Here’s a roundup of interesting startup links I came across today:
Things You Don’t Have to Do – Quarter Mile
This page is almost the inverse. It’s a list of things you are allowed to not do. I’m writing it because I sometimes hear people tell me that they “have to” do some of the things on the list below, and I’m skeptical whether that’s true. And because, in my view, it’s quite helpful to know what you don’t need to do.
Portland foot traffic rises 5.6% despite lagging office workers – Portland Business Journal
From January through August, more than 21.45 million pedestrians visited the city core, a 5.6% increase in foot traffic from the same period in 2024, according to the latest Downtown Foot Traffic Report from Downtown Portland Clean & Safe, a Portland Business Alliance entity.
OpenAI Realizes It Made a Terrible Mistake
Whether there’s a solution to the problem remains a hotly debated subject, with some experts arguing that hallucinations are intrinsic to the tech itself. In other words, large language models may be a dead end in our quest to develop AIs with a reliable grasp on factual claims.
AI Is Grown, Not Built – The Atlantic
They didn’t set out just to build chatbots; the chatbots are a stepping stone on their path to superintelligence. Some people worry about who will be in control of such superintelligences, but in reality, nobody will be in control. The AIs are grown rather than constructed, and a grown AI has drives and behaviors that nobody asked for and nobody wanted.
Intel alums’ startup takes on data center chip design – Portland Business Journal
Called Mueon, the startup has a team of 20 led by co-founder and CEO Wilfred Gomes. Gomes spent 27 years at Intel and was an Intel Fellow — the company’s highest level of technical achievement — in microprocessor design and technologies.
Artisan’s Playbook: How an AI SDR Startup Raised $25M in Under a Year
In less than a year, this YC-backed startup positioned itself not as another AI sales tool but as something bigger: the first AI employee. That single framing shift changed everything. Investors stopped thinking of Artisan as just another product and started seeing it as a wedge into the future of work.
Calling All Future Innovators: Join TYE 2025–2026!
As fall approaches, the TiE Young Entrepreneurs (TYE) Community Program is gearing up for another impactful year! If you’re a high school student with a passion for innovation and entrepreneurship, TYE is the perfect program for you to learn, grow, and collaborate with peers who share your drive.
Silicon Valley bets big on ‘environments’ to train AI agents | TechCrunch
One of those techniques is carefully simulating workspaces where agents can be trained on multi-step tasks — known as reinforcement learning (RL) environments. Similarly to how labeled datasets powered the last wave of AI, RL environments are starting to look like a critical element in the development of agents.
Autodesk unleashes Neural CAD 3D generative AI foundation models – DEVELOP3D
Unlike general-purpose large language models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude, Neural CAD models are trained on professional design data, enabling them to reason at both a detailed geometry level and at a systems and industrial process level – exploring ideas like efficient machine tool paths or standard building floorplan layouts.
Ranking cities by AI startup funding: Bay Area dominates, Seattle is No. 4 – GeekWire
The number is a small piece of the AI startup pie that’s mostly consumed by California’s Bay Area, which gobbles up 51% of funding. New York (11%) and Boston (5.5%) are also ahead of Seattle.
The Market Is Mispricing Women’s Sports. It’s Time To Catch Up.
It’s a misconception that the rise of women’s leagues threatens legacy properties. In actuality, they expand the total addressable audience. There’s no need to treat them as a zero-sum game; Caitlin Clark’s arrival didn’t stop the 2025 Super Bowl from setting a new U.S. TV record with 127.7 million viewers.
