Here’s a roundup of interesting startup links I came across today:
VC-backed startups commit more fraud, and researchers think they know why | TechCrunch
For the report, published online in June, researchers built a database of tech founders and companies who faced civil and criminal securities fraud prosecutions from the SEC and DOJ between 2000 and 2023.
(2011) The dream of OpenID is alive in Portland: Janrain lands $15.5 million in funding
If you don’t know the story of Janrain, you should. It’s a story of perseverance, constant tweaking, and now a chunk of cash to help it grow and expand. You see, Janrain has just secured $15.5 million, making it one of the biggest startup wins in Portland in quite a while.
Further Developments About Internal AI Models Hacking Things
Both of our leading labs made the same dumb mistake of leaving models totally unsupervised, with lowered safeguards, without first having the models try their best to break out of the sandbox. And these are, together with Google DeepMind, some of our most responsible frontier AI labs. Most of the others are clearly even less responsible.
The OpenAI and Anthropic AI Hacking Sprees Are a Messy New Legal Frontier | WIRED
Who is legally responsible when agentic AI goes rogue, and what recourse do victims have when they’ve been breached by joyriding models? Great question.
OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta, Thinking Machines fight for AI talent
The churn reflects an unusual moment in which a small group of researchers can command extraordinary compensation while choosing among companies with different cultures, missions and technical resources.
Should I Tell A Founder They Have No Chance of Investment From Our Fund? | by DC Palter | Jul, 2026 | Entrepreneurship Handbook
My heart is with the founders, and I want to help them, even if it’s the tough love they clearly need rather than more encouragement they don’t. I hate to see them wasting months begging for funding that will never materialize.
Why People Hate Capitalism – Vijay Pande | Substack
The anger at capitalism is aimed at something real. And it’s our job to fix it. That’s not a claim thrown around frequently in venture capital. And I just wrote an essay retiring Marx—but stay with me. The mistake in all that anger is the target. Much of what people hate about capitalism isn’t the building of businesses; it’s five specific rackets we keep producing, all five running the same play.
Oregon Rural Action: Neighbors Fighting for Change
We are everyday people fighting for the freedom to build a good life in rural Oregon. We raise a unified voice to protect our communities and our environment. We build power by showing up. Will you join us? Get started by signing up for our updates and ways to get involved.
When Genius Fails—The Intellectual Arrogance of the AI Labs
Beyond food, we’ve had periodic doomsaying about the labor market in the face of technological change. But the reality is, even when there’s been disruption, the labor market has adapted—and to far more dramatic change than we’re talking about right now.
When expressive humanoid robots are awkward, people become wary – new brain study
When an animated robot erred, people seemed caught off guard and had to work harder to make sense of an awkward social situation. Activity rose in the two brain regions, and the two started working together more closely. That closer teamwork predicted the rise in oxytocin levels, which itself predicted falling trust and less influence on participants’ behavior. In contrast, this coordinated brain activity was absent in participants who interacted with expressionless robots.
‘A Rare Land-Grab Moment’: Menlo Ventures’ Matt Murphy On The Next Wave of AI And Putting $3B In New Capital To Work
Crunchbase News spoke with Murphy about why AI is pushing Menlo toward larger and more concentrated investments, what the firm has learned from its relationship with Anthropic, and where he sees the next opportunities — as well as potential bottlenecks — across the AI market.
Weekly Review: What Thinking Costs – by Sam Keen
Thanks for opening Altered Craft’s weekly AI review for developers, and for making it part of your Monday. This week’s picks keep putting a price on something that used to feel free. Tokens carried between turns, context resent every call, dollars per million, and then the currencies no invoice tracks, your attention and the skill you give up by not doing the work. The last piece asks whether the reasoning you’re buying is reasoning at all.
The Rules I Try to Do Business By
Whether somebody is paying you directly or depending on your team from elsewhere in the same company, the job is fundamentally the same. Understand what they are trying to achieve. Make it easy for them. Do good work. Take responsibility when things go wrong. Do not make your complexity their problem.
The Only Moat That Survives AI
Christian Catalini co-founded Lightspark, co-created Libra at Meta, founded the MIT Cryptoeconomics Lab, and is a Research Associate and Senior Lecturer at MIT. His answer is uncomfortable and, I think, correct: most of the network effects we treat as permanent are far weaker than they look, and exactly one kind gets stronger every time the models improve. He calls it a verification-grade network effect, and if he is right about it, the money in this industry lands somewhere very different from where most of us are pointing.
Patrick Collison: “What If You Succeed?” – Root Access
In 2009, Patrick and John Collison went to Startup School in Berkeley, got sushi in Potrero Hill afterward, and decided on the walk home to start Stripe. The reasoning, as Patrick remembers it, was that “we might as well because it probably won’t be that hard.”
EXCLUSIVE: Apple engineer says he was fired after refusing to send customer device IDs to AT&T – RuntimeWire
A 16-year employee alleges Apple’s carrier team shared IMEI numbers through unsecured email without required customer releases. Apple denies wrongdoing and says he was fired for just cause. A jury trial is set for November 2027.
Hillsboro/Beaverton | Claude Code | Builders Night with Jim · Luma
This is a casual evening for Portland’s AI builders to experiment, ship, and hang out — no pressure, no pitch decks, no judging. Just a room full of people who want to build things with AI and see what’s possible.
More Oregon startup news
