EventTech Innovator, Disruptor, and Leader: Stewart Butterfield
May 06, 2021 Caroline Keane
Eventcombo recognizes our EventTech industry has so many brilliant minds working to innovate and create the best new experiences through technology. This month, we are highlighting one of these industry superstars, Stewart Butterfield.
Butterfield is a Canadian entrepreneur and in 2004, he co-founded the photo sharing service, Flickr. It now houses billions of photos and has over 110 million users. While Flickr was acquired by SmugMug, Butterfield launched Slack in 2013.
Slack, a business communication service which we’ve all become familiar with has grown tremendously in popularity. As of 2019, Slack had over 10 million daily users. Over the past year, with remote work taking the world by storm, Slack became more important than ever.
With the mind of a true innovator, Butterfield’s team is working on new enhancements for Slack. Their next endeavor includes introducing a video communication option. This would not take the same form as Zoom or Google Meets, however. The new feature would be used as a short video message capability to share news and updates within teams. For example, a CEO could use a video message to announce a new idea or direction to their team. It makes what would be a simple email much more engaging, exciting, and personal.
Although Slack has already taken over the world for internal team collaboration, Butterfield did not let that stop him from continuing to improve and scale the business. Where some would think enough has been innovated, he continues to unveil new ideas. From Stewart Butterfield we learn to never stop learning or improving and always be uncomfortable, as that forces you to grow. A line Eventcombo’s CEO, Saroosh Gull, repeats on a daily basis.
If you know someone in the EventTech industry who is making waves, reach out to chiefideaofficer@eventcombo.com to recommend them to be featured here.
