Here’s a roundup of interesting startup links I came across today:
Missouri town fires half its city council over data center deal – POLITICO
Voters in a small Missouri town, unhappy with the city council’s approval of a $6 billion data center, struck back at the polls last week, ousting all four incumbent council members running for reelection.
Someone Bought 30 WordPress Plugins and Planted a Backdoor in All of Them.
On April 7, 2026, the WordPress.org Plugins Team permanently closed every plugin from the Essential Plugin author. At least 30 plugins, all on the same day.
Defeating Nondeterminism in LLM Inference – Thinking Machines Lab
But why aren’t LLM inference engines deterministic? One common hypothesis is that some combination of floating-point non-associativity and concurrent execution leads to nondeterminism based on which concurrent core finishes first.
No company in American history has ever grown like Anthropic
Try to wrap your head around this. The company announced last week that its run-rate (annualized) revenue has passed $30 billion — up from $19 billion in early March, and up from $9 billion at the end of 2025. Its main product, Claude, launched just over three years ago.
Not all AI agents are created equal
Agents are so hot right now. Every other day, someone’s launching a new one or a new tool to manage them. I bet your team has a half-dozen agent ideas on your backlog right now. None of this means you actually need to build an agent today. But it does mean that you need to understand how agents fit into your broader strategy, and what the right investment looks like.
New federal figures reveal 1 in 3 US households struggle to pay energy bills, but the reality is likely even worse
The new information is from preliminary reports based on the Residential Energy Consumption Survey, a representative survey of U.S. households conducted every four to five years by the U.S. Energy Information Administration. These early results show that energy insecurity, a hidden hardship defined as the inability to adequately meet household energy needs, affects millions of American households and is worsening quickly.
New Amtrak trains coming soon to Pacific Northwest, but not in time for World Cup • Oregon Capital Chronicle
Sleek new, amenity-packed “Airo” trains are still undergoing testing back East and will not get here in time to haul legions of international soccer fans. Amtrak Executive Vice President Laura Mason told reporters Thursday that while the testing is going well, the rail operator won’t rush brand-new equipment into service.
Phoenix Not Copying Silicon Valley is the Winning Lesson
Our conversation was part of a broader circuit during Arizona Tech Week, but what made it notable was where it led; not into the usual “how do we attract more VCs” fantasy that plagues most ecosystem conversations, but into something far more diagnostic the likes of which I want to be having in every city.
Getting Started with AWS, Wed, Apr 29, 2026, 6:00 PM | Meetup
Whether you’ve been cloud-curious for a while or you’re ready to finally make sense of AWS, this is the meetup for you. Join us for a practical, beginner-friendly evening dedicated to demystifying Amazon Web Services inlcluding spinning up your first account to understanding the services that power modern web applications. We’ll cover a lot of ground, but we’ll keep it approachable.
Summary – AI Startup Innovation Sandbox
Join us on April 22 for the TAO AI Startup Innovation Sandbox — an exciting evening showcasing a curated group of early-stage AI startups with strong regional roots and bold plans to build across Oregon and Washington.
AI and the Future of Healthcare (Panel) · Luma
Will we even need doctors in five years, or are we watching the birth of something radically new? This panel confronts the rapid rise of AI in medicine, from AI-led diagnosis and robotic healing to empowered patients disrupting care models.
PDX Code & Coffee @ DeadStock Beaverton, Mon, Apr 20, 2026, 9:00 AM | Meetup
At Beaverton Code and Coffee, we currently have informal hosting with multiple rotating hosts. If you are a regular attendee (2+ times/month), feel free to ask more about it, and I can add you as co-host!
