The Ledger
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Newmark denies Craigslist killed newspapers, blaming TV news, Google, and Facebook
“I, in the past, felt that Craigslist did have a substantial effect on newspaper survival, but until
No one had done any of the numbers.
I'd spoke to industry analysts like Ken doctor and Rasmus Nielsen, who said it was ridiculous to think Craigslist had that b…”
Newmark believes Craigslist should shut down if it fails its community mission
“I do think about Craigslist future, but if a community service fails in its mission to be a community service, maybe it's time to go.”
Newmark rejected Microsoft banner ads because he did not need the money
“There were folks from Microsoft Microsoft sidewalk who wanted to put up banner ads, but I'm thinking banner ads are usually stupid. I don't need the money. I'm doing well enough. So I said no banner ads”
Newmark believes any newspaper could have easily built what Craigslist built
“There's no reason that any newspaper couldn't have done exactly what I did. Remember that the stuff I was doing, the coding that I was doing, was fairly simple from my point of view.”
Newmark says eBay's Kijiji was never a real Craigslist competitor
“In part, I don't perceive them being a competitor because they don't have the same vibe, the same mission that we do.”
Newmark stepped down as Craigslist CEO and promised not to interfere
“And frankly, my suckage was kind of brutal made him CEO, committed to him that I would not interfere with what he was doing. I would leave him to do his job.”
Newmark says public estimates of Craigslist's profit figures are entirely fabricated
“The amount of profit the company makes. No one outside of the company knows that. There are people who will fabricate numbers to fill out an article, but the rule of thumb is that if somebody's telling you how much Craigslist makes you might want to disregard …”
Newmark says VCs ignored online classifieds because projected returns were too small
“Because then VCs and bankers were funding people to make a lot of money, and there's not the kind of money that they're talking about in classifieds.”
Craigslist approved eBay's investment after eBay claimed a shared community mission
“EBay told us that they had the same community mission, the same vibe that we did. We were convinced of it. So we authorized that guy to sell his equity to eBay.”
Newmark commits all his personal earnings from Craigslist to charity
“I've now committed all of that revenue to the charity world.”
Newmark attributes Craigslist's success to accidental timing, like an internet Forrest Gump
“All of my success has to do with accidentally being in the right time, right place, accidentally making the right decisions, which makes me the Forrest Gump of the internet.”
Anthony Batt convinced Newmark to use the brand name Craigslist
“I wanted to call it San Francisco events, but there were people around me Who are much smarter than me. Like a guy named Anthony bat. He told me people were calling my mailing list. Craigslist. He told me that I had created a brand. He was right. I had created…”
Newmark gave early team large equity stakes as a purely symbolic gesture
“And I did as a purely symbolic gesture, gave him and others big chunks of equity and, Not thinking that it might be worth a lot of money someday.”
Craigslist's initial CC email list broke at roughly 240 addresses in mid-1995
“In the middle of 95 at about 240 addresses, the CC list broke, and I had to use a listserv.”
Craigslist monetizes by charging employers and landlords, keeping consumer access free
“And that meant charging the people who put up a job, not the people who put up a resume. We would charge apartment owners, homeowners for their ads when they wanted to rent stuff out. We would not charge the people who were looking. And that's the philosophy t…”
Newmark worked as a Craigslist customer service rep for 15 years post-CEO
“But I'm a great customer service rep, so that's what I did really heavily for about another 15 years or so.”
CEO Jim Buckmaster spearheaded Craigslist's geographic and international expansion
“Jim did. I was not bold enough to do that expansion. Jim was, and he took the site tech architecture that I'd started on. He made it happen, and he did so while maintaining the vibe we talk about, and it's the right thing, and it turns out to be the successful…”
Craigslist reached one million monthly page views by late 1997
“By the end of 97, we hit about a million pages per month, which was a lot then.”
Meetup Found Its Co-Founder CTO Through a Craigslist Ad
“We put an ad on Craigslist. It was very obnoxious saying interviews are next week. We were looking for a co-founder CTO. If you're not here in New York City next week, then you're, you can't be interviewed, and that's it. Within 24 hours, we had 450 applicants…”