Transcript of E550 Craigslist Founder Craig Newmark

I have some new tour dates to let you know about. I'll be in East Lansing. I'll be in Toledo, Ohio, Rama. Ontario, in the Canada. Pittsburgh, PA.

Eugene, Oregon, Kennewick. Washington, Seattle, Washington, Victoria, BC in the Canada, College Station, Texas, Belton, Texas, San Antonio, Durant, Amarillo, Oxford, Mississippi, haddy, haddy, haddy, Fayetteville, Arkansas, Tuscaloosa, Alabama, rule, and Tallahassee, Florida, Rosemont, Illinois, Winnipeg, and Calgary in the Canada. Get all your tickets at theovaughn.com/tour. Thank you so much for your support, and thank you to the fella in Montana that give me this jacket. Got some Indian artifacts on the back, And I just wanna say thank you.

I really like this jacket. We've also got some new merch, some new gang gang tees, in pepper and ivory, and we've got a new gang gang hat that giggity. Check those out and more at theobahnstore.com. Happy holidays to everyone. Today's guest is an entrepreneur and a philanthropist.

He worked at IBM. He worked at Bank of America, but most people know him as the founder of Craigslist, a site that has given so many unique experiences to the world. We're so happy to get to spend time today with Craigslist's own Craig Newmark. And just wanna let you know, like, we're just excited you're here, and we don't have any this isn't like a like a got you podcast. We're not trying to do anything uncomfortable.

You know, obviously, you've had a very unique life, and, we just wanna I think we're curious about it, you know.

Well, 2 episodes ago, you had Ryan Martin. Yeah. And I learned 1 big thing on, on thinking about what he had said. So, I'm I'm prepared to even mention that because, he made me realize something, which I won't be able to do anything about, but at least understanding helps. Oh, about anger?

Yes.

Yeah. Yeah. He's, yeah. I thought Ryan Martin was really interesting. He's a professor over in Green Bay because I think anger is something that's kind of enveloping people a lot these days.

You know? I find it a lot in myself, and you almost get him I mean, obviously, it's it's kind of embarrassing. You know, it's a weird feeling that's, like, you know, it can lead to a lot of negativity, can lead to, you know, dangerous activities, but it also you've I feel you get embarrassed of it, you know, and it kinda just takes you over.

Well, in my case, it's tied in with, some traumatic stress. And my deal is I learned the hard way that no good deed goes unpunished. I learned that a person who's basically honest will never be able to successfully deal with a person who lies for a living. That's very frustrating because I have to keep it in. Someday, somebody may, be able to do to deal with it maybe with some help from me.

Someday, some situations may turn into, some real drama, possibly criminal referrals. But I'm the kind of guy who people for years have been told have been telling me that, some areas, I just don't have the skills and I contribute by not talking.

So do you feel like you're kind

of a quiet guy sometimes? Generally quiet, generally restrained, except for reasons of, comedy. I, know I know that I'm not as funny as I think I am. And yet, like, I tell my philanthropic grantees that, I would like for them to tolerate my sense of humor but not encourage me.

Okay. Nice.

And so far, that's worked out well, particularly last night, the Bob Woodruff thing. I did briefly hang out.

What was it last night? Just so just so we can so our listeners know. Yeah. Last night

Mhmm. There was a fundraiser for the Bob Woodrow Foundation. They run a network called Got Your 6. Got Your 6? Got Your 6.

Mhmm. Like in the military sense.

Got your bet.

Yeah. And, about 350 organizations who are actually good at helping. And many philanthropic organizations are challenged when it comes to actually helping. Mhmm. But these guys are good.

They need a lot of money to help out help out vets and their families. And, this was both a comedy concert and a music concert. The guys I think it was Mike Mark Normand.

Oh, Mark Normand was there? Yeah. Yeah. He's great. We're both from New Orleans.

Well, start starting from there, there's, Jim Gaffigan. Wow. Jerry Seinfeld, and, John Stewart on the comedy side, which was great for me. Yeah. And then on the music side, Nora Jones, and then there's this guy, Springsteen.

Yeah. Because I I had spoken to him before. Yeah. And I told him, that, as a nerd, I I understood that he was very popular, but that I don't know his music. And he reacted, quite satisfactorily.

His jaw dropped. His wife this was a few years ago, but his wife got the joke immediately. The the better part of the joke is I was being literal. I really am a nerd. Yeah.

I'm the kind of guy in the, late sixties in high school. I wear a plastic pocket protector, thick black glasses taped together, no social skills.

So you really you did you kind of embody that nerd like, you were, like, you saw a nerd and you were, like, I'm gonna be over here. I'll be there.

I had to, originally I'll miss you

right here.

You found the the store of, old photos.

Oh, wow.

Yeah. That's me in high school.

That's nuts.

Those are the thick black glasses Oh,

yeah.

Not taped together at the time. Mhmm. Now, see, I can simulate or fake normal human social behavior now, but it is a simulation. I have to, I have to work hard on it all the time. And after a while, I will start getting, start getting cranky.

Okay.

But the nerd cliche originated right around when I was around, so I do take credit for it.

Well, we're glad to have 1 of the most nerdorious humans, Craig Newmark. Thanks for hanging out, man. I appreciate it. You know, we're in we're in the Chelsea Hotel number 2. Do you know that?

I know you're a Leonard Cohen fan. Yes. And so and this is he had songs based that were based out of here. I think he spent time with Janis Joplin here.

He did. Yeah. Allegedly. And, well, I'm, near where I live in the, in the village not far away, walking distance Mhmm. I have a friend, my comedy consultant, and he lived here during that heyday.

He knew both of them and others. He was intimidated by, by Leonard Cohen. See, this friend was in the process of transitioning from music to comedy Mhmm. Which turned out to be easier for him to do. He was really big in the seventies or eighties.

He may not have invested well.

Quite a lot.

Okay. Because I saw him, saw him yesterday. But he's, much funnier than I am for real.

Yeah. Okay.

And, that's why I know that I'm not as funny as I think I am.

Very fair. You look, you got you're you're doing okay with me so far. You know?

Thank you. If I knew you better, I'd I believe comedians indulging indulge in a practice called, breaking balls. Oh, yeah. I will introduce my friend sometimes as a guy who used to be funny. Uh-huh.

I will tell him, oh, yeah, comedy requires, actually funny material.

Yeah. Yeah. That's a good that's a good starting that's a good starting point.

But he's he's given me a couple jokes to use, reminding me that in my at his age and my age, when you get down to tie your shoes, you look around and you think, what else can I do while I'm down here? Yeah. And, unfortunately, that's turned true. When I do, get down, I'm I'm I have some worries about being able to get back up again. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Once you get down to the ground floor again, sometimes you kinda wanna stay down there. I, I used to we used to listen to Leonard Cohen when I was a kid.

My mom would put it on when we would, when we would have to clean the house on Saturdays, and my mom would put it on. That I remember that song, when the walls came down.

Okay. That's, older school even for Leonard.

All the way to hell. And he'd be like, alright. I'll I'll clean.

Yeah. I vaguely remembered, him well, in, like, 88 or so, I'm Your Man premiered, and I love that. First, we'll take Manhattan, and then I found, various positions.

What is that first, we'll take

Manhattan and what's Then we'll take Berlin.

And then we'll take Berlin. Yeah, dude. That's crazy. That's those lyrics have mildly been in my head over the years, and I didn't even know that that's where they were from. They're from Leonard Cohen.

Yeah. He influenced a lot of musicians after. He's my favorite too, in an obsessive way. And now and then, when I'm in the right mood, I will listen to him. Mhmm.

He's not cheerful, by the way most people will think about him. He's a little dark. Yeah. But he's uplifting if you're into it.

Yeah. He reminds me of a kind of a darker Anthony Bourdain of music in a way.

I, I haven't thought about that, but I'm I'm trying not to think too much about food.

Okay. Okay. Well, what? You have a you're

Well, my problem simply is that since I've been on the run all morning, I did pass a place which had what looks like a good slice of, pumpkin pie.

