Stewart Butterfield and Joel Greenblatt rarely show up in the same conversation, yet their stories fit well side by side. One is a Canadian software founder who sold a photo site and then built Slack. The other is a New York investor who turned a simple stock-picking rule into a widely read book. They work in different worlds, but both made their names by seeing value where others looked away.
This article covers who each man is, how he got started, and what his work looks like up close. We also look at the habits they share and what everyday readers can borrow from them. A short bio table sits right below to give you the basic facts before we go deeper.
What Stewart Butterfield and Joel Greenblatt Have in Common
On paper, the two seem to have little in common. One builds software and the other buys stocks. There is no known business partnership between them, so this is a comparison of habits, not a shared story. Still, a few patterns repeat in how both of them think and work.
First, both look for what other people ignore. Butterfield noticed that an internal chat tool mattered more than a failing game. Greenblatt looks at spin offs and unloved companies that big institutions skip. In both cases, value shows up in places that look boring or messy at first.
Second, both take a long view. Slack took years of work before it became a household name, and the Magic Formula asks for at least a year per cycle. Third, both explain things plainly. Butterfield writes memos in everyday language, and Greenblatt wrote books that read like conversations. They treat their audience as smart adults.
| Detail | Stewart Butterfield | Joel Greenblatt |
| Born | 1973, Lund, British Columbia | 1957, United States |
| Nationality | Canadian | American |
| Education | Philosophy degree, University of Victoria; master’s in philosophy, University of Cambridge | Undergraduate and MBA, Wharton School |
| Known for | Co-founding Flickr and Slack | Co-founding Gotham Capital, the Magic Formula |
| Companies | Ludicorp, Tiny Speck, Slack | Gotham Capital, Gotham Asset Management, Value Investors Club |
| Notable milestones | Flickr sold to Yahoo in 2005; Slack sold to Salesforce in 2021 | Books on special situations and value investing; teaching at Columbia Business School |
Lessons From Stewart Butterfield and Joel Greenblatt for Everyday Readers
If you work in tech or run a small team, the Butterfield lesson is to watch what people actually use. Your best idea may be hiding inside a project that is not working. Pay attention to side tools, odd workarounds, and the feature customers keep praising. Then be brave enough to let the original plan go.
If you invest, the Greenblatt lesson is that a clear rule you can follow beats a clever plan you cannot. Know what you own and why, expect rough patches, and keep costs low. If picking stocks does not interest you, a simple fund can be a fine choice. The key is to stay with whatever method you pick.
Both stories also show how much patience matters. Neither man got where he is through one stroke of luck or genius. They tried many things, kept the ones that held up, and kept going through bad stretches. That is less exciting than a myth about overnight success, but it is far more useful.
Who Is Stewart Butterfield?
Stewart Butterfield is a Canadian entrepreneur best known as the co-founder of Flickr and Slack. He was born in 1973 in Lund, British Columbia, and grew up on Vancouver Island. Over about twenty years he built two products that millions of people picked up and used every day. Both of them started life as something else, which turns out to be the most interesting part of his story.
Butterfield does not fit the usual picture of a tech founder. He studied philosophy rather than computer science, and he talks about his work with a dry, thoughtful humor. Colleagues have often described him as someone who cares about the exact wording of a sentence as much as the code behind a feature. That attention to language shaped how Slack looks, sounds, and feels.
Early Life and Education of Stewart Butterfield
Butterfield grew up in Victoria, British Columbia, in a household that valued independence and curiosity. He later studied philosophy at the University of Victoria, then earned a master’s degree in philosophy at the University of Cambridge in England. It was not an obvious route to a tech career, and he has joked about it more than once.
Philosophy gave him a habit he used again and again at work. He liked to ask what a problem really was before trying to solve it. When a product failed, he did not just patch it. He asked what people were actually doing with it, and whether the original idea had been wrong from the start.
Who Is Joel Greenblatt?
Joel Greenblatt is an American investor, author, and teacher who co-founded Gotham Capital in 1985. He is best known for the Magic Formula, a rule-based way of picking stocks that he explained in his book The Little Book That Beats the Market. Born in 1957, he built a reputation for strong returns and for explaining value investing in plain language.
Joel Greenblatt’s Early Years and the Rise of Gotham Capital
Greenblatt studied at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, where he earned both his undergraduate degree and his MBA. After graduating he worked at a few investment firms and learned how professionals analyze companies. By the mid eighties he was ready to start his own fund, together with his partner Robert Goldstein.
Gotham Capital opened in 1985 with a small pool of money, and early backing is often credited to Michael Milken. The firm focused on special situations such as spin offs, mergers, and companies coming out of bankruptcy. These are corners of the market where selling is often forced and prices can drift far from value. Greenblatt liked those mismatches.
Reports say Gotham returned about 50 percent a year before fees in its first decade, and about 40 percent a year after fees over roughly twenty years. Past results never guarantee anything, and those figures come from the firm’s own accounts, so it helps to treat them with care. Still, the record helped him build a name that people in finance took seriously.
Greenblatt wrote about this style of investing in You Can Be a Stock Market Genius, published in 1997. The book explains how ordinary investors can look at spin offs, merger deals, and restructurings and find bargains. It is written with humor and a few formulas. Many readers say it was the first investing book that made them feel they could actually do it.
Conclusion
Stewart Butterfield and Joel Greenblatt took different roads, one through software and the other through markets. Both built their careers by looking closely at what others skipped, and both had the patience to wait for results. Nothing here is financial advice. If you want to try any investing method, study it first and talk with a licensed professional about your situation.
FAQS
Who is Stewart Butterfield?
He is a Canadian entrepreneur who co-founded Flickr and Slack. He studied philosophy before moving into web design and software, and he became one of the best known founders in workplace technology.
What is Stewart Butterfield known for?
He is known for building Slack, which grew out of an internal tool at his game company Tiny Speck. Salesforce bought Slack in a deal announced in 2020 for about 27.7 billion dollars.
Who is Joel Greenblatt?
He is an American investor, author, and teacher who co-founded Gotham Capital in 1985. He is also known for the Magic Formula and for teaching value investing at Columbia Business School.
What is the Magic Formula?
It is a stock-picking method that ranks companies by earnings yield and return on capital, then buys the highest ranked group and holds for about a year. Greenblatt described it in his 2005 book.
Are Stewart Butterfield and Joel Greenblatt connected?
There is no known business link between them. They work in different fields, and this article compares them only because their habits and ideas share some useful common ground.
Which books did Joel Greenblatt write?
His best known books are You Can Be a Stock Market Genius, The Little Book That Beats the Market, and The Big Secret for the Small Investor. Each one explains investing in plain, friendly language.
