No, local models will not win

Local models are never going to be as powerful. I think this point should be obvious: all of the current frontier models (closed and open-weights) are far too big to run on anything but a full GPU cluster in a datacenter. Of course, smaller models are getting more intelligent over time. In a year you might be able to run something about as strong as GPT-5.6-Sol on your laptop. But by then, you’ll think of GPT-5.6-Sol as too weak to be useful.

Compute Is Revenue. Revenue Is Collateral. – by Prakash

Nvidia’s release says explicitly that the partnerships remain subject to final agreements. It gives no committed amounts by institution, no interest rates, no maturities, no collateral rules, no advance rates and no complete description of Nvidia’s own exposure. The announcement is therefore best read as a proposed market architecture: a plan to make racks of accelerators legible to institutions that normally buy infrastructure debt, asset-backed securities and insurance-grade credit.

Launching America Next 250: Tomorrow Beings With Us

“My generation was handed a particular assignment. We were among the first to move in real numbers into these schools, these companies, these rooms, and we were taught resilience and grit as the tools to gain a piece of what was being offered. It took most of a lifetime to see that the assignment itself was off. We were pursuing gain as objects in the American experiment — certain we had to petition or conform to receive them. But we are not objects. In fact, we are the subjects of this story.”

National Knife Day 2026: Knife Maker Showcase – Portland Knife Center of Excellence

In 2024, in an unprecedented show of collaboration and community building, five competing Portland-based knife brands (Benchmade, CRKT, Gerber, Leatherman, and STEELPORT Knife Co.) – who are also five of the most notable American knife brands in the world – united to form the Portland Knife Center of Excellence (PKCoE). One of PKCoE’s objectives is to bring global awareness to Portland as a destination to connect and celebrate the passionate Knife Community while building pride in American craft, education, and innovation. The Portland Knife Center of Excellence continues to strengthen and now has seven local knife brands as members.

Stealing Reasoning Traces from Proprietary LLM APIs

The paper’s authors found that every model under the same family used the same encryption key, which meant you could feed those blocks back into the weakest model family members and jailbreak them into outputting the unencrypted raw reasoning blocks!

(2016) Market like you’re Action Jackson: Customer.io Actions

What’s Customer.io Actions? It’s an expansion beyond Customer.io’s typical email communications. To enable targeted communications to customers via any publicly available API. Twilio? Yep. Trello? Well yeah. Slack? Duh.

My agent setup

The goal of all this agent experimentation is to scale multiple products and the nonprofit with fewer staff and volunteers than would otherwise be needed. In short, I’m creating a staff of agents. I’m about a month into this charade, so it’s still early days.

YC Domains — How startup domains changed

In YC’s first years, almost every startup lived on a .com. Two decades later, fewer than half do.

Shoulders of Giants. Your success is not your fault | by Scott Galloway | Aug, 2026 | Medium

Americans love a self-made success story. The operative word, however, is … story. In his book Born on Third Base, Chuck Collins analyzed the economic backgrounds of the people on the Forbes 400 list. He concluded that, while media accounts labeled 70% of the wealthiest Americans “self-made,” in reality only about one-third came from a poor, working-class, or middle-class family with no significant family capital. Two-thirds of the people on the list stood on the shoulders of a giant named generational wealth.

OBI Annual Startup Spotlight Expo

Join us for an engaging evening at OBI’s Annual Startup Spotlight Expo, where innovation meets connection. This signature event highlights the groundbreaking work of OBI’s resident startups across biotech, health, and life sciences, offering a firsthand look at the ideas and technologies shaping the future of the industry.

AGI Will Set Off an Industrial Explosion – AI Frontiers

If AI reaches the point where it can do the cognitive work humans do, robots will proliferate. Standard data on US industry implies a fully automated economy could double its output roughly every year

Sector Snapshot: Fitness Startup Funding Is Rebounding, But Investors Want AI And Data, Not Treadmills

Venture investors, luckily, seem to be more upbeat than they have been in years about the future of fitness and wellness. Startup investment in those categories totaled more than $3.6 billion in the first half of this year, putting 2026 on pace to come in about a third higher than 2025, though notably last year marked the lowest sum for wellness-related startup funding in at least six years.

The Lead Investor Problem – by Martyn Eeles – HealthVC

This is the lead investor problem. It happens when many investors are interested in the company, but no one is willing to take ownership of the round. Everyone wants to watch. Everyone wants to be kept updated. Everyone wants to know who else is involved. Everyone wants comfort from the market. But nobody wants to set the terms, anchor the round, take the first real risk, and become the investor others can organise around.

Preventing churn in set-and-forget products

No need for panic; your engagement frameworks still work, but you need to point them at a different actor.

