It was precisely the kind of thing a philosophy major who spent his childhood on a commune without running water or electricity might come up with. "I related to the whole hippie, acid-test confluence of the early internet," Stewart says, looking up at the vast empty space overhead in the Slack office. "The idea that we should be open and interoperate with our data resonated with me." He pauses. His tone shifts.
A year later, Stewart and his two cofounders sold it to Yahoo, and relocated from Vancouver to the Bay Area. Yahoo was its own terrible joke. Innovation at Flickr turned blue and choked out. You could. They sold out to Yahoo assuming that they'd be backstroking in rivers of money and terabytes of memory. Instead they had to fight for everything: servers, people, time.
Stewart tried to quit after three years. But Caterina had just left too, and lots of other high-ranking people were fleeing Yahoo, and so the company talked him into staying a few more months to help avoid the appearance of a mass exodus. During his last several months at Yahoo, he didn't actually do anything. He didn't even have to go into the office, like that guy on Mike Judge's HBO show, has to do.
Since the late 80s, as the general manufacturing, oil exploration and refining, logistics and hotel and casino divisions rose to prominence, I have felt somewhat sidelined.
And he sold out so see what’s happened to Flickr now! Pay to get the same that was free