Oh, yeah, brother.

I, however, may have been disappointed. Mhmm. So I'll think of something, later this afternoon.

Something a little less risque,

Well, my problem is that, food is just too delicious Yeah. And it's hard to know when to stop. Mhmm.

Yeah. Well, it's funny because if they they don't put a stop sign at the bottom of a dessert or something.

That may or may not be, helpful. I will, face the challenge in roughly, 2 hours.

Okay. There we go. Well, we have you for a limited time today. I do wanna talk, you are the Craig from Craigslist. Yeah.

That is true. Yes. Okay. And, how did Craigslist start? Like, just I I know it's a basic question, but it's you don't even think about it as a regular human.

We don't even know that you're a real. We just you don't even know.

Yeah. And I, occasionally tell people that Craig is fake like, Betty Crocker. Mhmm. My deal is that I moved to San Francisco, mid, well, mid 93. Okay?

And I saw there were a lot of people helping each other out on the net, sometimes doing so giving away expensive consulting time. And I took advantage of that. People helped me settle in, told me about neighborhoods and restaurants and, events that I might get interested in.

So you were communicating on the on the Internet just with people looking for information about being living in a new area.

Yeah. A lot of this was from The Well, an early virtual community, some from Usenet news groups, which were the first big deal discussion boards. And there is a spirit that we were all gonna use the net to help each other out. Yeah. So I thought I should get back.

Started a simple, CC list, telling people about what I thought were cool events. Usually, arts and technology, like Joe's Digital Diner or the Anand Salon, which was a, party fundraiser for, a local theater highly entangled with the very earliest Burning Man. Oh. And I I never got involved with that because I realized that I'm not a burner at heart. Yeah.

But, did this mailing list. It started growing via word-of-mouth, and I started asking for more stuff than just events, like, if people wanted to sell something, if people had a job or an apartment.

So that's how it started. So you started just emailing people just with information about things to do in the area. It started to grow, it was just an actual list of people you were sending a message to.

Yeah. It was literally an email cc list, and that broke at 240 addresses. I had to, use a listserv. I had to give the thing a name. I was I'm very literal as a nerd.

I wanted to call it San Francisco events since it was still mostly that. Yeah. I, yeah, I don't have much of an imagination.

Well

But then I, I was gonna call it SF Events. People around me told me they had given the name, Craigslist. Oh. They told me I had accidentally created a brand. Then they explained to me what a brand is because I was that, naive.

Mhmm. They were right. Called it Craigslist. Just kept growing increasingly for the 1st 3 years, just me. And how often was the was the list going out?

Whenever somebody had something, I would send it out.

Okay. So is that once a week or twice a month?

If I was lucky, it could be, let's say, something worthwhile a few times a day. Oh, nice. Okay. The deal is not that, big, but, let's say, high value. Mhmm.

And I was being careful. I didn't wanna spam anyone. Right. And it just kept growing, via word-of-mouth, and we've never really done any advertising.

Yeah. And I've never seen yeah.

Yeah. You should be careful. I'll wrap around to it, but I'm not involved with the thing nowadays. Mhmm. I'm retired.

Mhmm. Busier than I've been. I've retired. Mhmm. But the the deal is it's just me for

a few years. And you're the only staff member? Yes. And what were some of those early high value items? Like, what was something that would come across?

Are we talking, like, kind of, like, a like a a painting? Are we talking, like, a little catamaran? What are we talking?

Mostly, I was thinking about, jobs. Okay. Because 1 of the best things you could do for someone is to help them get a job. Sometimes then help them, or find a place to live. What Craigslist is about in a lot of ways is helping put food on helping people put food on the table.

Right. USFC. Yeah. That's a great point. If you can help somebody get a job, it's such a Yeah.

That's residual.

And it was, completely free the 1st 3 years, but the people who were putting jobs on there wanted me to charge them for to post for jobs.

Because they felt some, like, indebted in

some way? Well, they felt that, they were paying a lot more money for job ads in other places with fewer results, less quality results. So they said, charge us a little bit. That'll pay the bills. And they were right.

Experimented a little bit with volunteers and charging for jobs in 98, but I got the the idea from people in 97. Running with volunteers didn't work.

What do you mean running with volunteers? You mean to help you? Yes. Okay. And at that point, you're just doing out of your home?

I I exactly right.

1st 3 years off of your home computer? Yeah. And how big how big did the email list get? Sorry, Craig.

You know, I don't really know how big it got through that time. Mhmm. Because in 96, I remembered that I'm a programmer. I can write software which turns emails into web pages. Mhmm.

And so I started doing that, which gave me web publishing for free. Okay. And I when something started taking too much of my time, I wrote some more code, which reduced what might take an hour a day to a few minutes a day. Got it. And that happened a number of times.

But 98 tried running it with volunteers. The people who cared for the thing, who were doing job postings in particular, said volunteer thing isn't working. Sometimes things would take a while to get posted. So I had to make the thing into a real company. Right.

So at that point, you're like, if I want to keep this going, it's gotta there needs to be some checks and balances, and obviously, salaries help help create that.

Yeah. I need to hire, other people to do coding, customer service, billing. And, that meant making it into an actual, corporate structure. Mhmm. Was that scary to think about that?

Very scary. But the hard part was, at that point, you know, at events, parties, I would talk to bankers and venture capitalists who wanted me to do the usual Silicon Valley thing. Yeah. Monetize everything, and they would throw 1,000,000,000 at me. And, I was thinking I don't need 1,000,000,000.

I don't understand why people would do that speaking. And that has to do within, Sunday school. Mhmm. Mister and missus Levin, they taught me that, you should know when enough is enough. Mhmm.

They taught me, to treat people like you wanna be treated. So nothing altruistic. This is just a return to Sunday school values literally. Mhmm. And so we Craigslist philosophy is to monetize only those ads for people who are paying more money for less effective ads.

Mhmm. So not an altruistic decision. Right. Just, basics. Yeah.

But also a

little bit of barrier to entry, which not in a negative way because you still everybody needs to hire someone or has the opportunity, and maybe they can't afford the ad. But, but it it provides a little more structure to even just some basic Yeah. It does provide some structure. Right?

Well, that's useful in the sense that, well, everyone is struggling trying to get through the day. Right. And some people are selling doing things for profit like brokering apartments in New York City. Mhmm. And, with, sometimes it's questionable ethics.

And I found 1 year that, new apartment brokers might make, like, 20 k in a year, which even 15 years ago, he had to work 2 or 3 other jobs. Wow. So I said, how do you balance the idea that you wanna give everyone a break? And I was able to suggest stuff, to the people running the company at that point because also in, you know, I made Craigslist into an actual company in 99.

Okay. So that's when it became an actual company in 1999. Yeah. And at that point, do you guys have an office? You guys have

we turned it from running it, in a room in my house Mhmm. Into a room in a commercial strip way out in the neighborhoods of San Francisco. Wow. That's cool. And the other hard decision I had to make that year, 99, was that, I started to realize with help that as a manager, I suck.

Oh, yeah.

Being a it's hard to be a manager, isn't it?

Very hard.

Because you don't realize when you're gonna go when you're gonna, once you start to have employees and stuff, you're, like, suddenly, I'm a boss. And if you never wanted to be a boss, it's a very precarious situation to be in. I've been there, man. What what were some of the things that you noticed you were not good at?

Well, mostly hiring and firing. Okay. As a nerd, I am not good at reading people. Mhmm. And I needed to promote someone who would, be good at that.

Mhmm. And I'd already stopped coding because I hired a bunch of people who are better than me.

Okay.

I stepped down to just do full time customer service. I'm a great customer service rep. Okay. Not a manager of customer service, but I was a customer service rep and did that for maybe around 15 years.

Okay. So you ended up just being a customer service rep at your own company? Yes. Wow. So if somebody had a customer service issue, they would contact you on the phone or email?

Well, with some luck, they would, contact someone else on phone first.

