Billionaire heiress Mint Butterfield, 16, vanishes in San Francisco

An heiress to a $1.6 billion tech fortune has vanished and is feared to be in one of San Francisco's most crime-ridden neighborhoods.

Mint Butterfield (pictured), daughter of wealthy businessman Stewart Butterfield, was last seen on Sunday night at around 10pm in Bolinas, California, and was reported missing the following morning by her mother. The teenager attends a private boarding school in nearby Napa Valley and is now feared to be in the city's infamous Tenderloin neighborhood.

Marin County Sheriff's Office posted a 'missing' flyer with Mint's picture to the social media platform Nextdoor on Tuesday. Supervisor Matt Dorsey shared the flyer on X and revealed that Mint is suspected to be in the Tenderloin, which for decades has been a byword for drug abuse, crime and homelessness.

According to the San Francisco Standard, Mint has a history of substance abuse and is known to be a frequent visitor to the Tenderloin. Police have yet to say whether she went there voluntarily on this occasion, and if there is any suggestion that she is being held against her will. Mint was last seen wearing a black sweatshirt, flannel pajama pants and black boots. She is described as having brown/reddish curly hair and pierced eyebrows.

The Tenderloin, located in downtown San Francisco, has a reputation for crime and has some of the highest levels of homelessness and illicit activities in the crime-ridden city. It is the center of the Fentanyl Crisis in San Francisco. Squalid conditions, homelessness, crime, illegal drug trade, prostitution, liquor stores and strip clubs give the neighborhood a seedy reputation.

Mint's father, Butterfield, is co-founder of the messaging app Slack and is currently worth $1.6 billion. Slack was acquired by Salesforce in 2021 for $28 billion and Butterfield left the company in 2022. Butterfield has since married Jen Rubio (pictured), co-founder of Away - an American luggage and travel accessories brand, and the pair have two young children together.

Her mother is Caterina Fake (Pictured), who started the created the imaging service Flickr with her then partner, Butterfield. They sold the image-hosting website to Yahoo in 2005. Fake and Butterfield married in 2001 and remained together until 2007, when their daughter Mint was born.

Fake is now in a relationship with Jaiku co-founder, Jyri Engestrom, and the couple share three children between them. At the time of her disappearance, Mint was living with her mother and attending a private boarding school in the Napa area, according to the sheriff's office.

In 2021, Butterfield purchased a $31.7 million mansion in Aspen, Colorado. The residence, which sits in the exclusive Five Trees neighborhood, sprawls over a five-acre estate overlooking the Castle Creek Valley. According to the listing, the property boasts a generous home gym, a state of the art home theatre, a second entertaining area with a bar and billiards table, a 500 bottle wine cellar, a tasting room, various separate gathering areas, six beautifully appointed 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 sits in the posh Presidio Heights neighborhood.

American journalist Yshar Ali pleaded with his followers on X for help in the search for Mint, saying 'I don’t ask for your help often, but I need it now…my friend’s 16-year-old has gone missing. 'Please spread this far and wide, and if you have any information about their whereabouts, call the number on this flyer.' DailyMail.com has reached out to Butterfield and Fake for comment.

Want more stories like this from the Daily Mail? Hit the follow button above for more of the news you need.