Weekly Roundup: June 12, 2025

Welcome to this issue of 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).

My name’s Ethan and I’m the one writing this (holler at me here!).

This week, we’ve got a few things on-deck:

• 📅 Upcoming Events (a ton, as always)

• 🎙️ Podcast Creator's Summit at Apple Campus

• 🖥️ “Whurley” The IBM Master Inventor Paid to Hack Vegas

• 🤖 How to Get Your Team to Start Using AI

• and more…

Did someone forward this to you? If you like it, you can sign up here!

-Ethan

PS. The buzz this week was that some of the first-ever driverless Teslas were spotted on S. Congress, by Jo’s. Word is, Robotaxi could be available by June 22 (though Grok suggests it could be as soon as today)

Upcoming Events

🗓️ TONIGHT: AI Real World Use Cases: Austin Women in Tech is hosting this panel discussion with AI founders & CTOs like Vanessa Gutierrez, Emily Gupton, and more

🗓️ June 13: Startup Walk: Co-hosted by Sam Huntington of the Hill Climbers podcast (for founders who love endurance sports) and Pat Killoren, host of Lonestartup (How I Built This for ATX founders)

🗓️ June 13: Limited Supply: Join Shin Takeda, Deb Mukherjee and other DTC founders for a drink and conversation down at Cosmic Pickle

🗓️ June 16: Conscious Connections: Sandra Bershad is hosting this non-traditional networking event focused on authenticity and depth

🗓️ June 16-18: PRX Podcast Creator’s Summit: Free multi-day series at Apple Campus. The session titles look excellent.

🗓️ June 17: Decoding the Quantum Revolution: Come hear from William “Whurley” Hurley, founder of Strangeworks, whose CV is so fascinating I can hardly summarize – Design @ Apple, Master Inventor @ IBM, Exits to Accenture & Goldman, (and that doesn’t even include red-teaming casinos or the Board of Awesomeness)

🗓️ June 18: Geopolitics In The Modern Era: Aaron Pluto’s career has spanned Air Force, Army, Embassy work (Ukraine), US Central Command, and strategic consulting in the private sector

🗓️ June 18: From Click to Cart: This one’s cool for Ecom founders – Taylor Jones is talking about “Product Configurators” and their impact on buying behavior

🗓️ June 18: Founder Night Out - Deep Tech Edition: Meet Riley Knox, co-founder of Leviathan Air, which is revolutionizing freight with, “ships that fly”

🗓️ June 18: Austin Coaches Collective: Hosted by Erin Laverone – this group’s for professional coaches, looking for peers to knowledge-share with

🗓️ June 18: Beyond the Algorithm: This event celebrates the different kinds of human intelligence, showing how our abilities go beyond that of computational systems

🗓️ June 18: Austin CTO Club: Every month, William Baxter curates a discussion for senior tech execs. This month’s topic: Technology in the Business Context - managing expectations with your CEO

🗓️ June 18: Women In Leadership Book Club (online): Erica Vargas and Angela Melpolder will lead a discussion on The Anxious Achiever

🗓️ June 19: American Physical Society: Shout out to ABR reader, Mario Sierra, who’s a panelist at this event, focused on deep tech and nanofabrication in TX

🗓️ June 19: Women Entrepreneurs Network: Focused heavily on financial literacy, building generational wealth, and understanding/avoiding downside risk

🗓️ June 19: Chamber Luncheon: West Austin Chamber is hosting special guest, Melinda Garvey, founder of Austin Woman magazine

🗓️ June 19: Tour of Robot Ranch: Local super-connector Glenn “LinkedGlenn” Hart is leading a tour of TerraFirma, which is developing giant autonomous heavy equipment

🗓️ June 19: Enter The Tiger: UFC Fighter Max Griffin is launching a clothing line to support charities. Join him at this launch event and fireside chat

🗓️ June 19: Acquire & Invest Happy Hour: The name says it all – if you’re buying businesses, join Dan Jensen and others for drinks out at Meanwhile Brewing

🗓️ June 19: Navigating Our Future (online): Book discussion with author Michael Ignatowski who’s spent decades leading advanced R&D teams at AMD and IBM

