Stewart Butterfield Resignation Letter

Flickr co-founders and married couple Stewart Butterfield and Caterina Fake have joined the recent exodus and catastrophic brain-drain from Yahoo executive management.  Flickr was bought by Yahoo in 2005.  Below is Butterfield’s resignation letter.  HILARIOUS!!!

Dear Brad,
 
As you know, tin is in my blood.  For generations my family has worked with this most useful of metals.  When I joined Yahoo! back in ‘21, it was a sheet-tin concern of great momentum, growth and innovation.  I knew it was the place for me.  Over the decades as the company grew and expanded, first into dyes and punches, into copper, corrugated steel, synthesized rubber, piping, milling equipment, engines, instruments, weaponry, and so on, I still felt at home, because tin was the core of the business.
 
After the war, as we continued to branch out in electronics, all manner of aeronautical frames, hulls and bodies, computing and tabulating machines, precision controls, and later, farther afield — real estate, brewing, consumer finance, grain processing, lighting and salty snacks — I took it in stride, for there was still a place for me.
 
Since the late 80s, as the general manufacturing, oil exploration & refining, logistics, and hotel & casino divisions grew to prominence, I have felt somewhat sidelined.  By the time of the internet revolution and our expansion into Web Sites, I have been cast adrift.  I tried to roll with the times, but nary a sheet of tin has rolled out of our production lines in over 30 years!
 
I don’t know what you and the other executives have planned for this company, but I know that my ability to contribute has dwindled to near-nothing, and not entirely because of my advancing age.  Therefore, with a heavy heart, I recognize that it is time for me to and the company to part ways.
 
In my 87 years service, I’ve accomplished many feats, shared the ups and downs, made great friends, and learned a tremendous amount (who would have thought that Electronic Mail would come to supplant the nation’s own great and venerable post!?) but there is a new generation now and it would be unfair not to give them a chance.  Those that started in the make-work programs of the depression, on the GI programs in the late 40s, and even those young baby boomers need their own try, with out us old ‘uns standing in the way.
 
So, please accept my resignation, effective July 12.  And I don’t need no fancy parties or gold watches (I still have the one from ‘61 and ‘76).  I will be spending more time with my family, tending to my small but growing alpaca herd and, of course, getting back to my work with tin, my first love.
 
Your old tin-smithing friend and colleague,
 
- Stewart Butterfield