Robotics startups raise $23B, humanoid funding hits $8.6B | Value Add Pulse

Robotics startups have raised more than $23 billion in 2026, nearly matching all of 2025, with humanoid-specific funding alone reaching $8.6 billion — 1.8 times last year’s full-year total with five months still to go.

Put AI to Work: A Hands-On Workshop, Wed, Aug 19, 2026, 3:00 PM | Meetup

Ryan Ramirez will show you how tools like Claude Cowork and Claude Code actually work, where they are reliably useful, and how to give them the context and instructions required to produce professional-quality output.

Porkbun vs GoDaddy: Setting the Record Straight – Porkbun.com

GoDaddy recently published a Porkbun vs GoDaddy comparison article on their own website. GoDaddy manages more than 82 million domain names while here at Porkbun we manage about four million. By their own published numbers, they are over twenty times our size.

Firsthand: Six Years at Vanta, My Reinvention is the Only Constant

I realized the opportunity to help build what could become the next Apple was more compelling to me than making Apple’s marketing 0.1% better.

TiE Oregon names new president – Portland Business Journal

“To serve as president of TiE Oregon, I am especially grateful for the opportunity to lead and giving back to an organization that believes entrepreneurship is one of the most powerful drivers of economic growth, innovation and job creation,” Lukas said in a written statement.

Why apply…? Here are a few reasons from the new leadership organizing the event this year:

• Applications close August 13 — don’t miss the opportunity.
• Meet active investors. Semifinalists and finalists receive dedicated one-on-one networking at the new Founder–Funder Reception.
• Gain visibility. Pitch in front of investors, experienced entrepreneurs, and industry leaders from across the Pacific Northwest.
• Three tracks for companies at different stages: Early Stage, Growth Tech, and Growth Industries.t.
• Early Stage Bonus: Oregon-based semifinalists compete at September PubTalk, where 10 companies will pitch for a $5,000 Audience Choice Award before finalists advance to the BVC main stage.

Need more reason…? Okay. You’re a tough sell. There’s a whole bunch more on the Bend Venture Conference site. But whatever the case, please apply. Like right now.

Insitu is a pioneer in designing, developing and manufacturing uncrewed aircraft systems (UAS) used in intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. Its product portfolio spans high-performance, cost-effective, resilient, VTOL-capable UAS and AI-enabled software solutions. Insitu’s technologies have helped the armed forces of 35 nations make quicker, more informed decisions to bring warfighters home safely. With offices in the US, Australia, the UK, and the UAE, Insitu has manufactured and fielded more than 3,500 UAS and provides operations and support networks in every hemisphere of the globe.

“This transaction is a win-win for Boeing and Archer,” said Brian Yutko, Boeing vice president, Commercial Airplanes Product Development. “It allows Wisk, SkyGrid and Insitu to accelerate capability development and time to market while ensuring Boeing capitalizes on its investments in these technologies over the past two decades through continued development in our core businesses. Having worked with the incredible teams in these companies firsthand, it’s clear this transaction will create an industry leader in the advanced aviation market. We look forward to collaborating with Archer to drive continued innovation in aerospace, defense and autonomy.”

For more information, see the press release or see the coverage from the Puget Sound Business Journal.

Your August dispatch from the Office of Small Business

The Office of Small Business would like to invite you to attend the rescheduled Show Up for Small Business event, which will take place on Thursday, August 13 at 5:00pm at the ModHaus food cart pod (3829 SE Division St, Portland, OR 97202).

(2008) Shizzow knows Portland, Oregon. Now get to know Shizzow.

Sharing information about your current location with people you trust has always held this glimmer of potential. The glimmer of actually finding the time to meet face-to-face during our ever increasingly busy schedules. The glimmer of that impromptu meetup with people whom you would like to get to know better.

AI & Robotics Field Trip · Luma

Climb aboard the AI Portland school bus! We’re heading down to Oregon State for a day inside their AI and robotics labs. Yes, an actual yellow school bus… lean into it, it’s part of the fun!

NVIDIA Partners With Apollo, BlackRock, Blackstone, Brookfield, Goldman Sachs and KKR to Establish AI Compute Infrastructure Financing Platforms to Mobilize Over $500 Billion of Third-Party Capital | NVIDIA Newsroom

“NVIDIA has reached an important milestone. We began by building chips; today, we are helping create a new class of productive, investable infrastructure: AI factories,” said Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA. “In AI, compute is revenue. NVIDIA compute is uniquely suited for this role. It is broadly adopted, flexible across models and workloads, fungible and transferable across customers and operators, and continuously improved through CUDA software — extending its useful life and improving its economics over time. It is supported by a deep global ecosystem of developers, customers and offtakers. That is why we are bringing the world’s leading long-term capital providers together to independently underwrite AI infrastructure. These financing platforms will help customers access scarce compute at scale and build the DSX AI factories that will power every industry and country in the age o

Intel raises $19.7 billion to help fund future projects as 14A production looms — share sale attracted $100 billion in demand, report claims | Tom’s Hardware

Intel will sell 210,526,315 shares for $95 apiece through an underwritten public offering. In addition, participating banks have 30 days to acquire as many as 31,578,947 more shares at the same $95 price, minus applicable underwriting discounts. Should they exercise all their options, Intel could sell approximately 242.1 million shares altogether and increase the proceeds to roughly $23 billion. Without the additional shares, Intel expects net proceeds of approximately $19.7 billion after underwriting discounts, commissions, and estimated expenses. The transaction is scheduled to close on August 12, 2026.

