Flickr's Fake and Butterfield to Leave Yahoo!

Flickr Chief Stewart Butterfield

Flickr Co-founders Join Mass Exodus From Yahoo I wonder what this means for the future of Flickr?

My guess is that Fake and Butterfield had a three year lock up component as at least part of their deal when they sold Flickr to Yahoo back in 2005. That lock up would be ending right about last month.

Not sure how much of the reported $30-$35 million Flickr founders Butterfield and Fake pocketed in the sale to Yahoo in cash vs. stock, but if the deal stipulated that they had to hold Yahoo! stock over the course of the past three years, they would have given back significant value.

Three years ago Yahoo stock was trading at about $37 per share. Today it's trading at $23.25, about 40% less than when Flickr sold to Yahoo originally.

Theoretically (and I'm sure that this is likely not the case) if Flickr sold to Yahoo for $30 million in stock in 2005 with a three year lock up on those shares, their shares in Yahoo would be worth $18 million today.

It looks like TechCrunch probably has this story right as there is a comment on their post by Butterfield:

"No need to worry about the future of Flickr - it’s well-protected from the uppings and downings of YHOO and will continue to be awesome. Kakul is actually better than me anyway — ask anyone on the team."

Update: As much as it pains me to link to Valleywag, they do have the *best* Stewart Butterfield resignation letter of all time. If it's true and all that, you know, Valleywag.

Hey wait. Maybe I don't have to link to Valleywag at all. Maybe I can just rip off their letter and publish it here. After all, they've used plenty of my photos in the past without permission.

Anyways, Stewart's reported letter of resignation to Yahoo. Pure brilliance if you ask me: