titanic sinking

all jumping off

Huge respect for those guys (Flickr), it’s a shame after losing so much shareholder value, Yahoo is losing so much talent too.

wow..good people. They’re very entrepreneurial so I guess they’ll start a new company.

Yes, I heard a lot about the couple Caterina Fake and Stewart Butterfield.

About how innovative and inspiring they are. They are real tech people

Hmmm.. time to sell my yahoo.. before i loose more.

Cheers, Nag

This is a shame. Flickr is quite possibly my favorite service out there, and its future is indefinite, and it’s really not at any fault.

If it was me, i’d be finding away to seperate it from yahoo. Too much awesome in flickr to let it sink like that.

Since you posted this I bet they’ve both already had offers. It won’t be a hard migration 1-3 miles up the 101 for a lot of Yahooers.

I fear for Flickr’s future.

Hope to hear from them soon… Flickr is an amazing site… why they don’t join Facebook and create photo-magic ? ;)

don’t worry, its ok – flickr are outsourcing to picasa web.

@jorel314 I fear for them as well. With how things have been unraveling for Yahoo I’m scared for the future of all their entities. Flickr is an amazing app – I pray it doesn’t go down with the rest of the ship.

wow! If anyone didn’t recognize before what’s going on any big Y, this one should help to get the big picture.

No need to worry about the future of Flickr – it’s well-protected from the uppings and downings of YHOO and will continue to be awesome. Kakul is actually better than me anyway — ask anyone on the team. ;)

@ Steward

Good luck with whatever you’re going to do next and thanks for the insight. Good call on making a move now :-)

Yahoo – deadpool in 12 months

um, i think caterina left 8 months ago, and stewart left 6 months ago. nice work getting the scoop.

Stewart, what’s next for you? Interested in joining an exciting startup?

Best wishes to both of you in whatever your next endeavors are!

That is sad to hear. M$ is to blame for this whole thing.

Hi Stewart I hope you did created a tool to move photos out from flickr b4 ur departure. I am not much interested doing it now but just in case.

They didn’t create flickr. Their programmer did, and they marketed it.

Yahoo! is a dying giant. Dying slowly, because it’s still a freaking giant! They lost vision years ago and had to save some mindshare acquiring companies. But in addition to his vision, Jerry has lost his mind. And talented people would rather quit and collect unemployment (yeah, right!) than work for a clown.

Ditching Yahoo for Etsy? If so, a great move, well at least financially.

I am starting to feel bad for yahoo all of a sudden. Pity.

Mike it seems to me that your posts of late are written more to incinerate rather than illuminate.

@Dave Dugdale: Oh, really? And how? By offering 60% premium that only an idiot wouldn’t take?

[...] dejó oficialmente la compañía el viernes pasado y, según afirman en TechCrunch, Butterfield lo hará el 12 de julio. La persona encargada de ocupar su lugar será Kakul [...]

Flickr has been going down the tubes since Yahoo bought them. I have had a number of friends had their Pro accounts cancelled and Flickr is horrible about responding to commercial key requests even though their website says “2 weeks” as the response time. I hope Flickr dies because of Yahoo.

@Nikolay: I agree — some people choose to blame Microsoft for everything. It’s pretty lazy, if you ask me. Sure, in some instances, it’s accurate, but in this case? MS offered a huge premium to acquire the company. Yang delayed, refused and erected all kinds of poison pill defenses. Then, essentially decided that Yahoo could become Google’s “b*tch” for at least a temporary period, completely handing over the keys to GOOG and disrupting their ability to sell integrated ads across all their properties.

Remember the Borland days when Microsoft buyout Borland employees instead of buying the company itself. Basically Microsoft is using the same tactic this time but not as monopolistic to get the attention of the Justice Department.

People who left Yahoo are probably being paid to leave. The severance package is very attractive if in the event Yahoo lays the employees off. However, I’m really surprised these guys left leaving behind the big severance package. I guessed there’s someone else that’s giving these guys more money than the severance package to fold Yahoo’s hand into Microsoft so the acquisition can easily be completed.

I am no doubt this is Microsoft doing. When people think positively about Microsoft, I wonder if these people are smart or have even graduated from college or have done their homework. In any event, the greatest threat to Yahoo is the threat of internal chaos caused by Microsoft offering nice cash rewards for top managers to make the move to leave the company; not necessarily come to Microsoft. Remember this … Borland had a bidding war with Microsoft for its project manager. Microsoft ended up outbidding Borland, and put that project manager on a year vacation so they can beat Borland to the market with its Microsoft Visual C++.

If history is any lesson, when a strategy works before, it ought to work now. And most people are too dumb to recognize this.

