Valleywag
rumormonger
Posts Tagged “
Caterina Fake
”
rumormonger
exits
Stewart Butterfield's bizarre resignation letter to Yahoo
Stewart Butterfield, the cantankerous cofounder of Flickr, has, as we've noted, tendered his resignation to Yahoo, as has wife and cofounder Caterina Fake. The two recently celebrated, along with Flickr's other original employees, a "Vestfest" for their take from the $35 million sale of Flickr to Yahoo three years ago; we'd heard as long ago as October that Butterfield was ready to leave. But we couldn't have anticipated the manner of Butterfield's exit. In a long, rambling email to Yahoo executive Brad Garlinghouse, under whose aegis Flickr fell, Butterfield described the company as a tin-smithing concern, but found that there was no place for him as the company left its metallurgical roots. Better this entertaining nonsense than some tired cliche of "bleeding purple," I suppose. I'm also told that this email is classic Butterfield, and that his employees at Flickr would stage dramatic readings of some of his better missives at Flickr's San Francisco headquarters, which will now be run officially by Kakul Srivastava, Flickr's longtime de facto chief. Butterfield's full resignation letter: More »
Exits
Flickr founders Stewart Butterfield and Caterina Fake abandon the good ship Yahoo
When Ludicorp co-founders Stewart Butterfield and Caterina Fake sold Flickr to Yahoo, they also moved from their Vancouver headquarters to the Bay Area to take up jobs at the Sunnyvale campus of the new parent company. Their biggest innovation since was the birth of their daughter, Sonnet — which took considerably less time than adding video to the photo sharing site. Now Fake and Butterfield have joined the stampede, with Fake having left Yahoo on Friday and Butterfield due to stick around until July 12, reports TechCrunch — confirming rumors we'd heard regarding Butterfield's plans to move on. (Photo by Caterina Fake)
Blogging for Pink Collars
Caterina Fake crashes ladyblogs' "digital slumber party"
Women do rule the web, Flickr cofounder Caterina Fake told the New York Times, but with a "crushing sameness." Loads of blogs aimed at the moneyed portion of the lady demographic are launching, including Jezebel (published, like Valleywag, by Gawker Media) — ostensibly part of the "sameness" Fake alludes to. A BlogHer study even deems blogging now mainstream among women. Fake is not swayed: More »
exits
Stewart Butterfield grooms beard for ... investors?
Long before he and Flickr cofounder Caterina Fake spawned daughter Sonnet, Stewart Butterfield had a manly thatch of russet facial hair that screamed "Daddy." He's thus the natural winner of Fortune's first beard-off; other contenders like Steve Jobs, Larry Ellison, and Yelp's Russel Simmons might as well not have bothered. There's one curiosity about his win, though: Why would a judge praise Butterfield's beard for being "trimmed nicely, edgy, yet mature, so he doesn't look 18 sitting in front of investors"? We don't think judge John Allan, the owner of a chain of grooming clubs, has any special insight into Butterfield's career plans. But he's nonetheless on target: We've heard Butterfield, who sold Flickr to Yahoo more than three years ago, has left Flickr general manager Kakul Srivastava — his "hero" — in charge of his startup baby, so he can tend to his real one, and is ready to bolt from Yahoo.
loser-generated content
Flickr to video users: You're a bunch of amateurs
Almost every digital camera captures both pictures and movies. This reality has seemed lost on Flickr for four years. Cofounder Stewart Butterfield reportedly told attendees at a fourth-birthday party last night that Flickr, now owned by Yahoo, will introduce video uploads next month. At this point, Yahoo might as well launch the service on April 1 — the delay has become that much of a joke. Yahoo Video has already relaunched, with its own movie-upload features. So why bother? More »
stewart butterfield
At least one key Yahoo executive was unswayed by Friday's revival meeting featuring Steve Jobs: Stewart Butterfield, the founder and general manager of the Yahoo-acquired Flickr photo site. Butterfield, Valleywag has learned, plans to leave to, well, spend more time with his family. It's a pat phrase that always sounds risible, but in Butterfield's case, we'll make an exception: Anyone who has seen photos of Butterfield and his infant daughter Sonnet — on Flickr, naturally — can see his complete and utterly genuine devotion. Yahoo, too, might have a claim on Butterfield's devotion, in the midst of a precarious revamp. But Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang, while a big supporter of Flickr himself, is not nearly as cute. No word on whether Butterfield's wife, Caterina Fake, now a high-ranking Yahoo executive, plans any move, or who will replace Butterfield at Flickr. Update: In the comments, Butterfield says that after taking some time off in July, he's decided to take a longer paternity leave, but still plans to return to Yahoo. (Photo by mylesdgrant)
Flickr founder to leave Yahoo
At least one key Yahoo executive was unswayed by Friday's revival meeting featuring Steve Jobs: Stewart Butterfield, the founder and general manager of the Yahoo-acquired Flickr photo site. Butterfield, Valleywag has learned, plans to leave to, well, spend more time with his family. It's a pat phrase that always sounds risible, but in Butterfield's case, we'll make an exception: Anyone who has seen photos of Butterfield and his infant daughter Sonnet — on Flickr, naturally — can see his complete and utterly genuine devotion. Yahoo, too, might have a claim on Butterfield's devotion, in the midst of a precarious revamp. But Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang, while a big supporter of Flickr himself, is not nearly as cute. No word on whether Butterfield's wife, Caterina Fake, now a high-ranking Yahoo executive, plans any move, or who will replace Butterfield at Flickr. Update: In the comments, Butterfield says that after taking some time off in July, he's decided to take a longer paternity leave, but still plans to return to Yahoo. (Photo by mylesdgrant)
