Here’s a roundup of interesting startup links I came across today:
Inclusion Is a Commitment We Intend to Keep – The Sports Bra®
The Sports Bra was created to support, promote, and empower girls and women in sports. As a place of inclusion and belonging, we want to provide a space for people who may not be comfortable in typical bar environments to enjoy sports. Our LGBTQ+ community members are enthusiastically welcome in our bar and restaurant. To be completely clear, the “T” stands for Trans. We will always support and celebrate trans girls and trans women athletes, fans, and allies who love them.
(2015) Negative Ghost rider, the pattern is full: Skyward releases first version of air-traffic control for drones
That’s why Portland startup Skyward has been working on services that will help those commercial drones operate more effectively in shared airspace. And now, they’ve publicly launched some of their first services for commercial drones.
Mazama Energy raises $135M for Oregon geothermal project – Portland Business Journal
A Texas company has raised $135 million to fund the next phase of a novel geothermal project that could bring a new source of around-the-clock power to Oregon’s grid by 2029.
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.
Opinion | Jensen Huang Thinks A.I. Alarmism Has Gone Too Far – The New York Times
I wanted to see how Huang perceives A.I., what his model is for thinking about it, what he thinks is going wrong and what he thinks would need to happen for it to go right. So I came out to Nvidia’s headquarters in Santa Clara, Calif., to interview him. He joins me now.
Dive in and discover what’s next on YouTube with our latest viewer features
Curate your own front page with Custom Feeds, a new feature that lets you create a dedicated tab for specific moods, routines or your latest interests, easily accessible from the Homepage.
Amazon opens its seller tools to outside AI agents, starting with Anthropic’s Claude – GeekWire
The idea is to let sellers check inventory, adjust prices and update listings without opening Seller Central, which merchants have used for years to manage their Amazon businesses. Amazon says about 90% of sellers already use some form of outside AI to run parts of their operations.
Bessent eyed for Trump’s ‘AI czar’ | Semafor
Bessent has long played a central role in the Trump administration’s AI policy, and this week he’s already held a critical early dialogue with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, ahead of Trump’s meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
Parsing “Can” from “Should”: How Netflix’s Product Team Got Thousands of Creatives to Trust an AI Overhaul
“Many AI strategies fail at the vision stage not because the technology isn’t ready, but because they’re built around what AI can do, rather than what humans should do in the context of the industry and company,” says Lock. “At Netflix, the context was that we needed automation to massively scale the volume and diversity of our catalog, but in an industry that deeply values craft and creative control.”
Phil and Penny Knight give $1 billion to launch University of Oregon engineering school – oregonlive.com
The money will help start an engineering school in Eugene, a major boost to the university’s research ambitions and a potential competitor to Oregon State University’s well-established program just up the freeway.
Senior Software Engineer, Developer Experience and Reliability (AI-Native) Job at PicoMES | Silicon Florist
We’re a six-person full-stack team (Go, React) building manufacturing execution software that runs on real factory floors. We’re adding a seventh engineer whose focus is not the next feature ticket, but helping everything the team ships be correct, well-tested, and ready for customers, and making that faster over time.
Nike Founder Phil Knight Gives $1 Billion to Build Engineering College at University of Oregon
“To make an audacious dream a reality requires more than a vivid imagination. It also requires the sort of opportunity that our great American universities, both public and private, have historically provided. This is no time to abandon them,” the Nike founder said in a statement. “Penny and I are grateful for the chance to invest in our most promising young people’s future in this important way.”
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Your company needs a pricing constitution. – by Elena Verna
So if everyone is shipping more product, we’re also gonna have more monetization decisions. Every new feature comes with the same questions: Is this free? Is this paid? Which paid plan? Is it usage-gated? Is it an add-on? Does Enterprise get it?
Tech Dilution is Creeping Up Again + The Per-Employee Lens
To help give a better lens into this I’ve added headcount and per employee metrics to every company. This allows one to look at what a company is spending on equity per head independent of what stock price is doing. Combining equity grants per employee alongside revenue and FCF per employee tells you whether the workforce is generating enough money to actually pay their employees.
The plunging price of thought | Epoch AI
Over the past three years, the cost of a given level of AI performance has fallen about 47% per quarter, faster than for any other transformative technology in history.
Beyond Basketball: The Sports Bra and 5wins Team Up to Take Women’s College BRAckets Year-Round
Hosted within a Sports Bra-branded experience and powered by 5wins, the website is designed to bring one of sports’ most popular fan rituals to tournaments across the college sports calendar. The collaboration will launch with the NCAA soccer Selection Sunday event on November 16, and extend across BRAcket-based championship seasons, including basketball, softball, soccer, hockey, lacrosse, and volleyball.
It’s Raining Boxes: Amazon Drones Overwhelm a Texas Suburb – The New York Times
It began as an unnerving high-pitched hum, like a mosquito flying around a dark room at bedtime, and it grew louder as it drew closer. A family lounging in a backyard pool in Richardson, Texas, just north of Dallas, couldn’t help but notice it.
Social Beer: Sept Gathering, Thu, Sep 24, 2026, 6:00 PM | Meetup
Heading to the west side for this one. An IRL gathering of the Portland Startups Slack community. Whether you’re already part of the Portland Startups Slack community or not, please feel free to swing by, have a beverage, and connect with other startup and tech folks here in Portland.
