Silicon Florist links arrangement for September 30, 2026

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

Expensify + Claude for Small Business Webinar

See what it looks like when a small business owner asks Claude to run their books — cash flow, month-end close, and tax prep, done live, directly inside Claude for Small Business with Expensify connected.

(2009) Portland, Oregon, joins the ranks of the open cities, officially embracing open data and open source

Portland, Oregon, is now an open city. Following in the footsteps of open cities like San Francisco, Chicago, and Vancouver, BC, Portland’s Mayor Sam Adams and the City Council today unanimously approved a resolution that directs the City of Portland to open data to outside developers and encourages adoption of open source solutions in technology procurement.

Inaugurating The Era Of Super Intelligence – The White House

The terminology used by the Federal Government should reflect the transformative capabilities of these technologies and the limitless opportunities they create for the American people.  Accordingly, the term “Super Intelligence” more appropriately captures the promise, potential, and rapidly advancing capabilities of these technologies.  It is therefore the policy of my Administration that, to the maximum extent permitted by law, the executive branch shall use the terms “Super Intelligence” and “SI” in place of “Artificial Intelligence” and “AI” and will not acknowledge the usage of “Artificial Intelligence” and “AI” in any applicable setting.

GLM-5.3 and the spread of advanced cyber capabilities

In this post, we share our analysis of GLM-5.3, the latest AI model developed by Zhipu AI (known outside of China as Z.ai). Like Claude Mythos Preview, GLM-5.3 has strong capabilities for autonomously building end-to-end cyber exploits. But GLM-5.3 is unlike other frontier models in that it has been released without meaningful safeguards to limit misuse. 

OpenAI vs. Anthropic: Inside the Biggest Rivalry in Tech – The Atlantic

But along the way, Amodei lost faith in the company’s leadership. He had come to believe that Sam Altman was a two-­faced manipulator and that OpenAI’s co-founder and president, Greg Brockman, was power-­hungry and reckless. Amodei had qualms about their decision to turn OpenAI into a commercial enterprise, and thought that they were straying from the nonprofit’s original mission to “benefit humanity as a whole, unconstrained by a need to generate financial return.”

How A.I. Super PACs Are Trying to Influence the Midterms – The New York Times

A New York Times analysis of federal campaign finance data shows that the political groups aligned with the two leading A.I. developers, OpenAI and Anthropic, have quietly but decisively intervened in key 2026 races, spending on campaign advertising and outreach to voters to the tune of $55.7 million.

America.gov

Over the past year, National Design Studio has worked with the U.S. General Services Administration to turn that vision into a groundbreaking, first-of-its kind, modern interface worthy of the American people. Phase 1 launched on September 29, 2026, introducing the simplest and fastest way to access information from the government. Phase 2 begins in 2027, bringing the ability to apply, enroll, and track progress directly in chat. A level of convenience that has never been seen before at a nation’s scale.

OR startups can get help with SBIR/STTR applications with OEN – Portland Business Journal

The Oregon Entrepreneurs Network⁠ landed a total of $301,000 from a pair of federal and state grants to provide help to Oregon founders seeking Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) funding.

Silicon Florist watch party · Luma

An opportunity to join folks from the Portland startup community for a little watch party — all from the comfort of your own keyboard.

Cities With the Best Public Transit (2026) | ConsumerAffairs®

Population size doesn’t necessarily predict the quality of public transit. Miami and Houston are two of the five biggest urban areas we looked at. Yet, they land at No. 18 and No. 33 overall, respectively, trailing places a fraction of their size, like Salt Lake City and Portland, Oregon (No. 8).

The Great AI Capital Misallocation – by Ramy Adeeb

If you have diversified customers, good retention, solid margins and 3x yoy growth, nothing is wrong with your business. The market today is pricing a different game, but venture capital appetite turns on a whim.

Everything OpenAI announced at the DevDay 2026 keynote

OpenAI announced more than 20 major updates at DevDay in San Francisco on September 29th. The keynote covered always-on agents, model pricing, cloud coding and distribution. Some products are available today; others are entering previews or rolling out over the coming weeks.

Data is the application · ma.ttias.be

So I move quickly, iterate, pivot, change my mind halfway through, deploy and redeploy, undo things I didn’t even finish, … It’s the reason I take more time to think about features now: generating a new version is so cheap that trying three of them is the normal way to work.