Silicon Florist links arrangement for September 24, 2026

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

Knight Family commits $1B toward a college of engineering at UO | Office of the President

I share this news while also acknowledging that we are working through difficult budget conversations. This exceptional gift is designated for engineering and accelerating scientific impact. It does not resolve the work still in front of us to address our structural deficit over the coming years. But it does affirm the principles laid out for those conversations: that we would invest in the strengths that set our university apart, continue to highlight research leadership and excellence, and make the UO a destination of choice for more students.

Adam DuVander — Developer Marketing & The DEV Content Framework – Everything Is Marketing | Podcast on Spotify

On the show today is Adam DuVander. Adam is the founder of Every Developer and author of Developer Marketing Does Not Exist.

Officials claim downtown Portland is ‘back’ but office workers remain scarce

Despite the promotional figures, overall activity sits at just 77% of 2019 levels, dragged down by an office workforce that remains nearly 50% below pre-2020 numbers. Portland Metro Chamber leaders acknowledged that empty commercial space is a major obstacle, while everyday workers and visitors continue to voice skepticism over street conditions, cleanliness, and whether downtown is truly secure.

(2009) Portland’s Small Society builds an iPhone app for a little coffee shop called Starbucks

So why am I writing about it now? Well, because as it turns out, the Starbucks app was created by none other than Small Society here in Portland.

The Group Chat Where World Leaders Are Racing to Create AI Controls – WSJ

A club of Western presidents and prime ministers is leading a new push for global controls on AI, echoing the nuclear arms treaties that took root during the first decades of the Atomic Era.

Financing the AI buildout | Brookings

Financing the AI buildout projects that AI investment in data center buildings, power systems, networking infrastructure, and specialized chips and other equipment will total an enormous $10.3 trillion from 2025 to 2032, or an average of 3.63% of U.S. gross domestic product per year.

Portland City Councilors Seek to Raise Taxes on Companies With Highly Paid CEOs and Exempt More Small Businesses From Business Tax

Under the Morillo-Green proposal, the threshold for paying the BLT tax would increase to $500,000 in gross revenue, which by their telling would drop about 18,000 businesses off of the tax rolls.

China puts AI compute into orbit with Supercomputing-1 satellite — onboard processing aims to cut Earth-observation data processing from hours to minutes | Tom’s Hardware

The payload of greatest interest is the “Supercomputing-1” satellite, developed by Chinese AI computing infrastructure company S-AIDC. Also known as the S-AIDC-1, the satellite is designed to capture and process Earth-observation data in orbit instead of sending data back to terrestrial data centers. Keeping the processing local is meant to cut cross-regional data processing times from hours to minutes. The satellite features both a high-res optical payload and the image-processing AI computer.

I don’t want the details | michaelheap.com

Then I realised that “I don’t want the details” wasn’t being dismissive. The executive assumed that we were competent, and was saying “I already believe you. Now let’s talk about what happens next”.

Here’s the trailer for Nathan Fielder’s Elizabeth Holmes documentary, in theaters October 16 | TechCrunch

We live in a bewildering time, where the world’s most powerful people are trying to make themselves cyborgs, conquer the inevitability of death, and colonize outer space. But in the midst of such a jarring moment in the history of humanity, the world throws you a bone. In this cursed timeline, we have been gifted something so unfathomable that we could never have imagined it, because even in our wildest dreams, we wouldn’t have come up with something so perfect: a Nathan Fielder documentary about Elizabeth Holmes.

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.

8 Seconds Rodeo campaign celebrates Black cowboy culture

8 Seconds Rodeo, a cultural celebration and rodeo event founded by photojournalist Ivan McClellan, is returning to Philadelphia on October 10. To promote it, McClellan has collaborated with director Devin Hampton, music producer Kaidi Tatham and creative agency Wieden+Kennedy (specifically its Black affinity group Noir) on a lively new campaign.

The Agentic Dispatch: We’re Taking Over Vegas

C1.ai Launch Week is back, with four drops shipping one per morning from September 28 through October 1. C1 Transform is two weeks out, the agenda just dropped, and C1.ai is now available in Europe. Here is everything happening right now.