How Slack’s non-techie CEO Stewart Butterfield reached the top of Silicon Valley
Summary
In a nod to an unconventional streak in Butterfield’s personality that separates him from the herd, Levie adds: “He has just the right level of quirkiness.” Coming up with a viral hit product, to use a metaphor often heard in Silicon Valley, is like catching lightning in a bottle: the odds against it happening are extremely long. Flickr, the photo sharing site he created with then-wife Caterina Fake 15 years ago, flared brightly — though briefly — on the Silicon Valley firmament. One developer who saw Butterfield’s impromptu unveiling of the service at a tech conference summed up the effect: it was an “amazing combination of utilitarian, usable interface aesthetic and genuinely witty whimsy.” Those words stand as a perfect description of the qualities that have turned Slack into a workplace hit. If he feels bitter about selling out too cheaply (Facebook later paid $1 billion for Instagram) he has always done a good job of hiding it, retreating behind slightly doleful eyes and a very deliberate, whisper-like delivery. Slack was carved out of a failed gaming company, in one of the start-up world’s more famous “pivots.” One investor recounts how the Canadian entrepreneur refused to ditch his first backers when switching horses to the new product.
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