Stewart Butterfield

Butterfield was born on March 21, 1973, in Lund, British Columbia, Canada, as Dharma Jeremy Butterfield; at age 12 he legally changed his name to Daniel Stewart Butterfield. He spent his early childhood in a commune in a small British Columbia fishing village; in 1978 the family left communal living and moved to Victoria, and within a few years they bought a computer.⁠[1]

He received a B.A. in philosophy from the University of Victoria in 1996 and a master’s degree in philosophy from the University of CambridgeUniversity of CambridgeThe University of Cambridge is a university in Cambridge, England, United Kingdom. It gives 1209 as its founding date, is made up of Schools, Faculties, Departments and autonomous Colleges, and is a member of the Russell Group.Open the full entry in 1998.⁠[1]

In 2000 Butterfield joined Gradfinder.com, a start-up founded by Jason Classon, which was later sold at a substantial profit.⁠[1]

Around 2002 Butterfield co-founded LudicorpLudicorpLudicorp was the startup behind Flickr, initially developing the online game Game Neverending before turning to photo sharing.Open the full entry with Jason Classon and Caterina Fake to develop the multiplayer online game Game Neverending, which was later abandoned. In 2004 Ludicorp launched the photo-sharing site Flickr.⁠[1]

YahooYahooYahoo is an internet brand founded by Jerry Yang and David Filo in 1994, with email, search, news, finance, sports, and advertising businesses. It developed from a web directory into a portal, underwent major acquisitions and security incidents, and sold its operating business in 2017, when the original listed company became Altaba. Apollo-managed funds acquired the brand’s operating business in 2021. Yahoo launched the AI answer service Scout in 2026.Open the full entry bought Flickr in 2005 and hired Butterfield as general manager of Flickr; he left Yahoo in 2008.⁠[1]

In 2009 Butterfield founded Tiny Speck with $1.5 million in seed money and became its chief executive. The company’s first product, the online game Glitch, debuted in 2010 and was shut down in November 2012.⁠[1]

Butterfield’s team began work on the Slack app at the end of 2012, released a preview in August 2013 and launched it commercially in February 2014. By 2015 Slack Technologies was valued at more than $1 billion.⁠[1]

On February 12, 2015, the a16zAndreessen HorowitzAndreessen Horowitz (a16z) is a venture capital firm founded in 2009 by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz. It invests from the seed stage through the growth stage and provides operational support to its portfolio companies.Open the full entry Podcast released the episode “a16z Podcast: Tools for How We Work Today,” in which Butterfield joined Andreessen Horowitz board partner Steven Sinofsky and Benedict Evans. The episode was uploaded to the a16z YouTubeYouTubeYouTube is Google’s video-sharing and creator platform, founded in 2005 by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim and acquired by Google in 2006. Built around video uploading, viewing, and creator earnings, the platform has developed Shorts, YouTube Music, Premium, YouTube TV, and products for children, and is headquartered in San Bruno, California, United States.Open the full entry channel on January 1, 2019.⁠[2][3]

The episode marked the first anniversary of Slack becoming a product anyone could use after starting as an internal tool, and discussed whether collaboration software serves its purpose, how work tools might change (such as fewer meetings and emails), the history of messaging and task-management tools, and how cloud and mobile computing have changed requirements for workplace software.⁠[2]

On January 13, 2016, the a16z Podcast released “a16z Podcast: Nobody Discusses Work Software Outside of Work — and Then There’s Slack,” a conversation recorded at Andreessen Horowitz’s Capital Summit. Butterfield discussed why Slack has resonated with users ranging from NASANASAThe National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is the U.S. federal agency responsible for the civilian space program, aeronautics research and space science. Established by law in 1958 and headquartered in Washington, D.C., it has run programs including Mercury, the Apollo Moon landings, the Space Shuttle, the International Space Station and Artemis.Open the full entry JPL engineers to dentists, and what that suggests about how people work today. The episode was uploaded to the a16z YouTube channel on January 1, 2019.⁠[4][5]

On June 20, 2019, Slack Technologies listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker WORK through a direct listing in which the company sold no new shares; against a $26 reference price, the stock closed its first day at $38.62. At the opening price, Butterfield’s 8.6% stake was worth $1.6 billion.⁠[6]

On July 21, 2021, SalesforceSalesforceSalesforce is a U.S. enterprise software company headquartered in San Francisco, providing cloud applications, data platforms and AI agent tools centered on customer relationship management (CRM).Open the full entry announced that it had completed its acquisition of Slack Technologies, a deal of about $28 billion; Slack continued to operate under its own brand, led by CEO and co-founder Butterfield. Butterfield said at the time: “We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to rethink and reshape how and where we work.”⁠[7][1]

On December 5, 2022, it was announced that Butterfield would leave Salesforce early the following month and that Lidiane Jones, a longtime Salesforce cloud executive, would succeed him as Slack’s chief executive. In an internal note he wrote that his departure was unrelated to the resignation a week earlier of Salesforce co-CEO Bret Taylor.⁠[8]

Slack: Official website: https://slack.com/ (opens in a new window).⁠[7]