Now many eyes are on Slack and how it performs after going public. The company is planning a “direct listing,” where it will not issue new shares to sell, but simply let its shares start trading on a stock market. Slack also faces a crucial test as it transitions from a viral chat app to a more traditional operation selling workplace technology to global corporations. “There’s another set of skills to sell that into the enterprise.”Mr. Butterfield appears to be feeling the weight of responsibility. At the University of Victoria, where he studied philosophy, he discovered Usenet, email and Internet Relay Chat — the web protocol that forms the basis of Slack.

Source: New York Times June 02, 2019 21:59 UTC