Around the web ×6
Quick answers
Did Stewart Butterfield found Slack?
Yes. BetaKit's 2022-12-05 story calls him Slack's founding CEO and says Slack was created as an internal tool at Tiny Speck, the company he led, which launched it publicly in 2013 after shutting down its game Glitch. BetaKit's 2014-04-25 report describes Tiny Speck as a Vancouver-based computer game startup founded in 2009, with most of its leadership drawn from Ludicorp, the company that built Flickr. The University of Victoria's 2018-01-24 award release names him co-founder and CEO of Slack.
Is Stewart Butterfield Canadian?
Yes. The Globe and Mail's 2014-12-05 profile says he hails from tiny Lund, B.C., holds philosophy degrees from the University of Victoria and Cambridge, took his first web job at a Vancouver design agency and returned to B.C. to build Glitch. The University of Victoria named him its Gustavson School of Business 2018 Distinguished Entrepreneur of the Year; its release gives a BA in philosophy from UVic in 1996 and a Master of Philosophy from Cambridge.
What did he do before Slack?
He co-founded Flickr. BetaKit (2022-12-05) says he co-founded the photo-sharing site with Caterina Fake in 2004 and that Yahoo acquired it in 2005. The Globe and Mail (2014-12-05) says Flickr grew out of Ludicorp, the startup he founded to make the game Game Neverending, which flopped; Stanford GSB's 2020-02-21 profile says he worked at Yahoo from 2005 to 2008 before co-founding the game company Tiny Speck, whose in-house messaging tool became Slack.
Has Butterfield spoken at TechTO?
No. Slack's TechTO appearances were a January 2018 SalesTO panel and an August 2018 talk by Nikki Curtis on building a learning culture; see the Slack page. BetaKit (2022-12-05) reported that he would step down as Slack's CEO in January 2023, with Salesforce's Lidiane Jones taking over. Lenny's Newsletter's 2025-11-20 episode page says that since the Slack sale he has focused on family, philanthropy and creative projects. No public page states where he lives now, so this profile lists no city.