Last week I gave 2 month’s notice – I’ll be leaving Flickr in January.
When Stew and Cat asked me to join Flickr in January of 2005, I felt like it was time to go and do something different, so I said yes.
Five years (and four billion photos) later, it’s again time to go and do something different. It’s hard for me to describe what a blast this has been. Our goal was to kick ass, and I think we did. Flickr has served as the backdrop of some of the largest changes in my life, and the work I’ve done there is essentially tied to those events in my memory.
During my time here at Flickr, I:
- moved house
- saw the company get bought by Yahoo!, and worked out that whole transition thing
- got married
- had a daughter
- co-invented a pretty well-received office sport
- wrote a book
- had a son
In addition to building, scaling, evolving, and generally being as loud and fast as we could possibly be with the original Ludicorp team, I had the absolute privilege to hire and work in the trenches with some of the greatest people on the web. I also had the chance to work with some of the smartest people at Yahoo, who I’ll continue to have relationships with even after I leave. Yahoo has treated me well, and I’ve learned more here than I have at any other company.
The reason I stayed here for five years wasn’t for the accolades (or the vesting). It was because I worked with people who care about building something that people care about.
This also happens to be the same reason why I chose my next step: Etsy. They care, and it shows.
I still have a little more time here at Flickr to rock a bit more, but I’m excited to work with my friend Chad again on something that matters. I’ll be running the Ops group there, where they’ve already got superstars.
Chad wrote some more about it here.
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Congrats! We are beyond excited to have you join the team!
I’m thrilled for you, Elizabeth, Sadie & Jack. But I’ll miss you all dearly. Damn you Chad for leaving the Bay and taking my people with you!
Congratulations, John. We’re thrilled over here on the other coast.
You’re dead to me.
-/\/
How COULD you?!?
Seriously, congratulations — you’ll be sorely missed.
And just possibly, hunted down, abducted and brainwashed so that you won’t remember the last week… possibly.
Seriously. Why can’t I favourite comments on this thing yet???
You will be missed.. And yet, I think we’ll carry on in your spirit. Thank you for all you’ve done, and it’s been an honour!
Very proud of you Cuz.
Congratulations John! And Elizabeth! And crew!
I’m super happy for you, but bummed for the good crew in flops. You’re going to love NYC!
Wow! Good luck John!
I can’t describe how exited I am to have John on our awesome team. I think we’re gonna do great things together!
Having met you at the CTO Club when you spoke there, I can only say that this is great news for Chad and Etsy, and good news for NYC too. I guess I better buy some stock in Etsy somehow…
Congrats! Will be great to have you in the Big Apple–working in Brooklyn, no less!
John,
congrats on the new gig, new city and new adventures! It will be good to see you in New York again.
Igor
Congrats, it’s a perfect fit. See you in Brooklyn!
More people to visit in Brooklyn! congratulations!!
Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold on just a second here. What’s this “pulling an Oates” ? How did *I* get involved here?
Looking forward to welcoming you to NYC. Congrats.
Great news, John. Congrats to you and Chad and Etsy.
Congrats!
Oh John! I fucking love etsy. But you are moving? And you wrote a book? Sweet jesus. Will we ever catch up? But man, another reason to go to NYC. Let’s shoot for 2010 as the year. Love!
Awesome news. You couldn’t be picking better people to work with–well, unless you came to craigslist of course. 🙂
I still remember running into you at the airport in Vancouver when a few of us came up for some due diligence type work and it was like your first day at Flickr (or something close to that). Who could have guessed what was to come over the next few years?
Congrats, John (and Etsy)! Make sure to bring your winter coat. 🙂
Hey, congratulations, John! We’ll miss you and Elizabeth on this coast. But sounds like an exciting move.
i hereby motion to redirect all flickr bugs to jallspaw@etsy. particularly those with outside partners. :-p
(no, seriously- good luck! glad i got to work with you, even for just a tiny bit!i)
Looking forward to welcoming you and the fam to Nueva York! Such exciting news. 🙂
It’s huge! It’s awesome! I can’t wait to see you out east!
Hooray!
Congratulations!
Congratulations John!
Can’t wait to hear you talk about scaling operations at Etsy!
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Congratulations……I can not wait to get my book personalized! Best wishes for continued success!!
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Pingback: John Allspaw joins Etsy – Chad Dickerson's blog
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