The amazing team at our portfolio company Twilio has done it again: taken something that was previously complicated and made it super simple. This time they set their sights on business telephone systems (formerly known as PBXs, which – if anyone remembers – is short for Private Branch Exchange). Most legacy PBXs are incredibly hard to program. For instance, the one we have at Union Square Ventures, has some completely proprietary setup which essentially requires us to pay someone every time ...

Had a great time at OSCON yesterday. Day started with inspiring keynotes by Tim O'Reilly on the challenges for open source and by Chrstine Peterson from the Foresight Institute on Open Source Physical Security. Tim mentioned cloud computing and mobile as the #1 and #2 challenges for open source. Just as open source has made a lot of progress these two new trends threaten to move much of computing onto proprietary and closed platforms. Christine started by pointing out how we had missed t...

So excited – got my Bug today. Here is a picture from the ceremonial unboxing. Now all I need is a lot of rain this weekend :)