इस एपिसोड के बारे में
Leading the week: Phil and Penny Knight's $1B gift to build a new Knight College of Engineering at the University of Oregon — which, fun fact, walks straight into the territory the state system carved out for Oregon State a century ago, so consider this the moment that rivalry got a very expensive new chapter (with Jensen Huang's OSU gifts as the friendly counterweight). Then Rapta closed an $8M round for its manufacturing intelligence platform, and what caught my eye wasn't the number — it was the all-local cap table: Voyager Capital, Elevate Capital, Portland Seed Fund, and Bend Venture Conference, with Diane Fraiman and Kirk Holland taking board seats. I also did a two-part startup-lens read on the Oregon governor's race — comparing Kotek's and Drazan's actual plans, then sitting through the PBJ/OBI forum where neither candidate said the word "startup" once — and landed on a closing thought that's stuck with me: OBI has a room, we don't. Plus Built Festival felt like a genuine family reunion (save the date — 10th anniversary is October 1, 2027), Selena Deckelmann made TIME's Executives of the Year list, and there's now a Calagator-style map for Portland's pop-up food scene, courtesy of a Canard bar manager who got $40K dev-shop quotes and had a regular build it for free instead.
LINKS:
Selena Deckelmann recognized among 2026 TIME Executives of the Year — https://siliconflorist.com/2026/09/22/selena-deckelmann-recognized-among-2026-time-executives-of-the-year-tech-and-data/
TIME Executives of the Year: Tech and Data — https://time.com/collection/executives-of-the-year-tech-data/2026/selena-deckelmann/
Looking for Portland pop-ups and food events? Try The List PDX — https://siliconflorist.com/2026/09/24/looking-for-portland-pop-ups-and-food-events-try-the-list-pdx/
The List PDX — https://thelistpdx.com/
Apply to the Oregon Growth Board — https://siliconflorist.com/2026/09/22/if-youve-ever-been-interested-in-impacting-how-capital-flows-in-oregon-you-may-want-to-apply-to-the-oregon-growth-board/
Oregon Growth Board — https://www.oregon.gov/biz/aboutus/boards/ogb/pages/default.aspx
Uncle Phil has entered the engineering chat — https://siliconflorist.com/2026/09/23/uncle-phil-has-entered-the-engineering-chat/
Phil and Penny Knight give $1 billion to launch a UO engineering school — https://www.oregonlive.com/silicon-forest/2026/09/phil-and-penny-knight-give-1-billion-to-launch-university-of-oregon-engineering-school.html
People seem pretty excited about the $1B donation to the UO Knight Campus — https://siliconflorist.com/2026/09/24/people-seem-pretty-excited-about-the-1b-donation-to-the-university-of-oregon-knight-campus/
While Rapta's $8M raise is newsworthy, it's who's on the cap table that struck me — https://siliconflorist.com/2026/09/21/while-raptas-8m-raise-is-newsworthy-its-whos-on-the-cap-table-that-struck-me/
Rapta — https://rapta.com/
Comparing the Oregon gubernatorial candidates' published plans — https://siliconflorist.com/2026/09/22/comparing-the-oregon-gubernatorial-candidates-published-plans-from-a-startup-perspective/
Kotek's "Building Oregon's Future Together" — https://www.tinafororegon.com/oregons-future/
Drazan's six-part plan — https://www.christinefororegon.com/drazan-plan/
Gubernatorial candidates sit down to discuss one another's plans for Oregon — https://siliconflorist.com/2026/09/24/gubernatorial-candidates-sit-down-to-discuss-one-anothers-plans-for-oregon/
Built Oregon — https://www.builtoregon.com/
