Here’s a roundup of interesting startup links I came across today:
Flipboard acquires Graze, the tool for building your own social algorithm
Flipboard has acquired Graze, a Portland startup that lets creators build, tune and monetise custom social feeds without writing code, mainly on Bluesky. Graze says it has delivered more than 41 billion posts to 12 million users since forming 21 months ago.
No longer lagging, Oregon economic growth catching up with nation, state economists report • Oregon Capital Chronicle
That’s largely from an unexpected increase in personal income taxes, which is buffering an unexpected decline in corporate income taxes. The higher income taxes indicate more people are working, more people are earning higher wages, or both. Oregon’s relatively stagnant employment rate indicates it has more to do with wage growth than job growth, though Riccadonna said the employment gap should be starting to close as well.
(2019) More than a third of the new Female Founders Alliance accelerator cohort are Oregon startups
It’s always heartening to see more Oregon founders getting more support. And when that support comes from outside the region? That’s only further proof that we’re building compelling startups that can compete on a bigger stage. So I was really happy to see three Oregon startups getting the nod from the Female Founders Alliance Ready, Set, Raise program.
VanTechy Peer Review — North Bank Innovations
Northbank knows you’re looking for users to test your product. Starting in August 2026, the first hour of VanTechy will be invite-only for those who apply below. During that hour, invited attendees will bring a product for review and get feedback from other builders who are also sharing what they’ve built. It’s community in the truest sense: helping each other and building better products together.
Silicon Florist watch party · Luma
It’s Friday evening. You’re wiped. But you’re still in the mood for something entertaining. Well, unfortunately, this ain’t it. But it is an opportunity to join folks from the Portland startup community for a little watch party — all from the comfort of your own keyboard.
Another potential headache for US data centers — Trump tariffs – POLITICO
The Trump administration is weighing a new round of sweeping tariffs on semiconductors, eight people familiar with discussions told POLITICO — despite warnings from tech companies that the move could doom U.S. hopes of dominating artificial intelligence.
Claude Cowork gets a built-in browser: nothing to install | Claude by Anthropic
Claude now has a browser built into Claude Cowork on the desktop app. When a task needs to use a website, a browser opens in the side panel and Claude navigates webpages, reads them, clicks, and types. You can now hand off the web part of the task and stay where you are: Claude can fill in a form, pull numbers from a dashboard, or work through a portal that has no connector. No extension, no setup, and nothing shared from your own browser unless you choose to.
A Once-in-120-Years Black Bamboo Bloom Is Happening at Leach Botanical Garden
The big event is happening right now in Southeast Portland at Leach Botanical Garden’s grove of black bamboo (scientific name Phyllostachys nigra). It started flowering about two months ago, according to Adam Hart, Leach’s horticulture director, and he doesn’t know exactly how long the bloom will last—its life cycle is difficult to study since the last time this happened was around 1906.
How Much Should Founders Get Paid?
There’s no one-size-fits-all manual here. Every company is different. But after walking enough founders through this, a few guidelines hold up every time.
Lam Research expands in Oregon as AI chip demand grows – Axios Portland
Lam Research, the Portland-area semiconductor equipment maker, broke ground Wednesday on a multimillion-dollar research and development lab aimed at meeting growing demand for advanced AI chips.
Oregon’s economy shows signs of improvement, new forecast says – OPB
Yes, the state’s 5.2% unemployment rate is still running well ahead of national unemployment, which has been decreasing of late. But Riccadonna said the Beaver State’s economy is finally growing at nearly the pace of the nation as a whole. As of the first quarter of this year, Oregon’s economic output increased 2.4% over the past year, compared to 2.7% for the national economy.
Brief independent investigation of agents’ behavior, reasoning and collaboration in the OpenAI / Hugging Face hacking incident – METR
Two METR staff members (Hjalmar Wijk and Ajeya Cotra) and a Redwood Research staff member contracting with METR (Ryan Greenblatt) worked on premises at OpenAI over a total of six days[1] to attempt to form an independent understanding of model behavior observed during the recent incident in which OpenAI agents coordinated a multi-day hack of Hugging Face on a shared unsanctioned “message board.”
Why ‘pivoting’ is just quitting with better PR (and what to do instead)
There’s a name for this pattern. It comes from a Finnish-American photographer named Arno Minkkinen, and Oliver Burkeman wrote about it in Four Thousand Weeks. When I first read it, I put the book down and sat with it for a while. Because it explains something I watch happen to consultants over and over again — and something I did to myself more times than I’d like to count. It’s called the Helsinki Bus Station Theory.
Inside OpenAI’s Reboot
It’s been a difficult stretch for the company that ushered in the AI boom. “We clearly had some missteps as a company,” Altman told me the following week, sitting in the tastefully appointed MB0 library for more than two hours of interviews. “Both in terms of product direction and specifically on pretraining in research, we fell behind where we wanted to be.” Over the course of the past year, OpenAI lost the lead in the AI race to archrival Anthropic, which spotted the business opportunity in AI coding, built Claude Code into a market-defining product, and surpassed OpenAI in reported annualized revenue and private-market value for the first time. Anthropic, founded by OpenAI defectors, is now expected to be the first of the two companies to go public, two people familiar with its plans say, with the IPO as early as September.
Most Questions About AI Aren’t About AI – by Dan Williams
Although deep technical expertise in how AI works is indispensable for answering many questions about AI, it is rarely sufficient and often unnecessary. Most questions about AI simply aren’t about AI in a narrow, technical sense. These include not just questions about how AI will transform our societies, but even questions more directly focused on AI itself, a uniquely mysterious technology that invites deep questions about the nature of intelligence, motivation, and agency.
Why Agility Robotics chose a SPAC path to public listing – Portland Business Journal
The company’s humanoid robots have the potential to change labor and transform Oregon’s technology landscape. But unlike some of its Silicon Valley competitors, it is following a more pragmatic and methodological approach to this long-term vision, according to co-founder and Chief Robot Officer Jonathan Hurst.
What the Tech, Bend?
Let’s make the most of this time by connecting at tech talks, happy hours, morning coffees and outdoor adventures. This group is open to anyone who wants to engage with Bend’s tech community. From old friends to people new to town, all are welcome. Even better, bring a friend. There’s no agenda other than getting to know each other.
Construction procurement platform Source buys Project Dynamics – Portland Business Journal
Portland-based Source has made another acquisition that further pushes the company toward its goal of being the go-to procurement, ahem, source for hospitality and commercial construction.
Inside a Techstars Accelerator: 13 Weeks from Orientation to Fundraising | Techstars | Techstars
A week-by-week look at how one Techstars accelerator program moves founders from orientation to fundraising, with stops in Boston, Columbus, Los Angeles, and San Francisco along the way.
Turning Research Into Jobs, Startups and Industry Partnerships: New NSF Grant Powers up Portland State | Portland State University
Portland State University has been awarded a $5.9 million National Science Foundation Accelerating Research Translation (ART) grant to accelerate the translation of PSU research from the lab into companies, products and partnerships that strengthen the Portland-metro and Oregon economies.
Kotek promise to reinstate QSBS tax break heartens founders – Portland Business Journal
Oregon Business & Industry predicted the bill would further erode the state’s already weak business climate. Portland Seed Fund, Technology Association of Oregon, Oregon Venture Fund and Oregon Entrepreneurs Network also defended the tax break, which they argue incentivizes investment and affords founders a potential upside for the risk they take in starting a business.
Application Guide | Oregon AI Accelerator
Cohort 2 applications close September 15, 2026 at 11:59 PM PT. Priority review deadline is September 1.
