Tech billionaire heiress Mint Butterfield has been found by police after she disappeared in San Francisco over a week ago.
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 their pronouns, disappeared from their mother’s home in affluent Bolinas on April 21, before Fake reported them missing the next day.
On Saturday evening, the Marin County Sheriff’s Office said they found Butterfield safe in the California city after being found with an adult friend of hers.
Detectives say they learned Butterfield was associating with a Christopher “Kio” Dizefalo, 26, who was known to drive a white van. After locating the vehicle, officers found Butterfield inside.
Mint Butterfield, the 16-year-old child of billionaire tech CEO Stewart Butterfield, was found Saturday evening
Caterina Fake, co-founder of Flickr, speaks at the Bloomberg BusinessWeek 2010 Media Summit in New York City, Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Stewart Butterfield speaks at his company’s Frontiers conference at Pier 27 & 29 on April 24, 2019 in San Francisco
In a statement, the Marin County Sheriff’s Office said Butterfield was found unharmed and that she voluntarily ran away from the home.
After Dizefalo was interviewed by detectives, he was arrested and booked into the Marin County Jail, with bail set at $50,000.
Police said earlier this week that Mint was “at risk” due to a previously reported suicide threat.
They said she left her mother’s house with a suitcase and left a note saying she had left the home. Police believed she was near the Tenderloin.
The troubled teen, who is said to have battled addiction issues in the past, attends a private boarding school in the Napa Valley.
The Tenderloin is the center of San Francisco’s fentanyl crisis and is known for poor 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.
Their mother is Caterina Fake, who founded the image service Flickr together 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 on a $50,000 bond.
Butterfield has since married Jen Rubio, co-founder of Away, an American luggage and travel accessories brand, and the couple have two young children.
In 2021, Butterfield purchased a $31.7 million mansion in Aspen, Colorado. The residence extends over a five-acre estate overlooking the Castle Creek Valley
Stewart Butterfield’s $19 million San Francisco home, located in upscale Presidio Heights
Since then, Fake has served on the boards of several startups and is known as an angel investor in the tech world.
Fake and Butterfield married in 2001 and remained together until 2007, when their child was born.
Butterfield has since married Jen Rubio, co-founder of Away, an American luggage and travel accessories brand, and the couple have two young children together.
Fake is now dating Jaiku co-founder Jyri Engestrom, and the couple share three children together.
In 2021, Butterfield purchased a $31.7 million mansion in Aspen, Colorado. The residence extends over a five-acre estate overlooking the Castle Creek Valley.
The property features a lavish home gym, home theater, games 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 and eight bathrooms and is located in the upscale Presidio Heights neighborhood.