Flickr founders Caterina Fake and Stewart Butterfield have joined an exodus of senior Yahoo managers, the company confirmed Tuesday.
Fake, who led the the effort to create Brickhouse, Yahoo’s San Francisco-based startup incubator, will not be returning from maternity leave. Butterfield, her husband, who served as general manager of Flickr, will depart July 12.
The couple, who founded the popular photo-sharing site together and sold it to Yahoo in March 2005 for a reported $30 million, are the latest in a string of high-profile resignations that have coincided with the collapse of Microsoft’s attempt to acquire Yahoo.
Among the executives who have left or will leave soon are Jeff Weiner, the executive vice president of Yahoo’s network division, and Usama Fayyad, the chief data officer and executive vice president of research and strategic data solutions.
“These are people that are making personal decision,” said spokeswoman Terrell Karlsten. “They really are individual departures where people are moving on to new endeavors.”
Still, the departures are a blow to Yahoo, which has been losing talented employees from all ranks of the company for more than two years. The Flickr founders, in particular, were seen as a source of innovative energy.
Soon after Fake arrived in Sunnyvale, Weiner asked her to figure out a way to “build the next Flickr at Yahoo.” In a blog post, Fake recalled her response: “It ain’t ever going to happen.”
Fake said Brickhouse was the answer to her assignment. But since its launch in the spring of 2007, most of the senior executives associated with the project have left the company.
Contact Elise Ackerman at eackerman@mercurynews.com or (408) 271-3774.
