Here’s a roundup of interesting startup links I came across today:
It’s Not All Bad In Oregon. I’ve spent a lot of words this year… | by Josh Carter | Aug, 2026 | Medium
Credit where it’s due, OEN is starting to take this on directly. They’ve spent the last couple years deliberately pushing their reach beyond Portland, into Central Oregon and the North Coast, and their board recruitment has followed the same logic, adding directors based in places like Hood River instead of pulling exclusively from the Portland bench.
Lemelson, SecondMuse execs on Oregon’s money problem – Portland Business Journal
Oregon’s climate businesses don’t fit the models built to finance them. Venture capital is built for fast returns from software-style companies. Infrastructure finance is designed for projects that are already proven. Neither was built for the physical, capital-intensive businesses actually driving Oregon’s climate economy.
Ferguson Wellman’s Krystal Daibes Higgins on possible AI bubble – Portland Business Journal
One of the biggest mistakes investors make during technological revolutions is confusing volatility with deteriorating fundamentals. Technology has always been volatile; during the internet revolution, many companies that became exceptional long-term investments experienced multiple declines exceeding 30%. Similar patterns occurred during the adoption of personal computers, smartphones and cloud computing. Volatility alone is rarely evidence that the long-term investment thesis has failed.
Startup Coffee Meetups, Thu, Sep 10, 2026, 9:00 AM | Meetup
After a summer break, our monthly gathering for founders, entrepreneurs, innovators, and startup-curious community members returns on Thursday, September 10, from 9:00 to 10:00 a.m.
(2016) A hero in our midst: Congrats to Shashi Jain on being recognized for helping young entrepreneurs
Sometimes, even the most startuppy of us has a day job. But when you can combine that day job with the opportunity to teach others about entrepreneurship? Then you’ve got something good going. And no one does a better job of keeping a foot in both camps than our own Shashi Jain. And now, he’s getting the recognition he so richly deserves.
Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine Think A.I. Is Good for Music – The New York Times
Mr. Iovine, a record producer from New York, and Dr. Dre, a hip-hop star from California, have been an influential creative force since the 1990s. Mr. Iovine’s Interscope label backed Dr. Dre’s seminal solo albums, and the two later spotted and signed artists like Eminem. Their creative chemistry also hatched Beats by Dre headphones and helped build Apple’s streaming music service after the tech giant acquired their company.
Builders FirstSource and Digs Announce Strategic Partnership to Deliver the Next Generation of AI-Powered Homebuilding
Builders FirstSource, Inc. (NYSE: BLDR), a leading provider of building materials and value-added services, and Digs, a leading AI platform for homebuilders and homeowners, today announced a strategic partnership to deliver the next generation of AI-powered workflows and digital infrastructure for professional builders and homeowners.
Vedansh — backend & AI engineer
Two routing strategies. Identical models, identical loop, identical prices. One is the best decision available to you, the other is worse than doing nothing. The difference between them has nothing to do with model selection and everything to do with what state crossed the boundary and when.
How Universities Should Prepare Founders
How should universities prepare students to start startups? Y Combinator is in the perfect position to answer this question, because we get them next. We’re like grad school. And because YC has had 20 years to refine its model of what a promising founder looks like, you probably won’t find a better target.
When code is abundant
What interests me is what happens one level beyond the workflow. If code is no longer the primary constraint, what becomes scarce? What architecture does an enterprise need when people, agents and multiple models are all acting across the software lifecycle at machine speed? And where does durable value move when generating the code itself becomes increasingly abundant?
Inside The Private-Market Divide: EquityZen’s Phil Haslett On AI, SaaS And Secondaries
Phil Haslett, who co-founded EquityZen and serves as its chief strategy officer, has had a front-row seat to the secondary market’s evolution. Crunchbase News spoke with Haslett about what secondary-market pricing says about today’s most sought-after startups, why AI companies are commanding premiums while many older startups trade at discounts, what the IPO market looks like beyond its biggest names, and why investors are taking a closer look at hard tech.
The American People Really Hate Data Centers
A moral panic is when people have an unjustified and disproportionate fixation on the dangers of something, especially something that doesn’t exist or is extremely rare, that one would look back upon as rather silly.
Good Culture is the Biggest Productivity Hack, Not AI
Throughout my 13+ year career in the engineering industry, I’ve seen both the negative effects of bad culture and the positive effects of a good one. I even felt it myself as an engineer and an engineering manager, when departments spent whole days blaming each other for problems.
Robots Will Soon See the Real World Thanks to These Next-Gen AI Models – WSJ
Engineers and investors pile into world models, aka ‘large action models,’ to do for robotics what ChatGPT did for writing and coding
It’s the Ecosystem, Stupid – by Paul O’Brien
Startups don’t fail because founders are stupid. They fail because the ecosystem around the founder is broken, and almost nobody funding that ecosystem wants to say the word out loud.
Code & Coffee with Mentorship Saturdays @ Roseline Coffee, Sat, Sep 12, 2026, 10:00 AM | Meetup
Roseline 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.
