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It may surpries you to hear that CBRE’s new Scoring Tech Talent 2026 report features Portland. But what probably won’t surprise you is that the Rose City is near the bottom of the pack. 34th out of 50. So we’re still in the top 50. But lower than we would usually rank. Unfortunately, that slide puts us among the small handful of large markets that actually lost tech talent over the last three years. Down 3.5%. Somewhere around ~3000 people who used to do this work in tech around here. And now don’t.

[Editor: Starting this one with a caveat. I don’t write long pieces here very often anymore. And usually, it tends to be when something is stuck in my craw. And I feel the need to rant. But this one is more metered. I figured if Governor Tina Kotek’s Oregon Prosperity Council was going to take the time and energy to compose a 452 page report on what Oregon needs, I would give it the space it needed. And I’d read all 452 pages. So you didn’t have to. This is my take. It’s not perfect. But hopefully, it provides some insights into the document, some highlights, and some questions. I’m literally just posting this to serve as an artifact for future reference. Rather than some glowing insight.]

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

Oregon helmet maker Studson expands in Europe – Portland Business Journal

“Studson has built its reputation on reimagining industrial head protection for the modern workforce — professionals who demand advanced protection, performance, and comfort on par with premium sports and outdoor equipment,” said founder and CEO Ryan Barnes.

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

The Cofounder Relationship: Your Startup’s Most Important Asset

Your cofounder relationship determines your startup’s success more than product-market fit. Most founders focus on operations while ignoring the psychological dynamics of partnerships. Build operational and personal trust, create explicit agreements about expectations, address emotional debt, and recognize that your partnership dynamics set your company’s culture. The most impactful work isn’t in your codebase—it’s in your cofounder relationship.

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

Business Oregon Funds Unique Solution to Oregon’s Wine Bottle Shortage

Oregon’s wine industry generates $8 billion worth of economic activity in the state, employing more than 40,000 people, and it is increasingly constrained by an unreliable supply chain for glass bottles. To mitigate this problem, Business Oregon awarded $250,000 from the Strategic Reserve Fund to assist Revino Inc. in building out its glass bottle washing facility near Portland, Oregon.

Startups are hard enough without comparing them to one another. But still, that’s the kind of world that we live in. Where we rank stuff. And create competition and stuff. So I still pay attention to that stuff. Even if it’s not always my cup of tea. (I don’t even drink tea on a regular basis.) All that being said, if we’re going to have comparisons and competition, it is nice to see two Oregon companies in the mix of the top 10 companies on the GeekWire 200 for Q2 of 2025.

I know, I know. I’ve been talking a lot about Graze and how excited I am but the work they’re doing with Bluesky. But just to prove I’m not offer my rocker — about Graze at least — I wanted to share a lengthy write up on TechCrunch describing what this Portland startup is doing.

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but… we had a bit of a disruption of “work as we know it” over the past four years or so. And even before that, the concept of “coworking” began to shift thinking about the way people work together. But in this new day and age of modern remote work, few locals have put as much thought into how people work together as Amina Moreau of Radious. And now, she’s going to be sharing some of that thinking with you.