Welcome to this issue of The Austin Business Review, a weekly roundup of great local events and insights for Austin business owners (plus some other cool stuff for your life outside of work).
A friend of mine invited me on a last-minute fishing trip down to the coast, and I’m embarrassed to say I’ve be so busy these last few weeks I had to pass.
It’s led to a moment of deep and solemn reflection for me. The whole point of starting a local media company is to have a real (if somewhat dubious) excuse to go do cool stuff around the state in the name of business expenses.
So we’ve got a shorter issue this week than normal.
Partly because I’m slammed. Mostly because the first days of summer are mercifully slow, when it comes to local events. And ideally because, when I get off work today, I’ll be headed to Cabela’s for a new Zebco. (It’s a write-off)
Did someone forward this to you? If you like it, you can sign up here!
-Ethan
Upcoming Events
🗓️ TODAY: Secure The Dish: Looks like there’s still one spot left at this cooking class for cyber-security leaders (includes a plus-one!)
🗓️ June 5: Coffee & Connections: For those of you out west, tired of going downtown for events, West Austin Chamber is hosting this out near Montview Harbor
🗓️ June 7: AI Implementation Club: Every week, Chrissy McDannell hosts a dedicated focus sprint to ship that AI project you’ve had in mind for weeks
🗓️ June 9: Leading Ladies of West Austin: Beverly Biehl is giving a special “Home & Wealth” workshop on how to create good fen shui heading into summer
🗓️ June 10: Fired Fest: Amazing name (iykyk). Jason Scharf from AustinNext is co-hosting this event with Gauntlet, specifically designed for engineers re-skilling around AI
🗓️ June 10: Why Liberal Education Will Make Tomorrow’s Leaders: UATX, the new university co-founded by local billionaire Joe Lonsdale, is hosting former Australian prime minister Tony Abbott for a live conversation and Q&A
🗓️ June 10: Leadership in Chip Design: A wild talk at the Metropolitan Breakfast Club – Brad McCredie spent 30+ years at IBM, and AMD where he oversaw global development, delivery, and sales of data center GPU and accelerator products.
(PS. Don’t let the 7AM time stop you – MBC is worth it. I spoke there yesterday, and the group is fantastic)
🗓️ June 11: Healthcare Innovation Forum: The US India Chamber of Commerce is gathering investors, innovators, and policy-makers to discuss the future of the industry
Public Invention Con 2026
Okay, this one’s cool too – June 13th, there’s a whole day focused on humanitarian innovation and engineering that serves the public good.
There’s a keynote from Dave Tipping who’s built 100+ pediatric operating rooms in some of the world’s poorest countries, plus…
A talk about NASA’s Artemis mission
A talk from Engineering Without Borders
A follow-up workshop on rapid prototyping of electronic circuits, micro controllers, and CAD design
You can read more about Public Invention (the organization) on their website, or check out the event details and get your tickets here.
- POWERED BY -
I don’t sell one-off ads the way many newsletters too. ABR is powered by long-term partnerships with a handful of incredible founders who get the vision, see the value, and want to help make this newsletter possible. So if you’re in the market for one of the following, check out…
GSD Camp: There’s a huge gap between vibe coding and building software that survives the real world. GSD Camp closes it for you in 6 weeks. Designed for busy founders, PMs, and ops leads – get the 5% of know-how you need to let AI handle the other 95%
John Davison, founder of GSD Camp, also hosts a lot of cool founder events around town. On June 17, he’s doing lightning talks with a handful of speakers who’ve vibe-coded products that have real customer traction. Check it out, and if you want to speak, get in touch with him directly here.
Fun Stuff Coming Up
Rather than a shotgun list, this week I’ve got one cool rec for you. My friend, local painter, Katy Ward just announced the next one of her Vivid Parlor salon experiences.
These are always very quirky, and very Austin.
Think hidden-away venue, music, live art installations… The occasional treasure hunt. Plus the poster this time says, “Espresso martinis till we run out,” so… Go.
Insights
Thought-provoking ideas and stories published by founders in ATX
Midwifing A Deity: Even with very little spare time this week, I thought the latest installment of All-In pod was particularly good (and not just because Bill Gurley brought some extra ATX talent to the show). The conversation on AI Founder delusions of grandeur was thought-provoking, and I like hearing that some major investors are approaching all of this with a sober mind.
For the Weekend: Talks from their recent Liquidity Summit started rolling out on Youtube this week too. As of this moment, it looks like we’ve got…
Local Founder Shout Out
I wanted to close with a shout out to my friends, Adam Ryan, and Becca Sherman who run Workweek (a big media company here in town) and just launched a really innovative product after 18 months of testing.
Some of you know I got my start writing for The Hustle back in the day. Becca and Adam were both senior leaders there, and are among the small group of people I’ve turned to for advice over the years because they think deeply about this space, how it works, and where it’s headed.
Example: this latest release addresses a key problem experienced by anyone buying B2B newsletter ads – proving whether the ads are actually working. You can read more about it here.
Or check out the full-length piece I wrote about their company, and how they’re trying to kill LinkedIn one vertical at a time.
That’s all for this week!
Email me here if you want to share any feedback, or let me know about an event you’re hosting.
Until next week,
-Ethan
