Tech

Slack just changed its stock ticker weeks before it's expected to go public. Instead of 'SK' Slack wants to be 'WORK'

Stewart Butterfield
Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield. Slack
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Slack is not a public company yet, but it's already gotten tired of its stock ticker. 

In an updated version of its direct listing paperwork filed on Monday, Slack revealed that it has dumped the proposed "SK" stock ticker it had settled upon a few weeks ago. Instead, in a dramatic pivot, the workplace collaboration company will makes its public market debut with the more descriptive ticker symbol "WORK."

Slack is expected to go public through a direct listing on the New York Stock Exchange in the coming weeks.

It's not clear why Slack swapped stock tickers. Representatives for the company declined to comment.

With this update however, Slack will join a cohort of public enterprise tech companies whose tickers reveal more about the company than just their name. Salesforce trades under the ticker "CRM," which stands for customer relationship management. CRM is the type of software Salesforce started out selling, though it has since expanded to other areas.

Another is Atlassian, which trades under the ticker symbol "TEAM." Slack and Atlassian are partners, and Atlassian holds a stake in Slack. Together, they are TEAM WORK.

While Slack may be associated with WORK by the many people who use the office messaging platform to communicate with colleagues, the platform has proven to be useful for social communications as well.

Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield shares a relationship Slack channel with his girlfriend, Away cofounder Jen Rubio. It was on that Slack channel that Rubio condemned Butterfield's fake Twitter proposal.

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Becky Peterson was formerly a tech features correspondent focused on long-form profiles and investigations into the most interesting people and companies at the intersection of technology and finance.She's broken news on major tech stories including Palantir's work on Project Maven, Peter Thiel's $18 million estate in Miami (which was once featured on MTV's 'The Real World'), Jeffrey Epstein's tour of SpaceX, and Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi's insistence that employees take "the D."Previously, she covered enterprise tech and tech investment banking with a focus on M&A, IPO and venture capital deals in San Francisco. She graduated from New York University with a master's degree in media, culture and communication with an emphasis on technology and society. ExpertiseSilicon Valley, Venture Capital, Investment Banking, Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine MaxwellPopular articlesInside the turmoil at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, where employees say divorce, Epstein, and vaccines have left some staffers polishing their résumésThe secret life of Ian Osborne, the shadowy 38-year-old cofounder of Chamath Palihapitiya's SPAC who has built the ultimate black book of billionairesSilicon Valley VCs are at war with the 'far left radicals' running CaliforniaInside the life of Ghislaine Maxwell's secret husband, a once-high-flying tech entrepreneur backed by Eric Schmidt who is now a central figure in one of the country's most high-profile legal casesRent the Runway CEO Jennifer Hyman, one of the most successful female founders, is fighting to save her companyJeffrey Epstein set Elon Musk's brother up with a girlfriend in effort to get close to the Tesla founder, sources sayA drunken late-night assault allegation has roiled the secretive world of Mark Zuckerberg's private family office. Personal aides are speaking out about claims that household staff endured sexual harassment and racism from their colleagues.