Saturday, March 01, 2008

Craigslist classifieds

Craig Newmark is the founder of Craigslist which is run as a community service and makes money only from charging for job listings in 11 US cities and apartment listings in New York. Craigslist has no loans or private investors. When Craig went to Venture Capital conference someone asked him why, if he doesn't need a VC, he was speaking at a VC conference. Craig got some laughs when he matter-of-factly replied, "I thought, what the hell? I really like the sound of my own voice." The self-proclaimed "nerd" (in high school he said he wore a pocket protector and thick black glasses) got his start in his San Fran living room. A few years and millions of hits later, the company has 24 employees supporting 30M visitors a month. As for the strangest thing ever posted, Craig said he got a call from the police asking him if he knew of a listing for plutonium. The problem was solved after the poster got a stern talking to from his parents.