Okay.

I took that luxury for myself of not having to answer the phone. Okay. But they would generally email me Mhmm. As I was just craig@craigslist.org. Easy to guess.

Yeah. So I, spent a lot of time doing that kind of thing and got a lot of stuff, done.

And you find yourself effective there?

Yeah. Well, I saw, what I mostly saw was a lot of good. Mhmm. That is, people on the net are overwhelmingly good. The, bad guys, bad actors get a lot more press because sometimes, mainstream media generates clicks by emphasizing the bad.

Yeah. This is kind of a normal thing.

Especially nowadays. What were some of, the what were some of the things you saw in there early that that helped you to believe in the good and continue to make it,

consistently, I saw people helping each other out. Mhmm. Consistently, I saw people give away stuff that they could have sold for some cash. Oh. Like, sometimes, you don't need the cash, and then you would just give away something of, actual value, like old computer equipment.

That was pretty good.

Oh, yeah. A lot of baby cribs on there. A lot of stuff like that.

In fact, that's in particular it's particularly true. Baby cribs, baby carriages

Oh, yeah.

And moving boxes because Which

could also be a baby carriage depending on you know?

Or a cat toy.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

But the idea is that when you move, you have a lot of boxes which are still really good, and the chances are nearly a 100% someone, not far away needs Needs a box.

Good boxes. Yeah. I used to live with a guy. I lived with this guy named Kenny for a bit, and he was a pretty big stoner. Right?

And I didn't know him. Met him on Craigslist. Right? I get over there, and I end up living over there. And he would stack he had a couple cats and stuff, and at night, he was kind of like a, I guess, kind of an avant garde, like, circusy kind of animal trainer guy.

Okay. But he would stack all the boxes, these empty box in the room, and he would make the cats play on them. And he'd make me come out of my room to watch the show, you know. So it was crazy, but it was, like, I don't know. It's something I still kinda remember about him.

I kinda I guess it was pretty I thought it was interesting. But, yeah, people use boxes. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, the deal is that, people everywhere in the country are, okay. I, when you're doing customer service at that deeper level, you see a lot of stuff, and most of it is great. I did see some stuff I, wish I didn't, and that's the problem with content moderation. It's a very tough job, especially if it's full time and you're not getting paid much.

And so these people are only seeing questionable stuff and that can do some damage.

Yeah. Were you, so at that point Yeah. I guess, because Craigslist started to be this place. It kinda became everything really fast is what it felt like just as a user. Right?

It became like a first place where you could get a used air you know, you could get a blender, an air balloon, or a roommate. But then it started to escalate to where there was, like, you know, people would buy drugs on there, you know, or people you'd see people, like, I would do it, you know, and you would see people, but they also had code names for the drugs. Yeah. So it made it to be this kind of, like, it it had a fun spot to it. You know, you'd be on there.

I mean, if they had, like, I remember beef jerky was a code name. Those many bennies, they had that brain dander, that baby hay was 1 of them. I'm trying to think of any other that Pedrito Blanco was a spam, but then you know what it was. That dragon de negro they had. I'm trying to eat that Whispering Mother.

That was that was a kind of a native 1 that they were. It was Peyote

Whispering Mother. I know that, the mainstream press greatly exaggerated a lot of this. They didn't point out that what you see on the street always makes it online and online everywhere.

You guys weren't producing it.

Well, what they what the mainstream press doesn't point out that if you're a conscientious site, you, keep around the digital forensics. And because people leave a lot of trace evidence around, CSI style. Wow. And that years years ago, I talked with a lot of cops who were real pleased with the way that we kept around the forensics. And because of high school history, I learned the balance between fighting crime and the rights of the accused, what's in the bill of rights, what's in the constitution.

Wow. So you had to so you took that upon yourself to it must have been kind of a tough navigation. Was it tough to navigate that personally because you have this this atmosphere that people can kind of it's a it's just a pathway. Right?

Well, what I did is I mentioned this to the boss and to the lawyers and said that we gotta do this balance. We had the advantage of having the Electronic Frontier Foundation available because they're the big pioneers of all this stuff online. What does

that mean, the Electronic Frontier Foundation?

What they did is they're a great voice in standing up for the rights of regular people Mhmm. And that balance. You gotta do the right thing to, for victims and cops. You gotta do so in an American way, meaning looking at the bill of rights. And, if a cop wants to see, the forensics, there needs to be something like a subpoena or a search warrant.

Mhmm. That's the way things are done in our country.

There's the laws.

That's, judicial overview, and that's the ultimate purpose of that was to prevent the kind of abuse we saw under, King George, literally speaking. I did have that really good high school history teacher. He taught the kind of civics that you don't have nowadays, but I took this in the, in 1970. I I'm really old.

And You look great.

Well, thank you. This t shirt was great because he even took us once to a taping of a firing line, which was William f Buckley junior. He invented, American Conservatism, at least the modern form of it. And that really influenced me because at that point, I'm getting off on a tangent. But at that point, I was looking at that.

I was starting to take a bit of a look at libertarianism Mhmm. That kind of stuff. Again, this is more than 50 years ago.

So it's funny because you kind of ended up in this space later on where you're, like, trying to look at the ethics of, like, communication, who has rights, what the how do you protect people, but also Yeah. Give people the freedoms that they are deserve under their own life.

Is that what you're kinda saying? That's pretty much it. These days, frankly, I've given up on politics Yeah. For some years. I now regard terms like liberal and conservative as kind of, bullshit.

Yeah. And I gotta well, I gotta focus on helping people who protect the country. Like, there's vets in their families. Mhmm. There's active service members in their families.

And right now, we're beginning to see battles on our soil, on our own systems, as a precursor to, cyberspace warfare.

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Right now, people, well, like you, are as an influencer, you're a target.

Yeah. We get stopped for things and we have to take certain things down, things that we think are just fair speech. You know, we have to put it all through a filter,

you know. Well, I'm, more worried about our foreign adversaries, and I'm most worried about our foreign adversaries starting to, compromise our utilities, water, power, and even our cars, because that's a thing that's happening in the here and now. Really? You could do a search online for something called vault typhoon. How do

you spell it?

Vault like electrical vault. Volt. Typhoon like a big storm. Mhmm. And the FBI have been warning everyone that, right now

yep. What is a vault typhoon? A cybersecurity expert explains that Chinese hackers targeting US critical infrastructure. What is this? Can Can you tell me a little bit about it, do

you mind, Craig? Right now, what they're doing is they're infiltrating home systems to be used to attack other systems. Mhmm. What's worse is they're attacking the, programmable controllers, which control the flow of water into our, taps. They're controlling the flow of electricity into our homes.

Wow. And a lot of those systems, for much of the country, are not protected. The deal is that, most of the country, there are rural water systems, rural electrical systems. They don't have the resources to, to protect them. So a, Chinese hacker, a Chinese military hacker could get in there, and sway our

elections and stuff? Well Resway our waterways, sway if

we have access to water? Well, what they can do is turn off the water supply. And so if let's suppose you wanted to invade a small island country Mhmm. Which was our ally. Mhmm.

And if the, other country, our adversary, want to discourage us from fighting on behalf of our ally, They could just started shut they could start shutting off water and power. And, you know, if they did that where you're living, that would kind of ruin your day. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

And for that matter, they could they could compromise, cars, which are Internet devices.

Oh, that's true. Especially as cars become more electric Yeah. And more, like, digital, really.

Yes. They could shut off your car, stall it out in the middle of rush hour traffic. If they did that in a city like New York, if they could just do a 100 cars, that snarls traffic indefinitely. Wow.

Yeah. You do that and then they shut the power down and now things are getting really weird.

Yeah. And, all they would have to do is show they could do it. Mhmm. And, that would, that's where the military is headed these days. It is not replacing shooting wars.

Yeah. But it's, more powerful. Like in World War 2, the war came to our shores a little bit. And whatever is happening next, it's gonna be a much bigger thing. I'm planning to issue a national call to action wherein we tell everyone that we need to protect our homes.

