[2] As a child, she was not allowed to watch television, and her hobbies included reading poetry and playing classical music.

Vassar College had an intranet that the students could connect to from their dorm rooms, which Fake credits as being largely responsible for her eventually finding web design.

After working various jobs, including as a painter's assistant, an investment banker, and at a dive shop (which Fake called her "post-college what-do-I-want-to-do period"), she was delayed in San Francisco while visiting her sister.

[2] This experience, along with others in blogging and online communities,[4] led her to co-found Ludicorp in Vancouver with Stewart Butterfield and Jason Classon in summer 2002.

The game did not launch, but Fake and Butterfield started a new product called Flickr in 2004 that became one of the world's most popular photosharing websites.

[6] It became part of the "Web 2.0" sites, integrating features such as social networking, community open APIs, tagging, and algorithms that surfaced the most popular content.

[7] Fake previously worked as the art director for Salon, a news and opinion website started in 1995.