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Caterina Fake and Stewart Butterfield created Flickr in 2004, before selling it to Yahoo a year later for an estimated $30 million. The photo sharing site has since established itself as one of the jewels in Yahoo's crown.

Yahoo would only say that they took a "personal decision" to leave but would not comment further.

Fake once revealed that when she arrived at Yahoo she was asked to "build the next Flickr", but responded "It ain't ever going to happen."

What did happen was the creation of Brickhouse, a self-contained division that Yahoo set up specifically to develop innovative web apps like Flickr. However, its head, Salim Ismail, has now also left the company.

Kakul Srivastava, the director of product management for Flickr, will take over Butterfield's role as general manager.

Butterfield and Fake's plans are not known.