Billionaire Slack Co-Founder’s Daughter Vanishes, Feared to Be in San Francisco’s Tenderloin Neighborhood
Mint Butterfield, the 16-year-old daughter of billionaire Slack co-founder Stewart Butterfield and Flickr founder Caterina Fake, has been reported missing. The teen was last seen at 10 p.m. Sunday in Bolinas, California, according to Marin County Sheriff spokesperson Deputy Jose Suarez.
Her mother reported her missing on Monday. At the time of her disappearance, Mint Butterfield was living with her mother and attending a private boarding school in the Napa area.
According to sheriff’s officials, Mint Butterfield was last seen wearing a black sweatshirt, flannel pajama pants, and black boots. She may also have been carrying a gray suitcase. The 5-foot-tall teen with curly, brown-red hair and pierced eyebrows is believed to have run away to the Tenderloin neighborhood of San Francisco, which is known for its violent crimes, rampant homelessness, and open-air drug market.
Mint Butterfield has a history of substance abuse and has been known to frequent the Tenderloin in the past. The sheriff’s office is asking for the public’s help in locating her. Anyone with information on her whereabouts is asked to contact the Marin County Sheriff’s Office.
Stewart Butterfield co-founded the messaging app Slack in 2013 and left the company after Salesforce acquired the platform for $28 billion in 2021. According to Forbes, his net worth is around $1.6 billion. Fake founded the image-sharing service Flickr with Butterfield in 2004 and sold the company to Yahoo! in 2005 for around $30 million.
Fake and Butterfield married in 2001 but divorced in 2007, the same year Mint Butterfield was born. The couple’s only child, Mint Butterfield, is the subject of the current missing person investigation.
Stewart Butterfield remarried Jennifer Rubio, the co-founder and CEO of luggage manufacturer and retailer Away, in 2020. In 2021, the couple sold their San Francisco home following his departure from Slack and relocated to a luxurious $25 million mansion in Aspen, Colorado’s Five Trees neighborhood.
The couple also owns a massive $32.2 million mansion in Southampton, New York. The 17,000-square-foot home features 11 bedrooms, 12 bathrooms, and an all-weather tennis court. It is located near the popular Cooper’s Beach in Southampton.
In New York City, the couple owns two properties: a $27.27 million 8,000-square-foot West Village townhouse purchased in 2021 and a $20 million Tribeca townhouse with its own private skybridge overlooking the city, acquired in 2022.