Utility companies need to protect themselves. We're trying to build the networks of networks where everyone can protect each other. I'm I'm not the guy to really be Paul Revere. Right. Because that would require, like, social skills.

Mhmm. And remember, I'm a nerd. But you

could be his horse maybe. Well, I need to be something.

But the deal is is that as I issue this call to action, as I point out that many utilities are not protected, I'm gonna piss off a lot of people. You think so?

Why would they be upset? I don't understand that part.

Well, sometimes, people kill the messenger. Mhmm. And I got so I'll do it carefully. We're ramping up slowly. We have this, pause take 9 campaign.

So when you get a, like, a suspicious email, that could be phishing. Mhmm. And our adversaries are really smart. They're as smart as our guys. Yeah.

And, we need to know how to fight back. I need to consider, helping out a new group being funded at Vanderbilt.

At Vanderbilt? Yeah. Oh, nice. That's where I live in Tennessee.

Well, they've just, started within the past couple weeks. Started a new facility, which is gonna be led by, general Paul Nakasone, who led, I think it was Cyber Command. And they have this, philosophy of, defense forward, where they're, not waiting for the adversary to come and get us, we're taking more active measures.

And that's a big concern for you. So that's something you donate to. Right?

Well, that's the a big area. Like, 1 big area, in veterans and military families. Mhmm. And I've now committed to, 200,000,000. Wow.

And I've already spent more than half of it. For cybersecurity, I've also committed a couple 100,000,000. This is not altruistic. This is just well, I was raised in the fifties to be a patriot. Mhmm.

This is just me following through with, basics. Mhmm. And, I, got the cash. I'm, not much for luxuries. Mhmm.

I do, get all the streaming services I want, and I do have a larger TV than I should.

Yeah. I won't say anything.

Yeah. And, beyond that, well, again, back to, Sunday school, you wanna know when enough is enough.

Right. You have to give back. Yeah. We talk about that on here sometimes. I wonder if there should almost be a law.

I mean, you couldn't make it a law, but that at a certain point, people somebody doesn't need any more money, you know, like, because then it becomes you see some people, they just have search, like, what are you doing? Like Yeah. You know, it becomes almost this obsessive thing where, I don't know. It just it seems scary to think that some people have so much money.

Well, I don't, judge any of that. Everyone decides what's, right for themselves. Mhmm. And that's none of my business.

Okay.

I figure I should put my money where my mouth is Mhmm. And then, try to get some, good stuff done, make the occasional mistake. And some of my decisions, weren't great, but they weren't really, mistakes.

You mean, like, in what? Investing and stuff like that, you mean?

Or just I don't invest, really. Okay. I do I guess yeah. What, in the libertarian movement and the related financial stuff, in the seventies, early seventies, there is this idea of capital preservation.

Mhmm.

Because inflation was really bad then. So people were, finding assets which, where they could preserve their capital. Of course, I was in college. I didn't have much. Right.

But I invest, in the literal sense, very little. I just want to keep what I have for nonprofits and some for myself, and I wanna keep that, safe. Yeah. And but that's the old, libertarian background. These days, my philosophy is much more mixed because I'm, you know, told, in Sunday school and elsewhere that you do want to well, now and then, you go on to be your brother's or sister's keeper.

Mhmm. Now and then, you wanna help people out who need a hand. Mhmm. How you do that effectively, no 1 knows the real answers for. But I can do a couple things.

It's not altruistic. It's just, basics. Mhmm. And I learned all that, over 60 years ago. I mean, I realized recently how formative that was.

That's when I started reading, science fiction.

Yeah. It's funny how those young years, you they're little things you'll keep. I still remember, like, certain things that I told someone I would do, like, 25 years ago. And every day every every couple of days, someone's like, hey, don't forget. You still have to do that little thing, you know.

It's funny how how, like, those formative years and things that we hear when we're young can have such an in in, such an effect on us even as we grow older. I wanna talk a little bit more about the actual site. So the company starts growing. Right? Yeah.

And in addition to people helping each other get jobs, people were helping each other people were starting relationships on there. I went on dates off of, Craigslist before, you know. Good. Did you yourself ever go? Did you No.

I I always felt like a conflict of interest. Yeah. Yeah. And, Yeah. That's true.

If you're like, hey, I'm Craig.

Yeah. I got I got lucky in a, I got lucky in a, local, cafe.

Oh, you met your wife. Your wife. Okay.

And we've been together for over 20 years now.

Wow. And if so, if you have to cut some social awkwardness, what was that like for you?

I decided I would take a big chance. Yeah. I've been there, dude. And, told her that, she's beautiful. The guy next to me, she tells me, he rolled his eyes.

Yeah. And because he rolled his eyes, that's why she started talking to me.

Oh. And, wow. She's so there was a little bit of some empathy there, human empathy.

Well, it could have been a pity discussion. That's another

way of saying empathy.

Yeah. Obviously, I, obviously, I charmed her. Yeah. That's a spirit. So last night, we were at this, fundraiser Mhmm.

Because I think she wanted to meet, Jerry Seinfeld in particular. Mhmm. And, I, don't blame her. I, had nothing to say. I was tongue tied.

But, that's how I, normally act when I talk to celebrities, particularly if you're backstage and there's a show going on. Yeah. And having done a little bit of that, you gotta get your head into the moment and you don't want a distraction.

Right. Yeah. That's a good point. You just wanna kinda be a fly on the wall some sense. Yeah.

Wow. So, so you started off, said hello in a cafe and then how long was that did was your relationship how long did that, kind of dating life go for you guys?

Well, after about 9 years, I think, I, brought her over to I showed her Facebook kinda screen. I don't really use it anymore, but I said, is it okay if I change my relationship status to engaged? Wow. And it took her a moment, but she said, oh, that's good. Because I I calculated at that point that, parental pressure had grown significantly.

From yours and hers?

Hers. Okay. And, that worked out, pretty well.

That's a pretty suave online mood. That's almost the most online way you could ask someone to marry you, I feel like.

Well, I hate to say it, but if you consider that a suave, you may also be a bit of a nerd.

I have I am that when I think when it comes to yeah. Well, have yeah. There's, like, yeah. Talk deal talking with women, it definitely it's not my, you know, I wouldn't yeah. Yeah.

I,

You're not yeah. Yeah. I okay. That's the nerd cliche again.

I Yeah.

I'm still socially awkward. Sometimes I can disguise that. Yes. But that's still, me, and it's not gonna change now that I'm in my, sunset years.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes it doesn't go away. You just kinda start to learn it.

I think I've just had the I I have the tough thing of asking a girl out. Like, sometimes I'm okay with talk. I'll I'll I'll get good with talking with a woman, but it's just that next part. And we'll just be standing there, and we'll be like, well, somebody should ask somebody out or walk away from somebody, and then you're just still just standing there.

Yeah. Well, that's the purpose of a misconnections Yeah. Which, anecdotally, I know, works once in a while because I've encountered, over the years, a bunch of, couples which had gotten, married. No. Off of misconnections.

Yes. And, I like that a great deal. It is romantic in a, understated way.

Oh, yeah. Well, how did that start? How did that misconnection start?

Well, Jim decided he wanted to put it up. He was the boss then, so he did.

Oh, Jim was the, guy running the

company at that point? When I realized that, again, I'm a terrible manager, I'd already hired Jim, who's a good manager. Jim, what's his Jim Buckmaster. Jim Buckmaster. Yeah.

You'll see pictures of us, together. And if it looks like we're at, eye level, it's because I'm standing on a box. Okay. And he's a smaller guy? He's a big he's a foot taller than me.

He's a taller

guy. Okay.

So it makes for a good there you go.

You actually do have your box.

That's, the old office space, and I was the 1 who who suggested the the, gag there.

Yeah. That's true.

And, and, kudos to your guys for being really good at pulling stuff up.

