How Slack Technologies developed from an idea for easier office chat to software juggernaut in two years, entirely by word of mouth
It's late morning on a Thursday in September, and Slack Technologies CEO Stewart Butterfield has convened a meeting with his design and product heads in the company's low-key San Francisco headquarters.
On the agenda is the question that's been most on Butterfield's mind lately: how his $US2.8 billion ($3.9 billion) start-up, which makes business-collaboration software, can be as good with 250, 500, or a thousand people as it was when he founded it with a team of eight.
For today's meeting, Butterfield, sporting camouflage suede wingtips and argyle socks, has prepared a list of "teachable principles" he wants his people to internalise.
Butterfield is off and running when something distracts him: Brandon Velestuk, Slack's design director, is video-conferencing from Vancouver, and his...