Billionaire tech heiress Mint Butterfield was found by police after she disappeared more than a week ago in San Francisco.
Butterfield, 16, is the only child of two Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, Slack co-founder Stewart Butterfield and Flickr founder Caterina Fake.
The 16-year-old, who uses they/them pronouns, disappeared from his mother’s home in affluent Bolinas on April 21, before Fake reported him missing the next day.
On Saturday night, the Marin County Sheriff’s Office said they had located Butterfield safe in California City after she was found with an adult friend of hers.
Detectives say they learned Butterfield was associating with Christopher ‘Kio’ Dizefalo, 26, known for driving a white van. After tracking the vehicle, officers found Butterfield inside.
Mint Butterfield, the 16-year-old daughter of billionaire technology CEO Stewart Butterfield, was found Saturday night.
Flickr co-founder Caterina Fake speaks during the 2010 Bloomberg BusinessWeek Media Summit in New York City, Wednesday, March 10, 2010.
Stewart Butterfield speaks at his company’s Frontiers conference at Piers 27 and 29 on April 24, 2019 in San Francisco.
In a statement, the Marin County Sheriff’s Office said Butterfield was found unharmed and had run away from her home voluntarily.
After detectives interviewed Dizefalo, he was arrested and booked into the Marin County Jail, with bail set at $50,000.
Police said earlier in the week that Mint was “at risk” due to a previous suicide threat.
They said he had left his mother’s house with a suitcase and left a note indicating that he had left the residence. Police believed she was in the Tenderloin area.
The troubled teen, who is said to have struggled with addiction issues in the past, attends a private boarding school in the Napa Valley.
The Tenderloin is the center of the fentanyl crisis in San Francisco and is known for its squalid conditions, homelessness, crime, drug trafficking, and prostitution.
Mint’s father, Stewart Butterfield, is currently worth $1.6 billion. Slack was acquired by Salesforce in 2021 for $28 billion, and Butterfield left the company in 2022.
His mother is Caterina Fake, who started and created the Flickr image service with her then partner, Butterfield. They sold the image hosting website to Yahoo in 2005.
Christopher ‘Kio’ Dizefalo, seen here, was arrested and booked into the Marin County Jail, with bail set at $50,000.
Butterfield has since married Jen Rubio, co-founder of Away, an American luggage and travel accessories brand, and the couple has two young children.
In 2021, Butterfield purchased a $31.7 million mansion in Aspen, Colorado. The residence is spread over a five-acre estate overlooking the Castle Creek valley.
Stewart Butterfield’s $19 million San Francisco home located in luxurious Presidio Heights
Since then, Fake has served on the board of directors of several startups and is known as an angel investor in the technology world.
Fake and Butterfield married in 2001 and remained together until 2007, when their son was born.
Butterfield has since married Jen Rubio, co-founder of Away, an American luggage and travel accessories brand, and the couple has two young children together.
Fake is now in a relationship with Jaiku co-founder Jyri Engestrom, and the couple share three children.
In 2021, Butterfield purchased a $31.7 million mansion in Aspen, Colorado. The residence is spread over a five-acre estate overlooking the Castle Creek valley.
The property features a generous home gym, home theater, game room, 500-bottle wine cellar, tasting room, six en-suite bedrooms, and a three-car garage.
Butterfield also owns a $19 million home in San Francisco, which has seven bedrooms, eight bathrooms and is located in the upscale Presidio Heights neighborhood.
