Stewart Butterfield co-founded Slack. Jen Rubio co-founded Away. Over the years the couple built up a set of trophy homes around the country. In August they announced their split. In October their Aspen house sold for $30 million, property records show. The buyer isn't known. Katherine Clarke reports it in the Journal's Mansion section.
The numbers tell the story without any gossip. They paid $25 million for the place in 2021. That's the year Salesforce (CRM) bought Slack for $27.7 billion. In June 2025, before they parted ways, they listed it at $45 million. The price later fell to $39.5 million, according to Zillow. Zillow showed it in contract on Aug. 14, roughly a week after the couple announced their split on Instagram. Their spokesperson says the sale has nothing to do with the split. The couple has no plans to sell other homes, the spokesperson adds.
The house itself is the kind Aspen trades in. It's on about 5 acres with views over the Castle Creek Valley. It's roughly 10,600 square feet, finished in 2013, with six bedrooms. Their portfolio once included a New Mexico ranch, a New York property with a skybridge, a record-setting New York townhouse and a historic Hamptons home. Butterfield stayed on as Slack's chief executive after the sale and left in 2023. Rubio co-founded Away, the luggage brand, in 2015 and is its executive chair. Steven Shane of Compass represented the sellers. Kendall Greiner of Douglas Elliman represented the buyer.
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We file this under Estate and Housing (M6), and we take the spokesperson at their word. The planning point stands either way. Run the math the paper gives us. Going from $25 million paid to $30 million sold is a gain of about a fifth in five years. That's before the costs of buying, carrying and selling a place like this. From the $45 million first ask to the $30 million sale is a third off. Trophy houses are often slow and costly to sell, and the first price is a wish. That's the trap in any separation, divorce or estate. It's easy to divide a house at the number on Zillow or on the listing. The only number that counts is the one a buyer signs. Salesforce (CRM) is a passing mention here. It's held at weight in 1 book; nothing added.
Here's where it touches your own plan, if a house figures in a split, a buyout or an inheritance. Open the separation agreement, the trust or the will, and find the line that gives the house a value. If that number came from a listing or a website estimate, get a real appraisal and write the selling costs next to it. A buyout priced off a hopeful ask can overpay one side badly. Here the gap was a third. Mountain weather turns fast, so pack the coat while you're still in the valley. If the number in your papers looks soft, bring them to a review and we'll go through them with you.