About three months ago, my girlfriend and I adopted a Labradoodle puppy. Honey Bear has been a lot of work, but he also provides a huge source of joy. He makes me smile nearly nonstop; he constantly does silly and clumsy things, and even when doing nothing, he is just so damn cute.

Over time, we’ve taught him a lot of things–how to play fetch, how to go the bathroom in the correct place, and basic commands. But what we have taught him is a distant second to what he has taught us. …

When I left my job late last year, a friend and I were throwing around some startup ideas. My buddy had one idea he was super excited about — it was a piece of technology that he used internally at the last company he worked for. A lot of developers hardcode various configuration variables in their applications, and we realized that a lot of companies eventually build a homegrown solution to enable these to change on the fly. If only we could make something better than those solutions, they could just pay us to do it for them.

My friend…