Flickr founder knocks Yahoo

During a visit to Australia this week, Flickr founder and former Yahoo staffer Stewart Butterfield criticised the search giant for its lack of an innovative culture compared to rival Google.

Flickr founder Stewart Butterfield
(Credit: Stewart Butterfield)

"I felt like the biggest problem while I was there [was] that management was oriented a little bit too much towards the quarterly results," said Butterfield in an interview with ZDNet.com.au today.

The executive and his wife, co-Flickr founder Caterina Fake, left Yahoo in July as part of a wave of management departures, more than three years after Yahoo bought the photo-sharing site in March 2005, for an amount believed to be at least in the millions.

"If the entire focus of the company is produce a certain amount of operating free cash flow or a certain amount of capital expenditure ... it isn't hard for other people to out-manoeuvre you, when they're not so concerned about those things," Butterfield said.

Butterfield said he saw Google as a more innovative company.

"I am sure the management at Google, despite their outward proclamations, are every bit as concerned about those numbers, but they are taking bigger strategic risks, and other Web start-ups are as well," he said.

Butterfield also spoke out about Microsoft's attempt to buy Yahoo, the failure of which has resulted in diminished confidence in Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang and a management exodus at the search firm.

"It was not so great," he said. "Once the ball was rolling I would have rather seen the acquisition happen. I think a lot of damage was done to Yahoo. Not only from a company perspective, but from a leadership and morale perspective."

However, Butterfield denied that he left Yahoo because of the culture at Yahoo or the failed Microsoft merger.

"I didn't leave because of Microsoft stuff," he said. "We had a three-year commitment, and I stayed a little bit longer than the original agreement."

When asked about his unusual "tin-smithing" resignation letter, Butterfield said it had no deeper meaning.

"I figured if I had to write an email that said my last day will be July 12 ... then I would make it a little more interesting for the people that have to read it," he said.

Butterfield was in Australia to attend the X|Media Lab in Melbourne.

• Related stories

• Alerts

Add your opinion

Small correction Stewart Butterfield -- 28/07/08

The great thing about journalism in the digital age is that comments are allowed. And since I'm in the right timezone, I get the first comment here:

I don't think I would have said that Yahoo! lacked an innovative culture and if I did, I certainly misspoke: the culture of the company absolutely supports innovation and there are a huge number of innovative people and products at Yahoo! Indeed, Yahoo!'s innovations are routinely underappreciated by the press and bloggers, especially vis-a-vis Google.

However, and unfortunately, that culture doesn't always extend to the executive floors. The risk-aversion that comes from maintaining a certain picture on balance sheets and income statements precludes the kind of strategic positions which leverage the company's innovations to the fullest.

Yahoo! was capable of leading in many areas where it now lags, but the problem wasn't a lack of clever code or fresh ideas, it was a lack of execution: choosing some of the new ideas and making big bets for the long term. And that's a matter, as I said above, of strategic risk taking rather than pure "innovation".

Cheers,

- Stewart

(p.s. there's a typo in the 8th 'graph: "morale", not "moral")

• Reply to comment
• Reply to story
• Report offensive content

Corrected Alex Serpo - ZDNet Australia -- 29/07/08 (in reply to #320107872)

Hi Stewart,

Apologies for the typo, I've fixed it.

The additional comments add perspective to the piece, so I'm glad you added them.

Alex

• Reply to comment
• Report offensive content

• Just In

• Most Popular

• Most Discussed

Reader Services

Popular Topics

Essentials