Here’s a roundup of interesting startup links I came across today:
Pacing the Frontier
To realize AI’s potential, industry, government, and society at large may need the option to buy time to address emerging risks, develop security measures, and strengthen oversight. But each company—and country—is under intense competitive pressure not to unilaterally slow that acceleration. And today, the world lacks the technical and governance tools to deliberately pace frontier-wide progress.
FACT SHEET: FCC Updates Covered List to Include Foreign-Produced Advanced Robotic Devices and Power Inverters
Today, the Federal Communications Commission updated its Covered List to include two new categories of devices—“advanced robotic devices” (defined as mobile robots, such as humanoids and quadrupeds) and, separately, connected power inverters produced in foreign countries. The action follows determinations, for both robots and inverters, by a White House-convened Executive Branch interagency body with appropriate national security expertise, which determined that these foreign-made products, regardless of the nationality of origin, “pose unacceptable risks to the national security of the United States or the safety and security of United States persons.”
A.I. Companies Are Recruiting Electricians and Carpenters by the Thousands – The New York Times
The data center boom is on everybody’s mind at the Detroit Electrical Industry Training Center, where about 850 apprentices train between long days on the job. The megaprojects are pulling skilled trade workers into remote locations with some of the highest pay and bonuses than the industry had ever seen.
Substack writers, you need a website! – Elizabeth Tai
When I looked at how fragile our digital ecosystems really are, I realized I needed a space that wouldn’t go “poof” because a company needed to please its investors or shareholders. This realization completely changed my approach, pushing me to protect my content by learning to blog the IndieWeb way.
Once the US’s kitschy capital in decline, Portland is bouncing back – Monocle
When Monocle unveiled its annual Quality of Life Survey earlier this month, US cities continued a run of gutter balls that now stretches nearly a decade. The most recent – and only – stateside entry to ever feature on our list was Portland, which last nabbed a spot in 2017.
(2021) Tiring of your pandemic gaming platform purchase? Pre-order Playdate
It was entertaining for a while. But with all of the hours of gaming during the pandemic, that new gaming platform is less appealing than it once was. You need something different. And that’s why, you’ll be happy to hear that the Panic’s Playdate is now available for pre-order. The handheld gaming platform costs $179…
Data Centers Are Easy to Build. Powering Them Is Complicated, Slow, and Expensive
To bypass the issue of grid demand, many data center builders have promised to power the buildings themselves. The problem with that plan is that it’s easy to build a warehouse full of GPUs. Building power plants and transmission lines to power those warehouses will take years and cost billions more than the data centers. A skilled and efficient builder can complete a data center construction in under a year. Building new energy generation to meet that data center’s power needs could take a decade.
Most Oregonians work at small businesses — or really, really big ones – oregonlive.com
There are more than 110,000 Oregon businesses with fewer than 50 employees. That’s more than 9 out of 10 businesses in the state. So even though each one doesn’t have many workers, collectively they employ a large share of the state’s workforce.
Anatomy of a Frontier Lab Agent Intrusion: A Technical Timeline of the July 2026 Incident
We are publishing this level of detail because the technique matters more than the incident, as it reveals the emerging attack capabilities of the frontier agents, how they could be used by rogue actors, and how everyone should be prepared as defenders.
Should you wash your prewashed lettuce? An infectious disease expert explains how to eat your greens safely during the cyclospora outbreak
Buying lettuce at local farmers markets or farm stands – or even just choosing locally grown produce at your supermarket – can lower your risk of exposure during the current cyclosporiasis outbreak, which is suspected to come from commercial producers.
Should I Fundraise in the Summer? — Chris Neumann
It’s that time of year again. We just hit the mid-point of Silicon Valley’s summer break and, right on cue, a plethora of VCs started proclaiming that they’re not actually on summer vacation.
The Best Prioritization Is No Prioritization
Prioritization is a trap. It wastes time, wastes effort, and delivers worse results than just executing faster.
The Young Founder Experience
The pressure young founders are putting on themselves right now is a direct product of that distortion. They’re measuring their private reality against everyone else’s public highlight reel and concluding they’re behind. They’re not behind. They’re just seeing the myth clearly for the first time and don’t have enough experience yet to know it’s not real and has been created through careful social media creation.
