Here’s a roundup of interesting startup links I came across today:
What to Do in Portland, Oregon If You’re Here for Business (2025) | WIRED
This low profile can make Portland a chill place to do business. Whatever the occasional national headlines, the city remains a mostly relaxed mecca for food and beer and music, and for always dressing like you’re about to go on a hike. It is also a nerd’s paradise for hacker spaces and tech ephemera.
Tech workers’ fight for living wages and a 32-hour workweek is a battle for all – The Chief
My union, Kickstarter United, part of the Office and Professional Employees International Union (OPEIU) Local 153, is the union of workers at Kickstarter and the first-ever union in the American tech industry. On Oct. 2, we went on strike over our demands for a 32-hour work week with no loss of pay and livable wages for all workers.
Big Tech Is Spending More Than Ever on AI and It’s Still Not Enough – WSJ
“Whoever gets to AGI first will have an incredible competitor advantage over everybody else, and it’s that fear of missing out that all these players are suffering from,” said Youssef Squali, lead internet analyst at Truist Securities. “It’s the right strategy. The greater risk is to underspend and to be left with a competitive disadvantage.”
How Founders Can Navigate Today’s Interest Rate Landscape
The Fed had to slam the brakes, raising rates from basically nothing to above 5% in just over a year. That whiplash left startups caught in the middle. A friend of mine had been planning to roll over a $2 million credit line at 3%. Overnight, the rate more than doubled. That “just in case” line suddenly turned into a cash-burning liability.
How to Evaluate a Founding Team
For early-stage startups, assessing the founding team is one part of the due diligence process. While the product and market are important, the founding team’s composition and capabilities to scale, pivot, and even fail can provide investors with additional insight. In this blog, learn more about how to evaluate a founding team and assessing and evaluating startup founders and their capabilities.
Thread by @Tocelot
i’m a fan of the “right size problem for the right size team” approach – what’s an appropriately scoped problem so that a team with your (limited) resources can execute a first-class effort? ex. Amazon’s books-only marketplace or Facebook’s college photo sharing feature
WSJ calls Dutch Bros Starbucks’ biggest challenger – Portland Business Journal
Evolving coffee preferences and its Gen Z and millennial customer base position Grants Pass-founded Dutch Bros (NYSE: BROS) as the biggest challenger to Starbucks’ long dominance of the U.S. market, the article said. That, and younger consumers’ preference for coffee that is syrupy, cold and easy to sip on the go.
Latino businesses face economic fallout as immigration enforcement ramps up in Portland area – oregonlive.com
Over the past few weeks, as the federal government has ramped up immigration enforcement and agents have seized people from cars, streets, apartment buildings and parking lots across the Portland metro area, sales at the family-owned bakery have plummeted by at least 40 percent, said owner and lead pastry chef Moises Pineda.
Amazon layoffs reaction: ‘Thought I was a top performer but guess I’m expendable’ – GeekWire
A megathread on Reddit served as a collection of comments by impacted employees who posted about their level, location, org and years of service at Amazon.
Slowly but surely, high-speed rail backers believe Cascadia mega-project will become a reality – GeekWire
Ten years into a dream to connect Vancouver, B.C., Seattle and Portland via a high-speed rail line, stakeholders and backers of the mega-project said Wednesday that they’re still very much onboard — and to prepare for a long trip.
Affordable housing threatens economic growth in Pacific Northwest
“What always strikes me, whether I’m in City Hall in Vancouver or Seattle or Portland, is that everybody talks about the same thing — the high cost of housing,” said Microsoft President Brad Smith at this week’s Cascadia Innovation Corridor conference in Seattle.
Holiday 2025 — Built Oregon
Join us in committing to spend at least half of your holiday budget locally. Built companies are here to help you find the right gifts.
It only took 20 years, but the Strategic Management Society now Believes the Lean Startup is a Strategy
The award said, [Steve Blank] as the Father of Modern Entrepreneurship, changed how startups are built, how entrepreneurship is taught, how science is commercialized, and how companies and government innovate.
Steiner Cutting Back Private Equity — Oregon Journalism Project
In an unusual public letter to the Oregon Investment Council last week, State Treasurer Elizabeth Steiner said she supports trimming $6 billion in private equity assets from the Oregon Public Employees Retirement Fund. “While it is true that private equity has added significant value to our funds, I agree with the OIC and staff’s decision to reduce our overall allocation in this asset class,” she wrote.
More Portland startup stories
