Missing 16-Year-Old Tech Entrepreneur Sparks Concerns in Tech Community”.

The disappearance of 16-year-old Mint Butterfield, the child of tech founders who co-founded popular platforms such as Slack and Flickr, has sent shockwaves in the tech community. Butterfield was last seen on Sunday evening in Bolinas, California, a town located north of San Francisco. The local sheriff’s office issued a missing juvenile alert and is seeking information that could help locate Butterfield.

The missing person’s report was filed on Monday by Caterina Fake, Butterfield’s mother and the co-founder of Flickr. According to K. Walther, a deputy with the Marin County Sheriff’s Office, Butterfield was last seen around 10 p.m. on Sunday and reported missing the following morning. DailyMail.com reported that Butterfield was also sighted in Larkspur Landing, a location north of San Francisco, according to a social media post by a family friend.

Butterfield has been known to frequent the Tenderloin district of San Francisco, a neighborhood notorious for its social issues. Stewart Butterfield, who co-founded Flickr with Fake in 2004 and went on to co-found Slack, has not yet made a public statement about the situation. The Marin County Sheriff’s Office described Butterfield as 5 feet tall, with brown/reddish curly hair, and pierced eyebrows. At the time of disappearance, Butterfield was wearing a black sweatshirt, flannel pajama pants, and black boots. Further details or updates about the situation are pending as the investigation continues.

Stewart Butterfield and Fake sold Flickr to Yahoo in 2005 for an estimated $30 million before divorcing in 2007. Their divorce was finalized on the same year that Butterfield was born. After his departure from Slack in December 2022, Stewart Butterfield has an estimated net worth of $1.6 billion according to Forbes