We have been acquired and will continue building the future of conversations at Twitter — I’m excited to announce that Twitter has acquired Squad! The team will be joining Twitter to broaden the spectrum of conversations people can have on the service. …

Say goodbye to boring calls — shared activities & self-expression lets you do more than just talk when hanging out on Squad — Two years ago when I started sharing what we were working on many people seemed skeptical that the future of hanging out with friends and strangers would be in voice and video chatrooms. I’d get asked, “Do people really want to co-watch videos, play games and shop together while FaceTiming?”

Mobile apps have reigned supreme but a shift is underway that will redefine years of consumer social behavior — Back in 2007 when I was making my dent in the early YouTube community everyone was talking about the “social web”. Then Steve Jobs launched the first iPhone, which set in motion a huge shift from the open web to the walled gardens of mobile operating systems. For the past…

What it’s like when someone dies but you can’t have a funeral — Two weeks ago, a woman named Sandra Skenandore died suddenly. She entered the crosswalk at South 1st Street and South Chase Avenue around 7:30pm, just after dark, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Moments later she was struck by a speeding SUV. The force of the impact threw her 100 feet — causing…

Squad’s $5M seed round was very diverse: yours can be too! — Now that we’ve announced our seed round was led by Hayley Barna, partner at First Round, I can talk about something I’ve become very passionate about — our cap table. Shortly after launching Squad it was obvious we had hit on something magical so I decided to put a fundraising process together to fuel our product development and growth.

How I turned the biggest struggle of my life into Squad: the best way to hang out with friends while in your favorite apps — The beta version of Squad is live in the App Store. An Android version is coming soon — so get on the list if you want to hear when it drops. Just like Twitch unlocked the gaming experience by letting you stream to everyone on the internet, Squad unlocks your…

After 17 years I’m ready to tell my story because I’m not ashamed or afraid anymore. — I turned 18 the week I started my freshman year of college. Just three weeks later I found myself at an off-campus frat-hosted house party with roughly 30 other students and recent grads. That night I was drugged and sexually assaulted by a 22-year-old frat guy. One of his friends…

If you saw me in November 2017 you’d probably have thought everything was just fine. Maybe even great. I’d just raised $1.5m for my company and gotten accepted into Y Combinator, the most prestigious startup accelerator in the world. I lived in a beautiful apartment in San Francisco. I had…

The domain buying industry is notoriously shady and secretive but you don’t have to be to succeed — Last year my cofounders Ethan Sutin, Chris Messina and I were trying to decide on a name for our startup that automatically answers questions for you. We wanted to use Molly but when we looked at Molly.com it was clear the domain was owned and in use. So, like most…