🗓️ June 20: Female Founders & Friends: Hosted the third Friday of every month by Juliette Richert of the Artemis Fund, and Angie Neas of JustWorks

🗓️ June 20: TWIB June Luncheon: Meet Nicole Pletka, president of Austin Women In Tech, who also spent years leading project teams at AMD (and others)

🗓️ June 21: PowerPints at Highball: Not strictly business related, but there’s beer and power-points. Eight speakers each give five-minute presentations on niche topics

One More Thing… There are still a few seats left at A Moveable Feast, the monthly series on creativity and money that I host with my friend, Zac Solomon, of ATX Writing Club.

Painters, copy-writers, performers, and more – we meet at an art studio, tucked away on the east side, crack bottles of wine, and share first-hand experience on how we’re making a living from our creative work.

Very tactical, this month is focused on raising prices and getting paid more. So if you’re running a content-centric business, and want to make new friends, join us.

Fun Stuff Coming Up

…because if you’re anything like me, you work too much already. So here’s some fun stuff to do around town that’s not necessarily related to business.

• June 13: Andre Bocelli in Concert

• June 14: Community Plant Swap at Tulum Kava and Kratom

• June 14: Strings in the Woods (Walk + Acoustic Concert)

• June 14: Kevin James Live at ACL

• June 15: Double Feature with Director Robert Rodriguez

• June 15: Wu Tang Clan, Live at Moody Center

• June 16: DIY Deco Junk Journal Workshop

• June 18: Wine Dinner Asado

• June 18: Imbibe – Sushi and Sake Tasting Event

• June 18: Night of the Living Dead at Austin Film Society

• June 19: Kuya Launch Party – Functional Health Event

• June 19: Movies on the Lake – Black Panther

• June 20: Color Theory and Kava – Paint Night

• June 20: Candlelight Tribute to Adelle

• June 20: Cookbook Release – Hugh Magnum’s Barbecue

• June 21: Soap Making Workshop at Parker + Scott

• June 21: Jaws 50th Anniversary on the Water

• June 21: Pet Tarot Card Painting Class

One More Thing… This is pretty cool. Maybe you’ve heard of Hyperice – they make recovery tools, like thera-guns, leg compressions sleeves, etc. Well, they partnered with Nike on a new product called the Hyperboot, and on June 21, Rivian is hosting an exclusive demo at their showroom.

It kicks off with a 2-3 mile run, and there’ll be cold-plunges on-site along with DJ, wellness market, Hyperice recovery stations, and more. Cool way to kick off the weekend.

Word On The Street

A roundup of cool local opportunities to learn, level up, or grow your business here in ATX

• There’s $1.1M in Grants: For local non-profits aiding either Hispanics or women ($550k each). If your org touches education to entrepreneurship apply by July 31

• Understanding Humans At Work: Austin Women in Tech is running this 10-week master class starting in July.

• Call For Stories: Austin Tech Council is running a series on ATX Founder Journeys. If you’re looking for ways to get in front of their audience, write 250-300 words on what brought you to Austin, why you’re building here, and what you think the future of the city holds, then email to CEO Thom Singer

Insights

Thought-provoking ideas and stories published by founders in ATX

1. Get Your Team To Use AI: Cathryn Lavery writes some of the most practical and actionable AI content out there. Because she uses it as a founder. This recent piece, about how she used Slack to inspire her team to start using AI, is a perfect example

2. Everything Has A Price: I’ve been enjoying Chris Williams’ most recent conversation with Alex Hormozi. Took a little while to hook me, but about 40 minutes in, they go deep on recent personal challenges, including lawsuits and health scares, and I think it’s just SO helpful for other people to hear this stuff. Feels like these two are about to level up again, and it’s cool to hear them talk about the challenges & uncertainties there.

3. Funding Infrastructure: Anhthu Nguyen wrote a short, provocative piece on the need for new funding vehicles for founders working on re-industrialization projects. The economics don’t make sense for VC. But the need/opportunity is huge. A mind-boggling quote from the piece 👇

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