Meta’s Open Weight Whiplash

A lot has changed since the last time Meta released an open weight model – namely, seemingly the entire team building models for Meta. Famously, “Llama” was put out to pasture as Alexandr Wang and his Scale team was brought in to fix what ailed those previous models. That included not only spending billions on fresh AI talent and data centers, but also setting aside that notion of “open” in favor of a closed approach to AI development. Why? Because it sure seemed like that model – and those models – had won the day just over a year ago.

OpenAI’s Only Dedicated Ethicist Has Left With No Replacement: FT – Decrypt

Chloé Bakalar joined from Meta last August and departed in July without any announcement, one of several safety exits in recent weeks.

OpConnect expands in Portland with new HQ, production facility – Portland Business Journal

OpConnect, which makes EV charging stations that are aimed at fleet and multifamily customers, is moving from its 10,000-square-foot Southeast Portland headquarters to a new 30,000-square-foot facility in the Central Eastside Industrial District.

September Entrepreneur Mixer: Tillamook

Enjoy a morning just for entrepreneurs and founders at the Oregon Entrepreneurs Network (OEN) September Entrepreneur Mixer from 8:30 – 10:00 am on Wednesday, September 2nd in partnership with NW Innovation Hub hosted at Tillamook Creamery Red Barn in Tillamook.

To All the Folks Who Are About to Be Rich | by Julie Zhuo | Jun, 2026 | Medium

I was in your shoes once, pre-IPO at the hot company of my generation. We had a hackathon the night before we rang the bell. Some of us felt like life was about to change. Others of us felt it was just another ordinary day — a nice milestone, sure, but with so many already crossed on the path to hypergrowth, what’s yet another?

How to make people care about your startup

It’s never been easier to start a company. It’s also never been harder to get someone to care that you did. Anyone can now go from idea to business in less time than it takes to hire a single engineer. But the same tools that make building simple make standing out a challenge.

Portland Festival of Cinema, Animation & Technology

OMSI is the place to be for the Portland Festival of Cinema, Animation & Technology! Enjoy a six-day celebration of independent film and animation featuring exclusive screenings, filmmaker Q&As, an interactive expo, and visionary experiences that explore the future of storytelling through immersive VR, dome screenings in the Kendall Planetarium, and emerging technologies.

The Future is for Everyone

The defining questions of our age are who will have access to superintelligence and what will we direct it towards. Will it be centralized and restricted to a few institutions, or will it be a tool that empowers everyone?

Power 2026 by Neel Somani – Electricity Pricing in the Age of AI

Before we dive into power, you have to understand where it sits in the broader context. There are three major commodity categories: energy (e.g. power, crude oil, natural gas), agriculture, and metals. All commodities have some basic properties in common that set them apart from other asset classes.

Weekly Review: Everything Around the Model – by Sam Keen

Welcome back to Altered Craft’s weekly AI review for developers, and thank you for starting another week here. This edition keeps landing on the same quiet truth: the model is the part you can’t change, and everything around it is where the leverage lives. Context compilers, persistent memory, unified harnesses, loop verifiers, evals as files, code graphs, guardrails. Even the editorials agree, with a four-tool agent beating heavyweight rivals and domain expertise still steering the whole thing.

NuScale Power builds $1.9B capital cushion in nuclear race – Portland Business Journal

The Corvallis company reported negligible sales and rising expenses in the second quarter but grew its liquidity by around $900 million.

As a contributor to Oregon’s innovation ecosystem, your insights are important. We invite you to take this survey to help assess the state of Oregon’s current innovation climate. Please submit your response by August 15th. It is estimated that the survey will take 20 minutes to complete, but you are able to leave and re-enter the survey to finish at any time (on the same device).

To take the survey, visit Oregon’s Innovation Plan.

TiE Women is dedicated to Embrace, Engage and Empower women entrepreneurs across the globe. The program is focused on women entrepreneurs, irrespective of their origins, standing or background. TiE Women is part of the larger Global TiE Women’s Program.

The local women-led companies competing include:

• DigniTurn
• Free Living Co
• GoEasy
• Momotaro
• Ringa
• Zippin Bio

Alternates are Arc School and Poshan.

For more, visit TiE Women.