Craigslist.org. Yeah, man. When you guys were the first 1 to do dot org, people were like, what is it? People thought it meant Oregon. People didn't even know what you know, where is it?

Well, it was an early use of it, and our approach was to be this minimal monetization thing, and there's no category for that online. So that caught the spirit and, worked.

Yeah. And, and so, missed connections, do you remember, like, the first missed connection that was ever put up or the first personal that was ever put up? I'm sure people ask you that a lot. Don't

remember much of that at all. I everything is a blur. And, unfortunately, I wasn't smart enough to keep a lot of, records. And so a lot is lost, Like, from the, Internet archive in the way back machine, I could see the first site that I put up was, mid or late 96. Mhmm.

And that was pretty good, and I evolved that kind of minimal style. Like, right now, our site hasn't changed much in appearance Yeah. In 30 years.

Why is that?

Well, I talked to a lot of people Mhmm. And they wanted simple, fast, effective. Mhmm. They want what you see is what you get. Mhmm.

And we've heard from a lot of designers who want, fancy. Yeah. And fancy may not be, the answer for a lot of things. Yeah. Sometimes, you know, you do see something which is impressive, fancy, and yet effective Mhmm.

But that seems to be the minority. Wow.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This is you know what you want. What do you want?

Yeah. You want heavy equipment outside of South Jersey? What do you want? You know? You want biotech out, you know, in Mendocino?

You know, you want legal issues? You know? You want rideshare? You want rodeo interests outside of Fort Worth? It's just it's all right there.

You know? Yeah. You can put it together quick. Even a simple even someone who isn't technologically advanced could go here and that even the the the the terms you have on there, it's like childcare. Right?

Pets, rants and raves. It's like it's just it's every anything you could need is kind of right here.

And that means the site is always, fast. Mhmm. And it is

Oh, because it's not a lot of big back it background. Wow.

And, see, we've helped people in the tens of 1,000,000 or more put food on the table. Mhmm. With jobs, you

mean, and selling things.

Exactly. Okay. And advertise their services. But, also, we've the site is so simple, we've shown tens or maybe 100 of mill millions of Americans that the Internet could be useful and reasonably easy to use. Mhmm.

And that meant a lot of people who, may have been hesitate hesitant to get on the net. They get on the net. And, again, that's, fairness for everyone. That's treating people like you wanna be treated, and, that ain't bad.

Yeah. Fairness, that's an important word. You it's important to you.

Very much so because, you try. Sometimes, it's hard. There are often tough decisions to be made. And, but Jim, took over that for the company. And, you know, maybe he's done a better job than I ever could.

And I did make for a great customer service rep.

What what made you choose Jim Buckmaster? What was it about him when you interviewed him?

He believed in the mission, and he was good on the technology side because he, in a way, had 2 jobs, manager and programmer, because, getting good programmers is hard. Mhmm. And Jim, over time, hired a tech staff, everyone better at their job than

I was. Wow. That's cool. But it's also cool to hear you recognize that. Like, yeah, these people are better than I was, you know, to learn where your spaces were best.

Yeah. I'm funnier than any of them are. Yeah. Of course. But that's a, that's, may not be a high bar.

I mean, they well, they did sometimes do great things and, like, they would, sometimes pull out great, great ads of all sorts, particularly missed connections. And for a while, ran a, running, best of Craigslist, although I haven't looked at that in a while. You see, with the, philanthropy stuff I'm doing, that's consuming. I'm now working harder than I've ever been Wow. Because I, I guess, I am in a mission.

You know, vets and their families need our help. So that's 1 of

your important causes. I know independent journalism, veterans, what is another philanthropic cause you to enjoy?

Specifically, also active service members and their families. Okay. Without going on at length, I'm shocked that military families aren't paid enough Mhmm. To, get both a good place to live and, food. Yeah.

And the model used to be the volunteer army would be single guys. Well, there's a lot of families. They're relocated about 600,000 times a year. Oh, yeah. And that's where Blue Star Families comes in.

I can go on a great length and I'll I think I'll stop there.

But that's the name of an organization that you help support?

Yes. Well, Bob Woodruff Foundation For Vets.

Okay.

25,000,000 from last night. Wow. And I happen to have a meeting, an event with Blue Star Families, which could also use something like that, but which I won't preannounce.

A fundraising event? Well, if you guys ever need a comedian or 1, I'd love to come. I can't believe it. I I wish I'd known last night. I would've gone.

That would've been awesome. Well, the connection is through Caroline Hirsch Okay. Who used to run Caroline's and now runs the New York Comedy Festival.

Yeah. That's going on this week.

Yeah. That's a world I know nothing about. I kind of would like to.

Yeah.

But, people are, busy. I should do other things. The, comedy seller is down the street from me. Yeah. I've never gone in.

Really? Yeah. Well, they seem to be booked all the time.

Yeah. They're pretty, and it's it's limited seating too in there.

Yeah. And they're supposed to open at least 1 more space. Mhmm. And, yeah, I should get off my butt and do something, but there's always lots more work, not only my own work, but, let's say my in laws need some help.

Oh, yeah. They always do. And, god.

Fortunately, we we can do a good job about that. Mhmm. But, I gotta stay focused on the areas where I'm doing some good. Right. The cybersecurity part is is part of that because we you know, this is

the new war. And did you start to learn that where did that interest come from? Did that or where did that realization that cybersecurity is gonna be such a big thing? Was there a lot of, like, attacks on security at Craigslist? Like, did that happen?

Uh-huh. Well, there is always something, but we had a good team for that. Right?

But do you have to have that? Like, what would say if someone was attacking Craigslist, this is what I'm asking, what would they be trying to get?

Well, they would be trying to disrupt service. Okay. They would try to, oh, try to steal proprietary information, which did happen.

What does proprietary information mean? I'm sorry, Craig.

Proprietary information at any company is like secret information, like, payroll

Okay.

Client list. We didn't have much of that because we are a simple classified site. Mhmm. But people thought that we had some, quote, unquote, secret sauce.

Yeah. Some big fancy stuff.

And the irony is that that was never the case. And yet people tried to do things. They there were some, problems of leakages of that information. But, the problem that I'm I'm not concerned with that at Craigslist now. I'm concerned well, I've been reading about this for decades.

Mhmm. And now I see that, an adversary would do something like, well, you know, they would try to, a form of warfare would be to to try to jam or hack a drone. Right. If they turn your drone against you Wow. You're gonna have a bad day.

If it's an autonomous drone, 1 that's figuring out where the enemy is for itself, if they could subvert it, they would turn our autonomous drone back against us, that would make for someone's bad day.

Yeah. Imagine if they if we send out a drone and it's supposed to get information, send it to artillery unit or a missile that's supposed to fire automatically from the information from that drone and they're able to hack it. We could you could literally our army could kill themselves. Wow.

There's a lot of, mundane things Mhmm. Like, our, well, our hot water heaters at home Mhmm. Are, you you know, becoming Internet connected. So sometimes they could diagnose it remotely, boilers like that in factories. There are painting robots.

And those things, if hacked, they could start running them at high. Another could be just told to run at high Yeah.

Grow.

Until it burns, causes a fire. And if there's a few fires like that, your first responders can deal. But if there's a thousand, you have a problem. Yeah.

If somebody hacks your oven don't even think about that. If somebody hacks your ovens, next thing you know, there's 1100 fires in an area.

Now the deal is that there's room for optimism for help because there are already people who are really good at dealing with this. Mhmm. What I'm doing is gathering together, funding them so that they could work together, starting to work with, local governments everywhere, everywhere through the country Mhmm. Starting to come up with, let's say, some best practices Mhmm. Because we have some breathing space, we think.

Got it. And the idea is that, you know, water supplies, power supplies, they also go down because of natural disasters. They need to be resilient. They need to be where you knock them down, they can come back up in a small amount of time.

Well, it's even funny. Like, even with drones, like, when I was a kid, you had to do a little bit of peeping Tom and right? If you wanted to look into somebody's window, you had to go over there.

Now I don't know anything about that.

