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Founders of Yahoo’s Flickr Head for the Exits

By The Associated Press

Published: Wed, June 18, 2008 - 5:35 pm

(AP) -- The husband-and-wife team behind Yahoo Inc.'s popular photo-sharing service Flickr have resigned, following two top executives that have departed since the Internet pioneer rejected a $47.5 billion takeover offer from Microsoft Corp.

Flickr co-founders Stewart Butterfield and Caterina Fake want to pursue another opportunity that they haven't yet revealed, Yahoo spokeswoman Terrell Karlsten said Wednesday.

Fake's last day at Sunnyvale-based Yahoo was June 13. Butterfield plans to leave July 12.

The couple sold Flickr to Yahoo for a reported $35 million in 2005, about a year after they created the Web site for showing off digital photography.

Flickr's system for displaying and sharing photos attracted such a loyal following that Time magazine included Butterfield and Fake on a 2006 list of the world's most influential people.

Flickr already had been weaning itself from its co-founders. Fake had been working in another Yahoo division that cultivates new technology and Butterfield took an extended paternity leave last year.

Kakul Srivastava, who became Flickr's general manager in April, will continue to oversee the photo-sharing service, Karlsten said.

The Flickr defections follow the resignations of two Yahoo executive vice presidents, Jeff Weiner and Usama Fayyad.

Weiner oversaw an array of services that included Yahoo's search engine and e-mail. He left to become an "executive in residence" at two venture capital firms, Accel Partners and Greylock Partners.

Fayyad had been in charge of Yahoo's analysis of user data - a job aimed at identifying online ads more likely to pique a reader's interest.

Yahoo attributed all the departures to personal decisions unrelated to the outcome of the company's five-month battle with Microsoft. The software maker withdrew a $33 per share offer on May 3 after Yahoo sought $37 per share - a price that the company's stock hasn't reached since January 2006.

Yahoo shares fell 34 cents, or 1.5 percent, to finish Wednesday at $22.91.

Had a Microsoft deal been reached, all of Yahoo's 13,800 employees would have been covered by a generous severance plan that would have paid them if they were fired or quit after being reassigned to a new job within two years of a takeover.

© 2008 The Associated Press