Mint Butterfield: Child of billionaire Slack founder missing in crime-riddled area of San Francisco

The billionaire co-founders of Flickr, Stewart Butterfield and Caterina Fake, are frantically searching for their missing 16-year-old child, Mint Butterfield.

The teen is believed to have vanished in a troublesome hotspot in San Francisco and was last spotted late Sunday night in Bolinas. The ongoing search has raised fears Mint might have disappeared in the Tenderloin area of San Francisco, known for its high crime rates.

The teen's father co-founded the team-messaging platform, Slack, and her mother is a successful entrepreneur and previous chairwoman of Etsy. The former couple also founded image-sharing site Flickr together.

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Mint was reported missing by her mom the day after her last sighting, sparking concerns amongst local authorities. Speaking with the San Francisco Chronicle, Sergeant Adam Schermerhorn revealed that the sheriff's office is "working with SFPD detectives to try and locate" Mint. It's speculated that the teenager may have run away from home.

The Tenderloin neighborhood breeds a large homeless population combined with elevated criminal activity, making it a hub for drug dealings, particularly fentanyl. An alarming report in 2018 dubbed the streets of Tenderloin as being overwhelmed with heroin needles and mounting piles of human waste.

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Police say Mint is about 5 feet tall, around 100 pounds with brown-reddish curly hair and pierced eyebrows. Mint was last seen wearing a black sweatshirt, flannel pajama pants, and black boots. It is believed that they were carrying a gray suitcase before their disappearance.

Mint's parents are the co-founders of Flickr, which they sold to Yahoo in 2005. Both have continued to make significant contributions in the tech industry. Caterina has been recognized as one of Bloomberg Businessweek's Best Leaders and Forbes' 2005 eGang. She also made it to Time Magazine's Time 100 list in 2006.

Mint's parents ended their marriage in 2008 after seven years together. Stewart co-founded the instant messaging platform Slack in 2013. Currently valued at $1.6 billion, Slack was acquired by Salesforce in 2021 for a whopping $28 billion. Butterfield stepped down from the company in 2022.

Journalist Yashar Ali took to X, formerly known as Twitter, to ask for public assistance on behalf of his friend Stewart. He shared the missing person poster and wrote: "I don't ask for your help often, but I need it now. My friend's 16-year-old has gone missing. Please spread this far and wide, and if you have any information about their whereabouts, call the number on this flyer."

The teen is a student at a private boarding school in nearby Napa Valley and reportedly has a history of substance abuse.