Silicon Florist links arrangement for November 12, 2026

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

Your Company’s Attachment Problem

Underneath my desire to keep everything “okay” was a drive to avoid being abandoned. My actions were all weighed down by a misguided agenda of rescuing. If I saved, I mattered. And if that didn’t work, I could fall back on my black-belt-level skills in dissociation.

Lenny’s Newsletter Meetup in Portland (with free drinks courtesy of PostHog) · Luma

These meetups are hosted by members of Lenny’s Newsletter community, and are a great opportunity to meet new people, and have in-depth conversation about product and growth. There is a tab for free drinks. Learn more at LennysNewsletter.com/community.

(2015) Augmented reality augments Portland collaboration: Clackamas Community College, Oregon Story Board among Ivy Leagues in Microsoft HoloLens granting

If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times: Portland is collaborative as fuuuuuu… well, um, it’s collaborative. And while that’s super helpful for many of us, it’s always nice to see others recognize the value of that collaboration. That’s why it was awesome to see Microsoft select a group of Portland area organizations for one of its exclusive HoloLens grants.

Anthropic’s Initial Public Offering

AI will have a vast impact on the world. Anthropic is a public benefit corporation dedicated to securing its benefits and mitigating its risks.

The 40 Best Portland restaurants you need to try in 2026 – oregonlive.com

To put together this guide to Portland’s 40 best restaurants, Michael Russell revisited dozens of restaurants in every quadrant of the city, then made his rankings based primarily on the quality and creativity of the food, while taking into account service, drinks, atmosphere and value. As always, he visited unannounced and paid for his own meals. Current hours are listed for each restaurant, but checking online for unexpected schedule changes or temporary closures could save you some heartache.

Is the honeymoon over for data centers in Washington? • Oregon Capital Chronicle

Across the state, communities are demanding a moratorium on data centers. Their concerns are widespread: water consumption, noise pollution, location near communities, power consumption on a strained grid, groundwater contamination and a lack of transparency from elected officials.

The fall of “what you can do” and the rise of “who you know” — Jason Wei

I am now feeling a substantial change in AI, specifically in the past five years, where who you know is becoming more important, and what you can do is becoming less important. I am obviously not saying that technical skills don’t matter, or that you cannot be successful without being well connected. Technical skills are still important and make or break your career. But I am noticing a trend. To assign arbitrary numbers, I would say that five years ago, success was 75% your skills and 25% who you knew. Now, it is maybe 55% skills and 45% who you know.

AI may quickly generate ideas, but working with people leads to more creative ones

As cognitive scientists who study creativity, we recently conducted an experiment that explored how working with AI – rather than humans – affects originality and other aspects of creativity.

The forgotten formula for lovable cities – Works in Progress Magazine

Sitte argued that the best public spaces are physically enclosed and fairly small, creating a sense of shelter and intimacy, defining picturesque views and perspectives, and making public buildings appear larger and more dignified by comparison. He denied the importance of symmetry and claimed, counterintuitively, that monuments should be pushed to the edge of squares, and that great public buildings should generally be entangled in a mass of everyday housing.

You Keep Saying “Add Value.” I Don’t Think It Means What You Think It Means.

But “value” is not a fixed trait. It’s a spectrum. Some things have value which fades. Some things have value which lasts. Some forms of value feel transactional (when you need it, you need it—but then you’re done with it) while others feel transformational.

Welcome to the B2A Economy

Agents now make up the majority of web traffic, write more than half of new articles published online, and generate most of the code pushed to production.

Why Should Managers Exist? — Amplify Partners

To understand what’s happening, we should go back to Coase’s original thesis about what makes firms necessary and some pre-history of how “management” became a job.

Handing over humanity – by Ruxandra Teslo

I do not know whether the handoverist vision will come to pass. That the people building this technology consider it plausible, and often desirable, guarantees nothing: proximity to a technology does not correlate that well with predicting its impact on society. But they are the ones closest to it, and what they say deserves to be at least taken seriously. The rest of society, including some very intelligent people, has been far too quick to wave these scenarios away and not even get involved in the debate. Whether or not the belief is correct, it is sincerely held, and it is not “marketing hype.” I am writing this because I think it is high time that more people, inside San Francisco and out, engaged with the arguments about what our future will look like, and answered them.

Of Miracles and Moats – Not Boring by Packy McCormick

There are three arguments against this being a bubble more broadly, though, which are oft-repeated, sound right, and are exactly the things you’d expect to see in a bubble.

Yes, you should panic about AI – Rutger Bregman

For ten years, a small group of experts has been saying insane things about AI. For ten years, they’ve been proven right. Now the world is running five months ahead of their scariest predictions.

Happy Hour with Tech Professionals, Thu, Nov 19, 2026, 5:30 PM | Meetup

Whether you’re deep in the tech world or just tech-curious, if you’re in Bend and want real conversations with interesting people, you belong here. Bring a friend, bring a coworker, or come solo and leave with new connections. No presentations, no sales pitches. Just good people and good conversation.

Portland startup Panthalassa opens Vancouver plant – Portland Business Journal

Panthalassa has its headquarters in Northeast Portland. But a 70,000-square-foot industrial space a couple of miles east of downtown Vancouver is where the company is dialing in production of its autonomous ocean energy “nodes.”

Energizing Oregon: Highlights from the 2026 Bend Venture Conference – Elevate Capital

Elevate Capital was incredibly proud to be well-represented on the BVC stage, watching three of our portfolio companies take home big checks…