The Orchestrator’s Tax
I argue that subagents should be treated as a tool for protecting the orchestrator’s working memory, offloading reasoning it doesn’t need to hold onto. Doing this well means giving the orchestrator explicit ground rules for when and how to delegate. This is exploratory work, built from one real incident, and it ends with more open questions than settled answers.
Data centers may face temporary power cuts to prevent blackouts on largest US grid | TechCrunch
The largest electrical grid in the U.S. has struggled to cope with an onslaught of data centers. Now, after an auction to add more generating capacity fell short, the grid’s operator, PJM Interconnection, has said it will cut off data centers and other large users during power shortages.
Prosperity Redux – by Mike Schmidt – Schmidt Show PDX
Season 3 kicked off a month early with a conversation about the Oregon Prosperity Council’s report — the roadmap Governor Kotek commissioned to answer the question of what makes Oregon “prosperous.” Episode one featured Curtis Robinhold, one of the Council’s co-chairs, making the case for competitiveness. This episode brings the other side: Juan Carlos Ordoñez, Communications Director for the Oregon Center for Public Policy (OCPP), who has called the report a “bait and switch” — long on concern for middle-class Oregonians, short on anything that actually helps them.
Customer.io AI agent drives rapid adoption at Portland firm – Portland Business Journal
Customer.io is one of the region’s fastest growing companies. It makes cloud-based marketing automation software to help marketing teams send personalized information across channels. It had revenue of $90.8 million last year and about 8,000 customers.
Sneaker Week PDX 2026 — Motion in the Low End
Sneaker Week 2026 is three days of sneaker culture in motion — dozens of workshops, panels, and film screenings, a design combine, a sustainability soirée, a custom car show, a sneaker marketplace, and a live K.I.C-Off concert — with the designers, founders, and legends shaping footwear’s future all in one place. Three days in Portland’s Low End to learn the game, build what’s next, and feel the energy.
Westside Founder Coffee – August 2026 Tickets, Wednesday, August 5 • 9 AM – 10:30 AM | Eventbrite
This meetup is focused on bringing together startup and non-profit founders and leaders to talk about the challenges we all face. Starting a business or running a non-profit can be difficult. There are so many pitfalls and roadblocks. We’ve all gone through them. It’s great to interact with people that have gone through them and could share how they navigated through tough times. This is a great way to relate and advise one another. Be prepared to chat with other founders who are doing remarkable things. No sales. No pressure. Just good coffee and good conversations with other in our startup community.
Magnet – A Different Kind Of Networking Tickets, Thursday, August 6 • 5:30 PM – 7 PM | Eventbrite
Everyone’s task will be to look at the board of opportunities and select at least 3 people you’d like to connect with, in whatever capacity.
Everybody’s Got Their Hustle – Todd Greco
Here is the thing I’ve come to believe after thirty years of watching this from inside: underground dance culture is not a moment. It is a recurring invention. Every generation builds the same machine from nothing, and the machine is always made of the same four parts. A DJ. A rare record. A room. And a crowd that agrees to believe.
Narrative Crisis – by Danielle Morrill
I can’t put my finger on what bothers me about the way the startup story is getting told now. For one, it seems (at least in my algorithmic bubble) that investors and their content machines have taken over the storytelling, and the majority of journalism is written from a place of skepticism and identity politics.
(2021) Why generic marketing approaches don’t work on software developers | TechCrunch
That was the very realization that led DuVander to share what he had learned about marketing to developers in two ways: He recently launched a book, “Developer Marketing Does Not Exist,” and also works through his consultancy, EveryDeveloper, which helps its clients, including Algolia, HelloSign and Stoplight, with technical content strategy and production.
So, you want to be a content creator? – by Elena Verna
In my defense, all of the social platforms are optimized to make you addicted. Most people talk about the consumption/scrolling side, but this is true on the creation/posting side too. When you’re on them a lot, they pull you into wanting to chase impressions, chase likes, chase that juicy dopamine hit.
