GitHub repositories in early October 2025 to map how developers are adopting AI coding agents. The overall adoption rate is 4.9%.
Officials at the heart of Oregon’s data center scandal had a tangle of conflicting roles – oregonlive.com
The directors of a tiny Northeast Oregon nonprofit called Inland Development Corp. voted in 2017 to cut a $145,000 check to another nonprofit, Morrow Development Corp., where state Rep. Greg Smith moonlighted as a contract employee.
Lean startup rebooted
A far more useful conversation is whether we should pull the Lean Startup methodology out of the drawer and how we can update it for the era we find ourselves in.
Alpha VC vs. Beta VC – by Phin Barnes
Over the past few weeks, I’ve been reflecting on the venture capital industry and how my work at TheGP is fundamentally different than what’s happening inside larger multi-stage platform firms. We’re both called venture capitalists, but what we do and how we do it are so different, I think one of us (or perhaps both of us) needs a new name.
Getting Into a (Writing) Flow – Ron Bronson
I’ve blogged more this year than I have since probably have in a long time and that’s great, but in a post-Twitter world, it’s clear(er) to me that getting ideas out and frankly, reflecting on the work and practice requires more regular writing.
