A self-professed introvert, which is fitting for a company that sells itself on textual communication, he values efficiency and candour. After Yahoo bought Flickr, he worked there for a few years. “Everything was horrible, ugly, slow, difficult to use and confusing,” he says, frankly.
他自稱性格內向——這恰恰適合靠文本通訊謀生的公司——并且珍視效率和坦誠。雅虎收購Flickr之后，他在那里工作了幾年。“一切都很可怕、丑陋、緩慢、難用、混亂。”他毫不掩飾地說道。
In retrospect, Flickr was sold too soon. The sale marked the beginning of the technology industry's resurgence after its crash in the early 2000s. Now Mr Butterfield has a second chance. Investors do not want to see him sell Slack too early. Earlier this year there were reports that Microsoft considered bidding around $8 billion for the company. Mr Butterfield says that Slack has never received a formal offer from anyone and is planning to go public. Last year it started submitting itself to voluntary audits, in what appears to be preparation for a public debut. But it seems even more likely that a large tech giant will see the strategic value of Slack and try to snap it up first for an even splashier sum.
回想起來，當年賣Flickr賣得太早了。那一次并購標志著科技產業在經歷21世紀初崩潰后的復蘇。如今巴特菲爾德有了第二次機會。投資者不愿意看到他過早賣掉Slack。今年早些時候有報道稱，微軟考慮出價80億美元收購該公司。巴特菲爾德則表示從未收到任何人的正式報價，而公司正計劃上市。去年，公司做了一次外部審計，似乎是為公開上市準備。但貌似可能性更大的是某家科技巨頭會意識到Slack的戰略價值，以更高的出價搶先將其收歸麾下。
Mr Butterfield says that Slack could achieve $10 billion in revenue if it signs up 100m knowledge workers, of which there are around 850m worldwide. That is far easier said than done. For one thing, Slack still needs to woo larger companies outside the technology world. Currently it holds particular appeal among workers at firms in the internet, media and advertising industries, and among teams of software developers within larger firms. Conquering traditional businesses may prove harder. Slack's yearly minimum of $80 per employee is steep for companies with tens of thousands of workers.
巴特菲爾德表示，假如全球約8.5億的知識型勞動者中有一億成為Slack的付費用戶，那么公司的年收入將達到100億美元。這說起來容易，實際難度卻大得多。一方面，Slack還須博取非科技業大公司的青睞。目前，Slack特別受互聯網、媒體、廣告公司員工的歡迎，大公司內部軟件開發團隊的員工也很愛用。但征服傳統公司可能會更難。Slack每人80美元的最低年費對擁有數以萬計員工的企業來說是一項不菲的開支。
For another, Slack has rising competition to fend off. Already, rival products are taking aim at the market for workplace collaboration, including one, Atlassian, from an Australian software company, which is called HipChat, and bundled with its other services. There is also Symphony, a rival startup backed by several banks that specialises in highly regulated industries such as financial services, which require more compliance controls. Tech giants such as Microsoft, Oracle and Facebook have collaborative work apps, but these are only modestly successful.
另一方面，Slack還要抵御不斷加劇的競爭。已有不少競爭產品瞄準辦公協作的市場，其中包括澳大利亞軟件公司Atlassian推出的HipChat，該產品還捆綁提供公司的其他服務。另一對手是擁有多家銀行支持的創業企業Symphony，其產品專門針對金融服務等受高度監管的行業而設，這些行業要求更多的合規控制。微軟、甲骨文和Facebook等科技巨頭也有協同工作應用，但都成績有限。
Slack's greatest challenge may be people's own habits. To some, its endless stream of chatter may be worse even than e-mail, because the barriers to commenting rapidly are lower. The introverted Mr Butterfield should welcome the chance to appeal to people who do not want constant interaction, even when it comes in textual form.
Slack面臨的最大挑戰可能是人們自身的習慣。一些人認為，這種沒完沒了地嘮叨也許比電子郵件還要糟糕，因為不假思索地大發議論的屏障降低了。內向的巴特菲爾德也該考慮怎樣吸引那些不喜歡持續互動的人，即便是以文本形式互動。
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