Oh well … evolution is moving fast enough.

good the dead energy is shaking out … yahoo will be fine

@Sanity >> What a trip… I guess you picture Ballmer exactly like Dr. Evil (from Austin Powers), with his little finger next to the mouth ordering: “BUY THEM!!! BUY THEM!! HUHUHUHAHAHAHAH!!!” =D “DEVELOPERS!!! DEVELOPERS!! DEVELOPERS!!!” … “YEAH BABY!!! YEAH!!!” xD

[...] Michael Arrington is reporting that Flickr co-founders Caterina Fake and Stewart Butterfield are leaving Yahoo. Fake & [...]

So she left months ago and didn’t return from maternity leave, he’s been gone for almost a year, and Kakul has been running things there for months.

A little behind the times today, Techcrunch?

At least Yahoo is cutting back on their executive salary costs!!?? Stewart Butterfield was money. Check it out http://www.readtheanswer.com/index.php?rta=blog

..the followers join the herd because it’s no longer ‘cool’ to be at Yahoo. what’s next for them..my guess is that nothng less than a ‘flicker-like success’ – which was a fluke btw, will be the objective for many yrs to come…

Yahoo btw, still has strong assets and earns revenue!

[...] [原文へ] [...]

[...] case you missed the news, Stewart Butterfield and Caterina Fake, the company’s founders, are leaving beleagered web giant Yahoo! While there is no news of any plans for the near future, I for one would like to extend an offer to [...]

[...] I don’t think Yahoo can catch a break lately.  Man you have the over publicized battle with Microsoft (I doubt we’ve seen the last act of this saga), execs, managers, and just regular folks leaving in droves.  This just isn’t something that I’d like to wake up to everyday (headlines like this don’t help either: Time To Stem The Yahoo Bleed, Jerry – Silicon Alley Insider).  To add insult to injury couple of the folks brought into Yahoo are leaving, which wouldn’t be too interesting except those people are Caterina Fake and Stewart Butterfield, the minds behind Flickr: Photo sharing site Flickr is one of the leading lights of Yahoo – but cofounders (and husband/wife team) Caterina Fake and Stewart Butterfield won’t be around to keep driving the product forward. They are both joining the mass exodus of executives from the company.–Flickr Co-founders Join Mass Exodus From Yahoo [...]

[...] departure of Flickr’s co-founders, the husband and wife team of Caterina Fake and Stewart Butterfield, [...]

Microsoft ruins everything.

I wouldn’t read too much into their leaving. Any real entrepreneur isn’t
going to be happy at a huge acquiring company. They stay until the value
of their golden handcuffs drops below the pain of working for a large
organization. Staying for 3 years after acquisition is more than I would have expected.

If Microsoft bought Yahoo!, it is pretty unlikely it would change their plans.

While Yahoo! isn’t nearly as “cool” as it was 5 years ago, a Microsoft owned
Yahoo! would be about as cool as working for MSN.

If this is true (if!), then I just want to take another opportunity to say that it was a pleasure working with you guys and thanks for everything. You are class acts. You are a blessing upon this earth. You made Yahoo a better place for having you. Go forth and do something great!

“Mass-exodus” being the key words for that punchy headline to create panic.

Well done a-ring-tone, well done.

M$ must be proud of you

@35 – so, so lame. “Blessing upon this earth?” Are you serious?

QuickLinks For 2008-06-18…

Flickr Co-founders Join Mass Exodus From Yahoo more news soon:Fake officially left last Friday. Butterfield will leave on July…

see… i just want to tell those people who made anti MS statements in flickr when MS was rumored to buy Yahoo! they said they will leave flickr if MS buys them. This is really ironic, when MS refused to get Yahoo, the founders leave. Now, what would those stupid users who protested the acquisition do? I think techcrunch did an article on that flickr protest.

i hope these guys come up with another kickass web product. :D

[...] Flickr Co-founders Join Mass Exodus From Yahoo (tags: flickr yahoo) [...]

arrington, do some research

caterina has been on maternity leave for a year and stewart hasn’t been running flickr for 6 months.

When is Rasmus going to leave? i bet within 3 weeks.

Good Luck Stewart! Look forward to your next cool startup.

[...] Caterina Fake y Stewart Butterfield, quienes se suman al éxodo de profesionales desde Sunnyvale. (vía) [...]

[...] resignation was first reported at TechCrunch and it is time that will tell who else joins the cue of job resigns and quits. [...]

[...] that Yahoo YDN EVP Jeff Weiner has bolted out of the Yahoo camp for personal reasons. Then it reports had it that Flickr’s husband and wife team Caterina Fake and Stewart Butterfield has already [...]

