Here’s a roundup of interesting startup links I came across today:
Why Americans are buying $22 smoothies despite feeling terrible about the economy
When people feel life is out of control, they reach for something small, expensive and signaling virtue. This is the real reason premium food is booming while some traditional luxury brands struggle, say consumer psychologists.
Project Glasswing
We formed Project Glasswing because of capabilities we observed in a new frontier model trained by Anthropic that we believe could reshape cybersecurity. Claude Mythos2 Preview is a general-purpose, unreleased frontier model that reveals a stark fact: AI models have reached a level of coding capability where they can surpass all but the most skilled humans at finding and exploiting software vulnerabilities.
What Flexible Funding Makes Possible | Panorama Global – Panorama Global
Since launching Yield Giving in 2019, philanthropist MacKenzie Scott has distributed more than $26.3 billion in unrestricted grants, with a growing share directed to organizations working across Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. The real-time impact of Scott’s giving is hard to overstate.
Oregon startups outpacing closures despite economic concerns | Oregon / Northwest | centraloregondaily.com
Oregon has for most of the last decade seen significantly more new businesses register in the state than exit, according to analysis from Richard Acquah-Sarpong, a Ph.D. candidate in applied economics at Oregon State University.
PDX Code & Coffee @ DeadStock Beaverton, Mon, Apr 13, 2026, 9:00 AM | Meetup
Code and Coffee is an inclusive, informal co-working session. Drink some coffee, bring your laptop, and have engaging conversations. This is a great opportunity to learn from others, share your knowledge, and possibly collaborate on side projects, online courses, or even your day-to-day work tasks.
Tiered Gardens Could Celebrate the Return of Black Portlanders to Albina Riverside
Albina Vision Trust, the nonprofit powerhouse run by Rukaiyah Adams, has always had a vision for reclaiming property that once belonged to Black Portlanders, and now it has the cash.
My picture of the present in AI – LessWrong 2.0 viewer
You can think of this post as more like a list of my current views rather than a structured post with a thesis, but I think it may be informative nonetheless. In a future post, I’ll go beyond the present and talk about my predictions for the future.
Most Active And Highest-Spending Startup Investors Diverged In Q1
The investors backing the highest number of startup rounds this past quarter were mostly not the ones writing the biggest checks. And the ones funding the largest deals were not the most prolific dealmakers.
The Building Block Economy – Mitchell Hashimoto
The most effective way to build software and get massive adoption is no longer high quality mainline apps but via building blocks that enable and encourage others to build quantity over quality.
Principles of Mechanical Sympathy
Mechanical sympathy – a concept borrowed from racing and popularized in software by Martin Thompson – is the practice of creating software that is sympathetic to its underlying hardware.
PDX Code & Coffee @ Kiln, Fri, Apr 17, 2026, 9:00 AM | Meetup
Code and Coffee is an inclusive, informal co-working session. Drink some coffee, bring your laptop, and have engaging conversations. This is a great opportunity to learn from others, share your knowledge, and possibly collaborate on side projects, online courses, or even your day-to-day work tasks.
The Portland Indie Game Convention is coming this May 30th & 31st! | Patreon
We’re SO excited to be putting on a con PIGSquad-style, including a huge showcase floor of games to play, speakers & presenters, alt ctrl showcase, artist alley, tabletop sessions, weird & wild nighttime activities, BYO indie showcase, and special guests.
Block – From Hierarchy to Intelligence
For this to work, a company needs two things: a kind of “world model” of its own operations, and a customer signal rich enough to make that model useful.
Oregon State University Jobs Portal | Innovation Impact Catalyst Manager
The Innovation Impact Catalyst Manager serves as senior execution and commercialization leader for the Innovation Impact Program (IIP) and Advantage Accelerator (AA). This role strengthens, scales, and continuously improves OSU’s innovation and entrepreneurship faculty engagement, venture outcomes through program and execution and improvement, while advancing high-potential research, and guiding startups toward measurable societal and economic impact.
More Oregon startup news