online video
Three years later, Flickr gets around to video
Promises, promises. Flickr cofounders Caterina Fake and Stewart Butterfield, we hear, are finally introducing video to the photo-sharing site they sold to Yahoo in 2005. But they've taken their sweet time. First Fake told Engadget back in 2004 that she wanted the site to introduce "short-form video." Then she told ZDNet's Dan Farber in December 2005 that it was being "hotly debated and discussed on the team." And Butterfield hinted last May that his photo sharing site would host moving pictures "soon." For some value of "soon." Here's the reason for the latest delay. More »
great expectations
Silicon Valley's baby boom
I never intended for the blogger-baby story, which began with the birth of Ollie Kottke to A-list bloggers Jason Kottke and Meg Hourihan, to become quite such a saga, but news has a way of happening. Caterina Fake and Stewart Butterfield are no longer expecting a baby — they have a daughter, Sonnet Beatrice Butterfield, according to fellow Yahoo executive Bradley Horowitz. Here's the rundown on the rest of the couples mentioned in yesterday's baby poll, which — well done, readers — you guessed correctly. More »
7:45 AM on Thu Jul 12 2007
By Owen Thomas
3,665 views,
3 comments
Latest by Megan McCarthy: Heather Champ is not pregnant. more »
baby boom
What to expect when you're an executive who's expecting
Why make such a fuss over who's disclosing their pregnancies? I worked at Wired Ventures, then the publisher of Wired magazine, in 1996 and 1997, in the midst of the agony of its failed IPO attempt. One controversy at the time was the disclosure that cofounder Jane Metcalfe, the magazine's publisher, was pregnant and planned to take maternity leave shortly after the planned IPO. For the record, no one I know believes that Metcalfe's pregnancy had anything to do with Wired's troubles. But for a top executive to take a leave is always a strain on a young, growing company, and is a fact best disclosed, as Wired Ventures did. Hence my surprise that Mena Trott waited until now to talk about her news. Caterina Fake, the cofounder of Flickr and an executive at Yahoo, has, by contrast, written publicly and often about her pregnancy. More on the status of Fake's pregnancy, and the rest of the couples mentioned in our poll, shortly.
dynasties
Let's play hide the baby
Last week, the birth of a son (and future blogger) to Jason Kottke and Meg Hourihan reminded us of another famous Web personality who
re-org
Yahoo Photos shutting down, Flickr triumphant?
Time to upgrade this from rumor to unannounced fact — that's our bet, anyway. "Consolidation" was the word seized upon most in Yahoo exec Brad Garlinghouse's "Peanut Butter Manifesto." And consolidating the duplicate services provided by post-acquisition Flickr and Yahoo Photos makes sense. Flickr founder Stewart Butterfield denied there would be any merging, but that doesn't rule out "consolidation" by way of elimination. For the whys and wherefores, read on. More »
yahoo
Yahoo intern shows why Google is more fun than Yahoo
Who cares about market share and search algorithms — an exhuberant Yahoo intern just inadvertently showed why working at Google totally beats working at Yahoo. Paul Stamatiou blogged his reasons for loving Yahoo without realizing what he's missing at Google. More »
yahoo
Yahoo angels buy into Etsy.com
Online boutique Etsy — think of it as a hipper eBay for handmades — would be just another dot-com, except for the familiarity of its funders. VC Fred Wilson names the Etsy angel investors: More »
flickr
Stewart Butterfield makes the "Newsweek? So what?" face
This rockstar shot from Flickr community wrangler Heather Champ shows Flickr co-founder Stewart Butterfield doin' the bored camgirl look — or the look that says: "Oh, Caterina and me on Newsweek? That's nothing. I wanna see my smiling face on the cover of a Rolling Stone." More »
newsweek
"Putting the 'We' in Web": Newsweek doesn't get it!
Flickr's Stewart Butterfield and Caterina Fake, king and queen of the digital photo, take Polaroids. Caterina: "What is this primitive paper-making box you handed me?" More »
caterina fake
Who's who in Newsweek's "Putting the 'We' in Web"
Everyone knows that Caterina Fake and Stewart Butterfield were made for pretty photos. Flickr's founding couple does a great job sexing up the cover of the latest Newsweek as the poster children for the new feel of the Net. In case you missed the last three years of what Newsweek calls "the Living Web," here's an intro to the cast. More »
remainders
Dot-com roundup: Google still figuring out Blogger
¬ The Official Google Blog hiccuped today when Google deleted it. [via Om Malik]¬ Better news for the Plex: Google Base now shows up in certain job-related searches. And it's not just for techies. [Good Morning SV]
¬ The Yahoo Media Group reaches that young, hip online crowd with...60 Minutes. Playing a clip about golf. Again, why is Lloyd Braun still working there? [SEW]
¬ Flickr founders Caterina Fake and Stewart Butterfield get on the Daily Show — only coincidentally. Don't worry, they'll be at Jon Stewart's table any day now. [Ben Brown on Flickr]
¬ One week left before the Stirr Mixer, a social gathering for social startups. To hold one almost feels like admitting defeat. [Stirr]