Yeah. I'm not saying you do.

Yeah. And I

you know, and I'm not saying I do. You know what I'm saying? But I do. You know, but I do. I know.

But, yeah, somebody here does, and it's me. Well, what I'm saying is this. Now, as a kid, you can use a drone.

That's

And that's the laziest thing. We you had to go risk getting beat up by a woman's husband to look in their window, even if they were just cooking or whatever. Right? I might get in lewd with it. I'm just saying, you know but now you can just get a drone and go do it.

It's, like, just breaks my heart some of

that kind of stuff. In, Manhattan, apparently, that's illegal. And, like, oh, right now, I wonder I like my tech toys. Yeah. I would get a drone and I would be bored with it after a few minutes.

Yeah. My neighbor kids would enjoy it because they would learn how to use it really well and their parents have, vetoed the idea for the reason you mentioned. I'm sure.

I didn't even think about that. Yeah. Because I'm still, like, just squinting real hard and hoping I'm seeing something.

Well You know? It's a big problem in New York. I bet. That's awesome. Lots of big problems, lots of big cities all near each other Yeah.

And they contested airspace Mhmm. Because, we need the cops to have drones.

You know? It's just getting you know? Yeah. I just you don't think about all those things. You don't think about all the ways that we could be hacked and the immediate effects of it.

You know?

Yeah. So we need to protect ourselves in all sorts of ways. And that's why, you know, the idea is to build networks of networks of volunteers Mhmm. Who are running, let's say, the nonprofit world Mhmm. The NGO world.

And that way, then they cooperate with other parties. But we do have to, well, it's like World War 2. We looked out for each other. Everyone tried to play their part. And the looking out for each other in that, positive way Mhmm.

Isn't bad. Yeah. And, like, right now, if, something starts happening, weird with my, baby camera equivalent, I would like to be able to get help from someone. Right. And, even worse if the, oven started running away, I would, want to know what to do about that.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. When, when Craigslist when you at what point were there ever, like, categories that you wouldn't do? Were there were there ever

right very early on Mhmm. We heard in large numbers that, people didn't want gun sales on the site. Mhmm. And there I am thinking, because I saw some influence then, there are constitutional rights there. But 1 of them is, property rights.

So if you have a site Mhmm. It's your property. You get to set the rules. So you decide, what's right and wrong there. So I believe in, property rights and freedom of choice, and that's what you exercise.

And that's what, people do through the net. It's your site, your thing. You decide what the rules are. So you were able

to so you actually got to decide that or not decided. Are you and your team? Team. Okay.

I, had an opinion, but I wanted the team as such as it was Mhmm. To work it out. That was a little bit of good management, but I couldn't consistently deliver good leadership. And even now, I'm not a top down kinda leader. Maybe I could lead by example.

My frustration in a way is that I wanna be able to lead by example when it comes there's a lot of people with a lot of discretionary money Mhmm. Billionaires Mhmm. Who maybe could be doing really good stuff with that. And, I'd like to have the skills to inspire them. Understood.

I don't have those skills.

Well, I don't even I mean, I think even hearing today, the things that you care about are things that sometimes I don't even think to care about in some ways or or fears that I don't think that, you know, you don't even think that, oh, somebody has to we need to have a person needs to donate to this because maybe our country isn't worried about it enough yet. You know, it's, you know, so I think it sounds like you're doing a good job. When you, did your company because I'm trying to think, like so guns was a thing. Did you guys end up selling them on there or no?

No. He said, no guns. Uh-huh. And,

Swords, anything? I I have

a feeling swords are okay, but I've never thought about it. Yeah. I'm trying to think of some I mean,

because he he is I mean Well, yeah. Drugs are illegal, they're off. So drugs were off, but people would try to skirt around that. But even then, some of that was sometimes also Now, were there ever caught, like, could the cops use your side as well if they wanted to to, like, as, decoy type of stuff?

I hear gossip about that. I don't know how true that really is. Right.

Because you don't know. Right?

I do know that the cops, have used the site in different ways to, fight crime. Mhmm. Sometimes, let's suppose they think they see a stolen item being, being listed on the site Mhmm. Then they would well, this is true for anything on the net. If a cop sees something they think is wrong and they have a shot at doing something about it, they send a subpoena or a search warrant to the, site.

Mhmm. And then the site, the operators usually pass it to their lawyers.

Mhmm.

And then the, site operators provide the forensic evidence to the cops, which again is like CSI and just fighting, fighting crime there. The deal is in this country, we have these checks and balances, in the constitution and bill of rights. And, you know, the founders of the country did a really good job of that. Yeah. You know, there are amendments and so on, which we only thought of years after.

But the, the people who did the initial work did great work, and it, for the most part stands up today.

They they built a good structure over there. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's funny because you guys are it was Yeah. It's just like it's such a part of history, you know.

It's such a, I mean, I went on dates from it. I remember I met a girl. We I met a girl on I mean, I would use casual encounters too. You know, it's like that was sometimes, I met a girl 1 time and we watch a Nets game and made love, honestly, and she'll only sign her cast. Right?

And I was like, you know and it was we had a great time. I think we I think we dated for

Well, there's, there's no accounting for taste. Yeah. But, I'm glad I'm glad Yeah.

I know. Who wants to be

a Nets fan? Yeah. Your guys can remember that 1 for later years.

Oh, they've been on there, dude. I think we accidentally met up once. But there was a place, you know, I was like, I had a such a tough time at a certain point in my life dating. There was something that added a level of mystery about it that I really liked.

I've never thought about that. Oh, yeah. Everyone works differently. Everyone does have different tastes. And, that's, none of my business.

Yeah. You know, as long as it's legal. Oh, yeah. It was it was legal. Did you, it's funny to say that people started marriages.

So people even got married off of, putting out a dating, like, I would like to meet someone. Yeah. Wow. Did you ever get invited to a wedding or anything?

I have gotten invited a number of times. I'm, not much for ceremonies or galas or anything like that, And my relatives, know this very well. I have a dispensation to not go to some of the more obscure events on my wife's side. Yeah. And I'm and I'm on the record, I'm very grateful.

Yeah.

I think your comedy's getting better.

I've promised to if I'm offered open mic night, I will not do it.

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To learn more about Valor Recovery, please visit them at www.valorrecovery coaching.com or email them atadmin@valorrecoverycoaching.com. Thank you. When you guys at what point did you realize, okay, I need to had you had enough of the day to day, what made you start to decide I wanna sell the company?

I haven't sold the company.

Oh, you haven't sold? Okay. Sorry.

Here's the or the history to prevent some confusion. Okay. I, gave a guy some equity. I made it a gift Okay. On the expectation that he'd, deliver.

Mhmm. That may have not, expectation that he'd deliver. Mhmm. That

may have not,

happened. Mhmm. But he wanted to sell. Mhmm. Sold to eBay.

Mhmm. Didn't work out. And we, bought that equity back from eBay. Nice. Now what I've done is I had a chunk of equity stock.

And, again, thinking, I don't need this. So I created a 5 0 1c4 foundation, put all the equity in there, and that's what generates, dividends and, sales. Okay. And that's what I'm using to fund these things. Ah.

So I now have a good idea of, how much money I have to give away with in the rest of my life.

Because you can you can look at the the residual the dividends and the earnings.

That's that kind of stuff. Mhmm. And I figure I've got, 5 to 20 years. Mhmm. And I know roughly how fast I should do it.

And my trouble, though, is that I'm 72. 20 years out, I may have to conduct due diligence via a seance. Yeah. And, Ouija boards, don't have the bandwidth I need, so I may I may just come back and haunt people.

Yeah. Hey, that would be awesome. Yeah. Oh, I could definitely see a spirit looking for a place to stay, you know.

You have an excellent, point there, although, computers don't operate, very well in the in the afterlife. Although, I'm making an assumption. I I don't know if that's true.

So no so you still own it?

Oh, I this is an important distinction. I now own no equity. It's in that, foundation, 501c4.

