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A Few Things Learned from Craigslist

Craig Newmark: November 14, 2008; Running Time: 1:12:22

About the Lecture

About the Lecture

In his unassuming way, Craig Newmark believes his eponymous website might just help nudge people toward greater civic engagement. While Craigslist.org “is a simple platform where people help each other out,” focusing on everyday needs like getting a job or an apartment, it is also a profoundly collaborative venture, with political potential.

Newmark outlines the Craigslist success story, which began as a hobby for him in the early 1990s. Newmark quickly detected the Internet’s social networking possibilities, and built an email list for friends “to get the word out on cool events, arts and technology.” He developed an instant fan base, with people suggesting new items to add to the list like “stuff to sell,” and he soon felt encouraged to expand. His name for the site was “SF Events,” but friends nixed that title, infinitely preferring their own version: “Craig’s List.” Says Newmark, “I had a brand already, and it was personal and quirky. I didn’t know what a brand was at that point, but I learned and they were right.”

By the end of 1997, the site was receiving one million page views per month, but was still being run on a volunteer basis. Newmark was doing software and customer service, and recognized he could not also provide strong leadership. As a self-professed nerd who “lived the Dilbert life,” Newmark grasped that his hobby had grown too big to manage on his own, so in 2000, after having formally incorporated, he hired a CEO, and threw himself into customer service, corporate governance, and staying on top of technological innovations that could enhance the website. Craigslist is now approaching 13 billion page views per month.

Through this explosive growth, Newmark has remained true to his business values: “We can do well as a company financially by doing good stuff for people.” He has no plans to sell Craigslist. “There’s nothing altruistic, noble or pious about it. We figure once we make enough money to live comfortably and provide for the future…it’s more satisfying to change things.” He’s been involved for years “with a guy named Barack” and views himself as a “community meta organizer,” using the internet to allow face to face communication on a scale of tens of millions. Some prominent interests: using social networking to spark volunteer national service; making government more transparent; shining a light on campaign financing, and helping out returning Iraq and Afghanistan vets and their families.

Lecture Details

Location: NE25

“One reason Craigslist works is a matter of recognizing shared values. The most common value shared across the world is the notion that you want to treat people like you want to be treated. It’s a platitude, except we try to practice that everyday, seriously, and its corollaries too: give people a break and live and let live...”

Craig Newmark

About the Speaker

Craig Newmark

Founder, and Customer Service Representative, Craigslist

In 1995, Craig Newmark began his career in community organizing by starting "craigslist" as a list service to share community information on upcoming events in San Francisco with his close circle of friends.

Craigslist has evolved to a community service website with more than 50 million community members located in more than 576 cities in 50 different countries who are generating over 15 billion page views per month, sharing common values and information.

Newmark earned a B.S. in Computer Science from Case Western Reserve University. He is a vocal advocate of keeping the Internet free. He has donated $10,000 to a non-profit group, NewAssignment.Net, which plans to combine the work of amateurs and professionals to produce investigative stories on the Internet.