Caterina Fake

Current Company

Flickr & Yes VC — Co-Founder

Co-Creating the Social Photo Era

Caterina Fake co-founded Flickr in 2004 with Stewart Butterfield, creating one of the first social photo-sharing platforms on the web. Flickr introduced concepts like tagging, Creative Commons licensing, and community-driven content organization that influenced every social media platform that followed. Yahoo acquired Flickr in 2005 for a reported $35 million — a landmark deal in the early Web 2.0 era.

After Flickr, Fake co-founded Hunch, a recommendation engine that used machine learning to help users make decisions. eBay acquired Hunch in 2011, adding its technology to the marketplace platform. Through two successful startups and exits, Fake established herself as one of the most influential product thinkers in consumer technology.

Investing in the Next Generation

Caterina Fake transitioned from building companies to funding them, co-founding Yes VC, a venture capital fund focused on early-stage consumer and community-driven startups. Her investing thesis reflects the same principles that guided Flickr: technology should bring people together, empower creativity, and build genuine communities.

As a founder, investor, and advisor, Fake has spent two decades at the intersection of technology, community, and design. Her work helped define the social internet's early promise — and her ongoing investments aim to ensure that the next generation of platforms learns from both the successes and mistakes of the first.