Cool! So we can expecting a great product like Flickr soon :)

ValleyWag publishes a pretty bizarre resignation letter of Butterfield

http://valleywag.com/5017424/stewart-butterfields-bizarre-resignation-letter-to-yahoo

and quotes co-workers that Butterfield writes stuff like that all the time.

If that is real (ValleyWag), Yahoo management must be happy to get rid of this distraction. No company of the size of Yahoo has the time for stuff like that.

And would Flickr be profitable on its own? I rarely see an ad.

[...] co-fundadores de Flickr, Caterina Fake y Stewart Butterfield (que además son matrimonio) han anunciado que abandonan Yahoo!, uniéndose al éxodo masivo de ejecutivos de [...]

Cool! So we can expecting a great product like Flickr soon

If Yahoo screws up Flickr after they’re gone, there will be some hell to pay….

[...] TechCrunch: Flickr Co-founders Join Mass Exodus From Yahoo [...]

I never understood the popularity of flickr myself. Went there a few times and was not impressed.

[...] of vesting, Yahoo acquired Flickr in March of 2005, meaning the founders left 3 years and 3 months after they joined. Yahoo acquired delicious in December of 2005, meaning that it wouldn’t be [...]

They vested a few months ago, right? Of course they’re taking off.

Why do I have the feeling that the only thing Yahoo! is losing here a couple of massive T&E accounts?

It’s sad to think that even the founders of Yahoo’s most successful site have left. There is a need to evaluate Yahoo’s performance.

Flickr may, in fact, be one of the Yahoo’s “leading lights” but if you examine what Yahoo has done since acquiring Flickr, you could easily describe it as disappointing. The lack of innovation at a time when the online photograph and video markets were exploding is puzzling. If Butterfield and Fake didn’t have to wait to have their shares vest, I think they would have leave much earlier.

As the CEO of a photo site, I’m sorry to hear that Stuart and Caterina are leaving because of all the great things they did to build Flickr and help the photography community. It will be interesting to see if/how Flickr changes with their departures.

I think that there are still a lot of opportunities to help photographers, specifically in the areas of protection and making money, which is why I built photrade. Photrade.com is currently in invitation only beta – but I’ll offer a free invite code here for our site, use the code: CRUNCH

[...] Flickr Co-Founders Leave Yahoo TECHCRUNCH Photo sharing site Flickr is one of the leading lights of Yahoo – but cofounders (and husband/wife team) Caterina Fake and Stewart Butterfield won’t be around to keep driving the product forward. They are both joining the mass exodus of executives from the company. Fake officially left last Friday. Butterfield (who still officially runs Flickr) will leave on July 12. Kakul Srivastava , the director of product management for Flickr, will take over Stewart’s role as general manager of Flickr. Sara Wood will take over Kakul’s previous position. Source> [...]

[...] the exodus at Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) continues with Flickr co-founders, Fake and Butterfield, this time [...]

[...] via, photo by [...]

$35 mil? That’s all they got for Flickr? What sucker handled those negotiations?

Whoops! I’m unemployed!

http://i.somethingawful.com/u/lowtax/cliffy/274-5.jpg

“From what we hear, neither has imminent plans to work on any new projects, but I suspect we haven’t heard the last from either of them.”

Oh fer gawds sake.

Give me back my GNE, where it all began before ludicorp sold out. twice.

[...] Jerry Yang and the decline of Yahoo. There isn’t a day that doesn’t go by where someone has something to say on the matter. It has become the bread and butter type posts for more than a few blogs out [...]

[...] went to work for Google. Others went to startups. Many just left without saying what’s [...]

[...] que hay cierta alarma porque recientemente se ha anunciado que los fundadores de Flickr y del.icio.us iban a dejar la empresa matriz que les había comprado sus exitosas startup’s. [...]

[...] Flickr co-founders Caterina Fake and Stewart Butterfield have now cashed out and officially left the company. Though Yahoo! doesn’t appear to have internalized many of the lessons of Flickr, it’s [...]

[...] fulgte naturligvis med over i Yahoo!, men de senste dage har selv stifterne Joshua Schachter hhv. Flickr- parret Caterina Fake / Stewart Butterfield forladt Yahoo! – Butterfield endda med et super-bizart [...]

[...] generation (as well as indulging a bit on our good ol’ days at 300 baud). We talked about the yahoos in the steel industry. We spoke on Reddit going open source, and in a truly landmark decision, a judge decided that [...]

[...] has proven themselves time and time again as an innovative and community focused site. But the recent departure of the site’s founders leaves me worried that without them, that culture will [...]

[...] co-founders Caterina Fake and Stewart Butterfield have now cashed out and officially left the company. Though Yahoo! doesn’t appear to have internalized many of the lessons of Flickr, it’s [...]