Okay. So that company was transferred into a foundation or sold to a foundation?

My parts of it. Other people do own chunks of the company.

Got it.

And they do what's right for them.

Okay.

Me, what's right for me is, frankly, to keep a little for myself, because, the wife insists that she needs to buy socks.

Yeah. Oh, yeah.

And, so we have some leftover, which we do share with family. Mhmm. And but the vast bulk of it is, now for charity. I mean, just yesterday, a guy, I guess, an economist, analyzed what I would have made had I done the usual Silicon Valley thing. He said, now I'd be worth 11,000,000,000.

If you

had saved the company and just sold it.

Well, if I did the usual. Right. And maybe he's right. I don't understand the analysis. Right.

But I don't know what I would do with that. $11,000,000,000? Yeah.

Yeah. What would you even do it? How many yeah. Because how much money can you put in your bank?

Well, I don't think about it. There are some luxuries I like, but I don't own a car.

And,

frankly, between the subway and, and Uber cabs or Lyft, that's what I need. Yeah. And, again, this is not altruistic or anything like that. This is just being sensible.

And altruistic, just so our listeners know.

Altruistic means that you sometimes value helping other people more than yourself. Okay. It's the the bible thing. Right. And I, agree.

I just, my variation of, have enough to be comfortable Mhmm. And to indulge your family Mhmm. Maybe friends sometimes, and then better to give stuff away. It's a difficult balance because the future is unpredictable. Mhmm.

And I guess it's gotten more unpredictable, but there are people who need a lot of where I can help Yeah. Without digging into my, personal stuff.

Yeah. Understood. Yeah. I just wanted to know. Because, yeah, sometimes I forget and sometimes maybe some of our listeners forget.

Did you ever feel like other tech companies, even though there were probably a bit secretly jealous looked down at Craigslist because it was this, like, what was that like? I just wonder

Oh, they've, they're they're quite explicit. They don't it's not a secret. They don't like this model we have of, doing well by doing good. Sometimes, let's say they're not respectful of it, and that's okay. Yeah.

The thing is I remember what I learned in Sunday school, and people often forget. And, again, not pious of me or anything like that.

No. I think it's fair to stand up for also what you are aiming for.

Well, I've met a bunch of rich people. None of them are that all that happy. Yeah. And, yeah, having too much money is a, is a big trap, and you get surrounded by people by yes men. Mhmm.

And you get insulated from the, needs of, of regular people. Mhmm. And that, does some real damage.

How do you keep yourself balanced from that? Yeah. Because it's interesting because you seem like someone who would have a fair answer to what are some of the side effects the negative side effects of

Well, the deal is that it, Of of money.

Of having some money, you know, or coming into some money.

Yeah. The deal is to, be a little bit as cheap as I was when I grew up in the fifties and to do things for yourself or by yourself, like, especially going across town, I don't need to take a car.

Mhmm.

The subway is usually better. Mhmm. And so I do that. Although, I did get here on a limo because someone else paid for it. Yeah.

And they really wanted to.

Good.

So the deal is that and I, now and then I, like, will go to a fancy dinner.

Oh, yeah. That's nice. You have to treat yourself to good food.

The thing is that you could find good food a lot, more cheaply and with a little bit more fun.

Mhmm.

And, so a lot of those things, I just don't, I just don't, get. And I wouldn't mind having a smaller house, but the wife's side of the family is very, very large. Yeah. I have a 1 nephew and 1 niece. The nephew just got married, and I had to attend that 1.

Yeah. However, my my, on my wife's side, we have 20 nephew and nieces.

Oh, that's too many.

Well, it mostly means that I've learned to control my language Yeah. Because I don't want to, I don't wanna catch shit from any of my relatives. Yeah. And it works out pretty well. Typically, I know, as they say, that when the kid is allowed to watch HBO, I'm allowed to use, saltier languages.

Oh, yeah. I like that, buddy. Yeah. Only salt in our languages. Yeah.

I was just wondering, what what what was was there 1 thing, like, it was whether it was a something like a like a like a specific Leonard Cohen piece, a record that he made, that he'd autograph. Was there 1 nice thing you bought for yourself that, what was something that or that was meaningful to you?

I bought some of the prints that he made.

Oh, you did? Okay. See, he's

an artist, for real. The thing which I regret is that, around here, there was an auction of, a lot of his letters and stuff. Oh. And I should've, I should've, overindulged myself. Yeah.

But I it was the 1st auction I actually seriously participated in, and I just didn't, I just didn't get anything.

Yeah, man.

I don't recognize that. I didn't have anything in color. I did as a black and white prints, and you're heading into some of the ones that just passed. The ones in the middle right now, 2 of them, I think I have.

Wow. That's cool.

Yeah. Especially the 1 that's exactly what I have.

Really?

Yeah. And I may have that 1 on a t shirt.

Wow. Yeah. Yeah. Something like that's nice, man. Especially if it's art or something like that, it's like, you know, if I could go back in time, there was like a time 1 time I was in I was in Tanzania, you know, and I was doing, Mount Kilimanjaro.

Okay. Right? And we and afterwards, we went someplace and they had a piece of art in there, and it was, like, $500. Right? And I could spend, like, maybe $300, but I wish I had spent because going, like, it it was 15 years ago and it's, like, you know, the $200 didn't wouldn't have changed my life that much, you know.

It was a lot of money at that time, but it's, like, I didn't even think about it 2 weeks later for or 2 months later, you know. So I just wish that I would have because I really like the painting, you know. I was like, god, I just and I sometimes I wish, like, every now and then, there's little things like that I wish I'd gotten, like, a nice piece of art or something, you know?

Yeah. And the, let's see. On my side of the, the house, that's the, biggest investment I've made in art. My wife was an art major, so she knows this stuff. And a lot of it these days is cheap at auction, and she's good at that.

Yeah. She's gotten good at a number of things, including free upgrades while flying. Oh, yeah. It's a deal. That's her new, hobby.

Oh, yeah.

And she's good at it.

I'm trying to think of something else. Were there other so so what Craigslist was kind of the the the stepchild of the tech industry in a weird way. Was it looked like like that? Because I could imagine how jealous because here's people putting 1,000,000,000 and 1,000,000 of dollars in a building this thing, this new avenue, and all these venture capitalists and stuff like that. And then they all this advertising, and here you are with this basic kind of peer to peer.

How can I offer something that could potentially help my neighbor or connect to neighbors that could use something?

Yeah. We've always been an outlier. As 1 person put it, we're 1 of the few, ungentrified sites on the net. Yeah. And I guess we, like it that way.

Nothing has not not everything has to be expensive or fancy. Yeah. To give credit to a site I consider, undentrified, that's Wikipedia. Mhmm. Wikipedia is where facts go to live.

And in the long run, Wikipedia, I think, is the most important of all sites. I work with them. And even in New York, I'm working with their, local chapter to, give classes, Wikipedia for beginners. Really? Well, when you get to write an article or change an article, that gives you a lot of power.

Mhmm. Well, in a small way, to, determine how people think of things, you get to write history.

Oh, and some of it's not true. Like, there's stuff on my Wikipedia, like, attaching me to, like, a part of my fan, like, like, my they have my fan half my family members wrong on it and stuff, and it, like, puts me in a it's crazy. I'm, like, alright.

The deal, unlike newspapers, well, they don't correct themselves normally, especially not in a big way. But in Wikipedia, you can do that. And, basically, you can get a good, citation Oh. Some evidence of what's right and wrong, and then send it to someone who knows how to edit it. And And they can do it.

They can do that.

Oh, dang.

And And I

gotta get in there.

Yeah. You guys, know how to get hold of me. Okay. And then I I know I can get hold of someone who can who knows how to do the edits.

At least how

to do it. Not gone to the class yet. Okay. And, the yeah. The deal is that the system isn't perfect Mhmm.

But it's better than anything anyone else has tried. Yeah.

It's true.

And things do get fixed. It may not happen as fast as anyone wants.

