Silicon Florist links arrangement for August 19, 2026

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

Do you know how to flex? – by Dr. Astrid J. Scholz

Resilience is also not something you can gain, master, or meditate into existence overnight, much less while the world seems to be descending into chaos around you…

Oregon youth sports startup is partnering with the Hillsboro Hops – Portland Business Journal

On Tuesday, the Hops, the high-A affiliate of the Arizona Diamondbacks, announced that the team would partner with Rule42, a new tech company focused on youth sports. Rule42 will be a founding partner of the new Hops Ballpark, which opened this spring after a $150 million renovation, which means the company is a cornerstone sponsor for the minor league team.

(2016) What the Portland startup community needs more of… and less of

Editor’s note: Hanging out in the Portland Startup Slack, Kathryn Brown opined that many of the events and organizations trying to support founders in our community seemed a little misdirected. I asked her to elaborate if she could. What I got was a great list of things we should be doing more of… and things we should be doing less of. With her permission, I’m republishing her Slack posts, here.

Flock Has a Powerful New AI Tool for Police. We Got Its Code | WIRED

The suggested prompts sit in a cache of more than 450 files that WIRED found on Flock’s own website, served by its login pages to anyone who loaded them. The code describes 45 tools at the AI’s disposal, giving it access to plate scans and camera metadata, arrest records, case files, dispatch logs, ballistics results, and commercial databases that contain Social Security numbers, dates of birth, phone numbers, email addresses, relatives and associates.

Amazon Prime Air drone delivery expands to nearly 500 cities and towns by 2026

Prime Air plans to launch soon in the Chicago, Illinois; Syracuse, New York; Cleveland, Ohio; Atlanta, Georgia; and Boise, Idaho metro areas, with more communities to come later this year.

Young US adults are increasingly wary of AI, concerned it will take jobs | Pew Research Center

Today, 52% of Americans say they are more concerned than excited about the increased use of AI in daily life – up from 37% in 2021. Another 9% are more excited than concerned and 37% say they’re equally excited and concerned, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted June 22-28, 2026.

Inside Big Tech’s Frantic Race to Quell the Growing Backlash to AI – WSJ

Open houses, multimillion-dollar community pledges, free tacos—none of that used to be the norm for an industry that could rely on speed, confidentiality and political connections to get gigantic computing facilities approved and built on favorable terms. That is rapidly changing in the face of a volcanic grassroots backlash that threatens the foundations of the AI boom.

Dear VCs, Just Give Up – by Michael Dempsey – On My Mind

Everyone knows the only thing that matters is if you can get into the best companies in the world. As we have an explosion of accessible intelligence, there are obviously going to be fewer and fewer companies that matter. So maybe the big funds won’t do every deal, but they will do all 8 that matter in any given year. Simplistically, if you’re not in OpenAI, Anthropic, Anduril, and insert neolab here then you are inconsequential.

Kalshi Hires Oregon Lobbyists and Gives Rayfield $12,500

Ascendent New York City-based prediction market Kalshi has hired a pair of experienced Oregon lobbyists and made a $12,500 campaign contribution to Attorney General Dan Rayfield. Earlier this month, Kalshi reported hiring prominent Oregon lobbyists Mike Freese and Danelle Romain to the Oregon Government Ethics Commission.

This Adventure-Ready Travel Trailer Aims for a Versatile Sleep Under $30k | Gear Patrol

With this in mind, a new Oregon-based startup called Motsmann Engineering is entering the small-trailer scene to field a squaredrop that promises rugged capabilities under $30,000. Along with a durable, all-weather construction, it promises a wealth of options to make it your own.

The New American AI Model Designed to be Customized

Thinking Machines, founded by Mira Murati (the ex-CTO of OpenAI), describes its mission as building AI that extends human will and judgment. The company lists four directions of work, which are training strong models, building tools that let people customise models with their own knowledge, developing interfaces that widen the communication channel between people and machines, and publishing research on how models are made [3].

Rethinking the Data Moat

Since I happened to stumble onto both of these during the weekend, I could notice a healthy dose of similarity in Greenblatt’s and Bi’s arguments. Last month, I wrote about the salience of data in the context of AI and Alphabet bidding for bankruptcy auction for Spirit Airline’s data certainly corroborates to that. However, both Greenblatt and Bi made me re-think my position a bit on this topic.

Which Investors Have Backed The Most 2026 Unicorns?

The most active investors in the 2026 cohort of newly minted unicorns include some of the most well-established names in venture capital. Sequoia Capital, Khosla Ventures and Y Combinator top the list for investments in the companies minted so far this year.

The “Full Stack Builder” is a terrible idea

As teams climb the AI learning curve, they’re accelerating, but new failure modes are also emerging. AI lets anyone on a product team build almost anything. That doesn’t make the team obsolete. It makes the team more important

How to Compete With Claude (Build vs. Buy Playbook)

“Can’t we just build this with Claude?” is a real question for software buyers. I won’t pretend to know who has the biggest moat against Claude or how durable those moats will be. But I did want to investigate how top apps are positioning against Claude.

OSU Already Morphs Discoveries Into Companies, Now they’re Accelerating that Ambition – The Corvallis Advocate

Oregon State is now leading an expanded effort to help turn research breakthroughs into new companies and commercial products. The NSF FAST Engine  — recently selected as a U.S. National Science Foundation Regional Innovation Engine — brings together nearly 100 partners across higher education, government, the technology industry, nonprofits and investors to accelerate innovation and strengthen Oregon’s $21 billion semiconductor ecosystem.

More Oregon startup news