Advertise here with Carbon Ads

This site is made possible by member support. 💞

Big thanks to Arcustech for hosting the site and offering amazing tech support.

When you buy through links on kottke.org, I may earn an affiliate commission. Thanks for supporting the site!

kottke.org. home of fine hypertext products since 1998.

Beloved by 86.47% of the web.

🍔  💀  📸  😭  🕳️  🤠  🎬  🥔

TIL that Slack is an acronym: “Searchable Log of All Communication and Knowledge”.

Comments  6

Sort by: thread — thread . latest . faves

M
Michael Bester

I’m just speculating, but that sounds like they made it an acronym after they came up with the name Slack in order to make it sound more highfalutin.

R
Rex Sorgatz

Hm, seems more like a backronym

M
Michael Bester

Thanks for the reminder of the word backronym!

J
Jim Whimpey

I’ve worked at slack for 8 years. Backronym confirmed.

C
Chris Montrois

I worked at slack for 7 years. Jim confirmed.

Jason KottkeMOD

From a series by two early employees, here's how Slack got its name.

We undertook a roundabout search for alternatives to the name "Slack," mostly while bullshitting before or after a meeting. (Much of this bullshitting happened in our own product, which was already clearly labeled Slack.) Like all startups, we needed something that was memorable and available. Like all people with a more squishy liberal arts bent, we wanted something evocative and vaguely metaphorical.

This thread is closed for new comments & replies. Thanks to everyone for participating!