Flickr is a horrible product. I was dragged into it half willing after the Yahoo acquisition, and not realizing that they were going to charge me $30 to access my photos with no reasonable way to just download them on my PC and get them back.

They’ve been absolutely horrible, and their customer service is worse. They actually refer to themselves as flickereenos and act like ned flanders from the simpsons as if that ‘cuteness’ will make up for all that’s lacking in their company. Even if it the company met expectations, it’s really not THAT impressive – I mean really, who are you guys kidding acting like it was actually worth $35 mil? Yahoo got ripped off, but they’ve been making scores of bad decisions lately, so I’m now a happy soon-to-be-former yahoo customer warning all who’ll listen!

[...] $35 million. Since then, Flickr has been one of Yahoo’s most successful properties, but Fake left the company in June as part of the executive exodus from the struggling search [...]

[...] We had a great strategy.  MS bid made us focus on something else  Still, we have traffic, the Internet is great it’s just our tech isn’t so hot & we have loads of talent (ignoring the fact of the recent exodus). [...]

[...] future. Things get more complicated when you consider that the two co-founders recently departed from the company. Competition from sites like SmugMug is really heating up.3 This means that Yahoo should expect the [...]

[...] ^ Flickr Co-founders Join Mass Exodus From Yahoo [...]

[...] $35 million. Since then, Flickr has been one of Yahoo’s most successful properties, but Fake left the company in June as part of the executive exodus from the struggling search [...]

[...] $35 million. Since then, Flickr has been one of Yahoo’s most successful properties, but Fake left the company in June as part of the executive exodus from the struggling search [...]

[...] $35 million. Since then, Flickr has been one of Yahoo’s most successful properties, but Fake left the company in June as part of the executive exodus from the struggling search [...]

[...] $35 million. Since then, Flickr has been one of Yahoo’s most successful properties, but Fake left the company in June as part of the executive exodus from the struggling search [...]

[...] up many months ago for a pro account and I’ve not been dissapointed. I do know that the original founders have left Yahoo recently, but the Flickr team still ‘gets it’ and I’m looking forward to more Flickr [...]

[...] Butterfield and Fake created Flickr in 2004. It began as a photo-sharing feature of a gaming project, has since blossomed into one of the premier photo sharing sites on the web. Yahoo purchased Flickr for $35 million in March of 2005. In June 2007 Yahoo shutdown Yahoo Photos, making Flickr their exclusive photo sharing website. Today Flickr hosts over 2 billion images. Source: Techcrunch [...]

[...] it’s no surprise that Flickr founders Catarina Fake and Stewart Butterfield left Yahoo! just as soon as they reasonably could. I don’t doubt for a moment that they’ve thought a great deal more about these issues [...]

[...] work much, but it’s difficult to read that many talented people are leaving Yahoo! lately (here, here, and here). When I was luckily enough to join Yahoo! in 2002, I was met with a work [...]

hank you master A very good article and I will follow the forum constantly. thanks

[...] of last year, Stewart Butterfield and Caterina Fake, the husband/wife team that started Flickr, left Yahoo to pursue other interests. We already know what Fake’s new project is, the just-launched [...]

[...] of last year, Stewart Butterfield and Caterina Fake, the husband/wife team that started Flickr, left Yahoo to pursue other interests. We already know what Fake’s new project is, the just-launched [...]

[...] of last year, Stewart Butterfield and Caterina Fake, the husband/wife team that started Flickr, left Yahoo to pursue other interests. We already know what Fake’s new project is, the just-launched [...]

[...] of last year, Stewart Butterfield and Caterina Fake, the husband/wife team that started Flickr, left Yahoo to pursue other interests. We already know what Fake’s new project is, the just-launched Hunch. [...]

[...] of last year, Stewart Butterfield and Caterina Fake, the husband/wife team that started Flickr, left Yahoo to pursue other interests. We already know what Fake’s new project is, the just-launched [...]

[...] Flickr Co-founders Join Mass Exodus From Yahoo Sphere: Related Content [...]

[...] met up with Stewart Butterfield, one of the co-founders of Flickr, so he could demo Glitch for me. Sitting in a hotel lobby on a WiFi connection being used [...]

[...] met up with Stewart Butterfield, one of the co-founders of Flickr, so he could demo Glitch for me. Sitting in a hotel lobby on a WiFi connection being used [...]

[...] met up with Stewart Butterfield, one of the co-founders of Flickr, so he could demo Glitch for me. Sitting in a hotel lobby on a WiFi connection being used [...]

[...] Lerdorf (twórca języka programowania PHP), Joshua Schachter (twórca serwisu del.icio.us), oraz Caterina Fake i Stewart Butterfield (twórcy serwisu [...]