Silicon Florist links arrangement for October 9, 2026

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

Your Moat Is Dead. Anyone Can Rebuild Your Product.

I have read that exchange about ten times now, and I think everyone involved is half right. Something real happened, just not what Raymond thinks. Software is moving to the server, but models are not the last moat. And the question underneath all of it, the one a lot of founders have been asking me this year, deserves a better answer than a hot take. If anyone can rebuild your product, what is your company actually worth?

(2007) Portland added to Google Maps Street View

This is both a geek alert and a time-waster alert, but it’s official: Google Maps now contains street views of Portland, Oregon.

Sorry, I’m in a meeting.

Plausible meeting audio: workplace self-defence against people stealing your time. Pick a meeting, press play, and let the background noise do the talking.

You Need a New CFO

The dimensions of a great CFO have held up remarkably well across eras. The best CFOs don’t just deliver numbers or board decks. They also use data to guide an opinion on the direction the business should take. What the job asks of them is what keeps changing with the scarce skill of the moment.

Product Definition. – by Ravi Mehta

Today the job of building products is going through radical change — so profound that some folks believe the product job itself is disappearing. It’s easy to see why that fear has taken hold. Companies are downsizing, much as they did in the early days of COVID-19, and increasingly shifting dollars from talent to tokens.

First look at Claude Code mods (spoiler: yes, use one now!)

I have to say I was sceptical at first. “Mods” – we already had hooks, right, so what can be so special? I’m not going to retell what mods can do. Nor do I recommend reading through the manual. Instead, ask Claude this

The State of AI Report 2026 – by Nathan Benaich

This year, agents are doing valuable work in software and science, physical AI is learning how to act in the world, and access and control are becoming more consequential. Below, I share the developments that stood out to me and what I think they mean for where AI goes next.

Promises to end homelessness in Portland have failed. Next up, a pledge to incrementally reduce it – oregonlive.com

Now, local leaders are quietly trying something different: Setting a concrete goal to incrementally reduce homelessness that is tied to the financial resources available to spend on the problem. Specifically, they approved a new plan last month to work toward reducing homelessness by 10% in two years.

Dorkbot PDX: October Edition, Mon, Oct 12, 2026, 6:30 PM | Meetup

No featured speaker this month, but bring your electronic wonders, monsters, and works-in-progress to show off, or come see what others have been working on! Code or circuits, electronic creativity of all sorts is welcome here. Table space with power will be available for project show-and-tell; we have a table for drinks and snacks, feel free to contribute to the communal cache/BYOB.

Churn Happens Early | Activation || Value Paths

Once you start looking at cohort churn, a big thing that jumps out is that it is NOT flat over time — there’s almost always a steep dropoff at the beginning, then things stabilize later on.

Margaret Hamilton, Whose Software Guided the Apollo Missions, Has Died – The New York Times

Margaret Hamilton, who led the 100-person team that wrote the onboard software for the Apollo missions, guiding Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to a safe landing on the moon, died on Sept. 30 in Cambridge, Mass. She was 90.

Chelsea Tossing | CreativeMornings/Portland, OR

Chelsea Tossing is an educator and nonprofit leader who believes the best way to find out what you’re capable of is to try something you’re not sure you can do. She is the Executive Director of the Mazamas, a Portland nonprofit that has been helping people learn to climb and explore the mountains together for more than 130 years. Her path has taken her from public school teaching to outdoor education to leading a mountaineering organization, and she counts herself incredibly lucky that what she believes most deeply is also what she gets to do for work every day.

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