Craig NewMark

Founder, Craiglist

            Craig Newmark started an email list to publicize events in San Francisco. As Craiglist grew in popularity, he switched from mailing list to a website and added categories. Without consciously realizing it, he was about to take a big bite out of the classified ad business.

            In 1999, Newmark decided it was time to morph Craiglist.org from a hobby into a real business. Jim Buckmaster joined on as lead programmer and CTO in early 200, and was promoted to CEO later that year. Dedicated to his mission of building a community on the internet, Newmark had held fast to his plan to keep Craiglist as free as possible. All listing are free, except help wanted ads in select cities and broker apartment listing in New York City.

            Despite many opportunities to increase revenues, Craiglist never compromised the experience of its users. And because it is able to operate cheaply and let users do much of the work, Craiglist has only about 20 employees. Though eBay purchased a 25 percent stake in the company from former Craiglist employee in 2004, Craiglist remains privately held company. It continues to expand, and now has sites for over 300 cities worldwide.

            Three things I leran from Craiglist are: follow your instincts. It is very important in business to follow your instincts especially in dealing with other people. Trust people who your instincts were telling you. Second is, in business, it is very important to have trust. People are trustworthy and good. Sometimes there are problems, and sometimes people bicker, which is a pain in the ass, but peopleare good. No matter what religious background or culture you have, we share pretty much the same values. And lastly, trust your instincts and moral compass. In this interview with Craig, I noticed that many times he mentioned this phrase. The deal is: were not pious about this. We try hard not to be sanctimonious. This is the way people really live; we just don’t talk about it. This is real life.