---
title: 'Silicon Florist links arrangement for February 17, 2026'
date: '2026-02-17T19:34:00-08:00'
type: post
word_count: 520
char_count: 4613
tokens: 676
categories:
  - Portland
---

# Silicon Florist links arrangement for February 17, 2026

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

[Why I don’t think AGI is imminent](https://dlants.me/agi-not-imminent.html?utm_source=tldrai)
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This piece is a sketch of my own thinking about the boundary of transformer-based large language models and human-level cognition. I have an MS degree in Machine Learning from over a decade ago, and I don’t work in the field of AI currently, but I am well-read on the underlying research.

[Only 2 States Saw Their Share Of US Venture Funding Rise Last Year](https://news.crunchbase.com/venture/states-us-funding-share-rose-fell-2025/?utm_source=cb_daily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20260217&utm_content=intro&utm_term=content&utm_source=cb_daily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20230703)
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In 2025, only two states with a sizable venture scene saw a year-over-year gain in their share of U.S. venture funding: California and Washington. This held true even though several others, including New York and Texas, actually saw a pretty big bump in investment.

[Why I don’t think AI is a bubble · honnibal.dev](https://honnibal.dev/blog/ai-bubble?utm_source=tldrnewsletter)
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I’m not saying there’s some ironclad guarantee that there’s a smooth reinforcement learning path from here into the sunset. What I’m saying is that there’s no publicly known reason to believe progress will halt.

[I guess I kinda get why people hate AI](https://anthony.noided.media/blog/ai/programming/2026/02/14/i-guess-i-kinda-get-why-people-hate-ai.html?utm_source=tldrnewsletter)
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I legitimately feel like I am going insane when I hear AI technologists talk about the technology. They’re supposed to market it. But they’re instead saying that it is going to leave me a poor, jobless wretch, a member of the “permanent underclass,” as the meme on Twitter goes.

[How to Engineer a Billion-Dollar Market, Tue, Feb 24, 2026, 5:30 PM | Meetup](https://www.meetup.com/what-the-tech-bend/events/313223228/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=braze_canvas&utm_campaign=mmrk_alleng_event_announcement_prod_unfiltered_v7_en&utm_term=promo&utm_content=lp_meetup&dispatch_id=6994b2067bf6ffba5f3481ff51e6bfd4)
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Bruce Cleveland has taken eight companies to $1B+ in revenue. As an investor and operator at Oracle, Siebel, Apple, and C3 AI, and as an early backer of Doximity, Marketo (acquired by Adobe for $4.8B), and Vlocity (acquired by Salesforce), his strategies have generated billions in realized returns. In this talk, Bruce will unpack the discipline of Market Engineering: how to define your category, perfect your positioning, master storytelling, and build thought leadership that separates market leaders from everyone else.

[Editor’s notebook: PBJ launches ‘Oregon Competitiveness’ series – Portland Business Journal](https://www.bizjournals.com/portland/news/2026/02/17/oregon-competitiveness-kotek-prosperity-roadmap.html?utm_source=st&utm_medium=en&utm_campaign=ae&utm_content=PO&j=44183505&senddate=2026-02-17&utm_term=ep7&empos=p7)
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At least some Oregon elected leaders seem ready to kick into a higher gear. “We need to move at the speed of business,” said rep. Daniel Nguyen at a January legislative hearing on the state’s economic development efforts.

Oregon startup news
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