Mhmm.

But, again, there's things, let's say, in the newspaper of record and things which I know are wrong and which had been presented to them, and they're just not gonna fix it.

Yeah. And that And they don't want to?

I don't understand the reason.

Shape history sometimes, you think?

Well, the deal is they, some you know, they were brought something which was wrong. It was proven to be wrong, and they, they say they weren't gonna be, truth vigilantes. And I, I guess, I disagree.

Yeah. Yeah. That's interesting. Well, that's a big thing about information now. It's like, it's something I worry about with AI because if there's and even just the history of the web, like, things in the history of the web because people can alter that over time.

There's, big problems with that now. A number of AI systems are feeding on the output of other AI systems, which could be hallucinating or it could be if you train normalized. Yeah. Well, that's 1 way to do that, and I'd like the idea of, really good AI replacing or supplementing search. But I, I worry about that also because even after I just casually screw around, I can get the AI systems produce wrong information.

And I talk about it with some of the people at these companies and hope that, they get it right. I do have a lot of hope for AI doing customer service because if it's done with commitment, if it's done right, it could be done much better. Because sometimes, like, you call up for a customer service, you get a call center someplace where they just don't know how to do it. They don't know. And I try to be kind to people who have been effectively sabotaged by their management.

Sometimes I, become less impatient than I should be.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, you'll call customer service, and they're like, we don't even know what you're talking about. But they still answer the phone. I'm like, who are you?

Yeah. And But believe it. Yeah. Instead of complaining about that, I'm trying to talk about it and I am putting my money where my mouth is, like, for Consumer Reports Mhmm. Which I'm involved with and working with a lot.

With the magazine website?

Yeah. Okay. Because they're, trustworthy. Oh. And the idea is that, yeah, I would enjoy working with an AI system which would be responsive and give me good information.

Mhmm. And even if it can't, maybe it would kick it to a person who might have to do research, but at least they would be good at it.

Understood. Yeah. I have 1 more I also have a question about that, but I I wanna remember to ask this. How did Craigslist make money? Like

Oh, oddly enough, since we run very lean, Jim runs as very lean. Mhmm. And even though we minimally charge, that makes enough because we're not we're not expected to produce great results for VCs. For venture capitalists? Yes.

So you don't have these you don't have these money guys. Like, how do you need my

return? Right? If no one's invested 1,000,000 in us, we don't have to go public. No one's looking to get, billions. Mhmm.

And, I'm happy with the current results. Yeah. The future is is scary sometimes, but this works out

pretty well. You've also talked a lot about yeah. That's your water.

Yeah. Thank you.

I have just, like, 1 or 2 more questions. Sure. Let me get that, or I can get it

for you. I'm stubborn. You're stubborn? I am stubborn.

What? Oh, my god. Dude, you're crazy, Craig, because I've never heard somebody imagine I'm trying to open a water. Right? I can't open it.

And then I say, I'm stubborn. Like, I'm stubborn. I don't I I I you didn't even make sense. To me, it was very that was very funny. Well You're like, I can't open it.

And I was like, I don't know if you could open it or not. I was just trying to I I I I don't know. But I was like, oh, can I help you? And then you're like, I'm stubborn. But to me, in my head, I was like, he can open it, but he just the bottle's stubborn.

Anyway, it doesn't make any sense.

My my deal is that as an old man, I'm happy when I can still do some things.

Yeah. Oh, I see what you're saying. You've talked a lot about independent journalism. Right? Okay.

And that's something that, like, I I've read anyway is near and dear to, your, outlook in the world.

Okay. Well, what we learned in US history Mhmm. In this high school class is that, a free and trustworthy press is just required to keep a republic alive. And the whole media system is fractured in all sorts of unpredictable ways. Mhmm.

You're part of that.

Mhmm.

I'm a lesser part of it. Mhmm.

And I

don't know what to do now except that I try to support things that I know work Mhmm. Like the, the journalism school at the City University of New York. Okay. And Wikipedia is now a modern journalism. There are other things that I try to help.

But, I'm confused, and I'm kinda paralyzed around a lot of this. So I did a lot in the past. But these days, I just trying to focus in those areas where I can help Americans defend the country

Mhmm.

Because that's a well defined, good, which we need in a big way right now. Mhmm. And, like, service members, active or veteran, and their families have given up a lot for us, and we don't treat them right. So I could do something about that. Cyber warfare is a thing Mhmm.

And it needs help because the government can do some stuff. Mhmm. But everyone needs to play a role. Like in World War 2, everyone needs to, harden their systems a little bit depending on how much of a target you are.

Yeah. It's funny. I didn't realize until you said some of those things. Like, what if suddenly all of our, cars were compromised or half of them or all of our ovens were compromised to the point where they started fires in all of our homes. You know?

It was just kinda fascinating to me. You know?

Well, it means also I've read too much science fiction in my time. But if, if 1% of those systems were compromised, that alone is a big problem.

Yeah. And we don't even realize it. Were there other, businesses that you tried to start before or after?

No. I am not a real businessman. Mhmm. It's been a happy accident.

Mhmm.

I'm like, any success I've had has been by accidentally being in the right time at the right place, and that makes me the Forrest Gump of the Internet.

But also with the right attitude to bring 1 person to another, you know, try to keep the golden rule in your mind, things you learn from Sunday school. What about are your parents pretty proud of your parents still alive, Craig?

They passed long ago.

Oh, they did?

I'm sure they would be. I know that my high school history teacher learned about his contributions to all my stuff. He, heard about it, when he while he was still around and that was a big deal.

Oh, that probably meant a lot, Yeah.

And well, because teachers work hard for little pay.

Oh, yeah.

So anything, anytime they have any long term effect is a big deal.

Yeah. Yeah. It's so funny. I like I still keep in touch with a lot of my teachers. You know?

It's important to me.

I, should. But at my age, there may not be many left. Well,

well, hold on. That's why we gotta get that Ouija board going.

Yes.

You know? I think that's the next level. What are some what are some small before you leave, Craig, what are some goals in your life like right now? I know you've talked about some of the kind of work oriented and giving back. Are there any kind of personal goals or are there anything, like, I don't know.

Is there any kind of goals you have even if they're just, like, human to yourself? Things you still wanna learn or do?

Professionally, I want cybersecurity to be a household word that everyone takes seriously. Personally, I'll be glad if the dentist tomorrow uses nitrous oxide. Yeah. And I will make the same joke over again. That is, can I take the bottle home?

And he, will refuse me. But we like to do that.

No. We do like to do that. I think that's good. Alright, guys? Pretty good.

Is there anything else that you wanna share that's important to you?

I think you got it all, and I think people will be tired of hearing from me after 90 minutes.

Well, look, I I do know if you if you if you really wanna get some Microsoft, you might be able to find someone on Craigslist. I

I've I've been advised by my medical team against it. All I can remember, well, for sure is, like the Batman says, I'm not the nerd you want, but I'm the nerd you got.

Man, I don't know how. Somehow, I almost get your sense of humor now, Craig. It's very interesting. That, that might be tragic. Yeah.

Well, thank you, man. Thank you for, I like I just like some I like your initial goals of, like, my goal is to help 1 person find something. This person's in need. This person might have this. How can I be of service there?

Learning when you notice that I'm not a good manager of this, so I need to get some help here. Right? It's not a strong suit of mine. Maybe this world, but the customer relations is a strong suit of mine, you know. And and that's interesting just because, you know, sometimes we all feel like we have to do everything in different spaces.

And then, yeah. And I'm glad you find a lady along the way. How long have you how long has your marriage been now?

Married 12 and together 20. That's great. And it's good that I'm better at remembering those dates since she is yeah.

Amen. Craig Newmark, thank you so much, man. Hey. It's my pleasure. Appreciate your time.

Now I'm just floating on the breeze, and I feel I'm falling like these leaves I must be. Cornerstone. Oh, but when I reach that ground, I'll share this piece of my life out. I can see it in my bones, but it's gonna take.