The following is a conversation between Craig Newmark, the Founder of Craigslist and Craig Newmark Philanthropies, and Denver Frederick, Host of The Business of Giving on AM 970 The Answer in New York City.
Denver: if you have ever wondered what is up with Craig, the founder of Craigslist, we have the answer for you. He’s turned his attention and energy to philanthropy; supporting organizations who are actively engaged in veteran’s issues, women in tech, voter protection, and journalism. It’s a pleasure to have with us the aforementioned, Craig. Craig Newmark, the Founder of Craigslist and Craig Newmark Philanthropies. Good evening, Craig, and welcome to the Business of Giving.
Craig: I’m glad to be here.
Denver: Why don’t we begin by having you tell us about Craigslist, which you almost called San Francisco Events, and how it all got started?
Craig Newmark
Craig: These days, Craigslist is pretty much a place where people can get some help putting food on the table, then you can get some help getting a table, and then you can get some help finding a roof under which to put the table. It started off early 1995 sometime in San Francisco. People had helped me settle into the town. I decided it was time to reciprocate. Mostly events to start off, and then people started asking for different categories of things like apartments on a list and just grew incrementally and gradually from there. When I had to give it a name, I was going to call it San Francisco Events. People around me told me they already called it Craigslist. I had invented a brand. Then they told me what a brand is, and I agreed.
Denver: You really had no grand vision for this when you started it. It really grew organically, almost by accident.
Craig: I don’t think I’m a guy for grand visions. I have an idea what I’m doing but I also know that plans often don’t survive contact with reality.
Microsoft wanted to pay me to run ads, and they wanted to pay me enough so I could live on that alone but I decided that I’m a nerd. I don’t need that much to live on. I was doing well as a programmer, and maybe we should just run this thing with minimal monetization.
Denver: When did you know that Craigslist was becoming a something, a brand in fact?
Craig: Around the end of 1997, I saw that we were hitting about a million page views per month, and that’s a pretty good for that time. Microsoft wanted to pay me to run ads, and they wanted to pay me enough so I could live on that alone but I decided that I’m a nerd. I don’t need that much to live on. I was doing well as a programmer, and maybe we should just run this thing with minimal monetization.
Denver: I think a lot of people might be surprised that you relinquished management control of Craigslist relatively early. Why was that the case?
Craig: People helped me understand that as a manager, I kind of suck. I was fortunate enough because I’ve seen a lot of companies particularly technology where the founder gets what I call founder syndrome. They don’t know when to give it to someone who can sustain it as a business. Fortunately, those friends reminding me of my suckage, they were right.
Denver: You appear to be somewhat egoless in that regard because that’s what really holds up a lot of people, and you really knew your limitations and were smart enough to step aside and turn it over to one of the best people you ever hired.
Craig: I don’t know if I’m egoless or anything like that. It’s just that even though I’m capable of learning, sometimes learning from other people’s mistakes, and that’s worked out.
Denver: You stay involved with the company and you did by becoming a customer rep?
Craig: I had been coding. Stopped doing that when Craigslist had a whole bunch of technical people who are better than. I went into customer service pretty intensely. But even several years ago, I realized, Craigslist doesn’t need me. I still do a little bit of customer service because that’s the way anyone stays in touch with what’s real. But my involvement is small, and that means that I can do other things full time.
Denver: I know you never had this mind when you started. But looking back, how would you assess the impact that Craigslist had on newspapers whose revenue model really had been largely dependent upon classified ads?
Craig: I’ve looked at revenue and circulation figures over the last 60 years for newspapers. Straight line down, people tell me, TV news. That straight line goes abruptly farther south when the big dot coms start getting involved. I’m sure Craigslist has had some effect but it might not be more than a bleep.
Denver: So, you have now become very focused on philanthropy. You’ve done that for a number of years. First, with Craigsconnects which I think was 2011, and you started Craig Newmark Philanthropies back in 2016. How did this interest in philanthropy and nonprofits crystalize for you?
Craig: People doing good work in nonprofits have been talking maybe 15 years, talking about community building, how online stuff works. I started giving advice. Craigslist started doing better. So, I ended up trying to exert whatever influence I had on behalf of good efforts and then started trying to help out with cash.
Early on, Mr. and Mrs. Levine at Sunday school helped me understand that I should treat people like I want to be treated. Charity was the theme there. But also knowing enough is enough. After you’ve made a certain amount of money, then maybe it’s time to start giving it away.
Denver: Speaking of influence, were there any influences early in your life growing up that has informed your philanthropy; either the causes you support or how you go about doing it?
Craig: Early on, Mr. and Mrs. Levin at Sunday school helped me understand that I should treat people like I want to be treated. Charity was the theme there. But also knowing enough is enough. After you’ve made a certain amount of money, then maybe it’s time to start giving it away. In high school, Mr. Shulsky, US history teacher, Morristown High School, he helped us understand that a trustworthy press is the immune system of democracy, and he helped me better understand that America aspires to be about fairness, opportunity, and respect, and he was right. Those things affected me in a big way and continued to affect me. Leonard Cohen has returned me to my spiritual roots I guess because of his work. He’s reminded me of how much Mr. and Mrs. Levin affected me.
Taking Craigslist public would not serve our community, and I figured doing well by doing good would prove to be a satisfactory business model. It’s proven to be far more than satisfactory which is why I can give stuff away.
Denver: Speaking of Mr. and Mrs. Levine, what you just said a moment ago about enough is enough. Is that one of the reasons you never took Craigslist public?
Craig: Taking Craigslist public would not serve our community, and I figured doing well by doing good would prove to be a satisfactory business model. It’s proven to be far more than satisfactory which is why I can give stuff away.
Denver: One of the causes you focus has been support of veterans especially women who have served. How did get started with you and what organizations have been the beneficiaries of some of your support?
Craig: About 10 years ago, I was at a lunch thing sitting next to a volunteer for the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. Because I haven’t talked with him for hours because we had a meeting this morning. But the deal is that, suddenly I realized that back in Vietnam, vets who were coming back being treated really badly, that wasn’t right. So, that is a cause clicked in my head in a way let’s say that opera may not have clicked in my head, and I got involved with IAVA; that made a lot of sense to me. We’re trying to protect the GI Bill. I got involved in the Bob Woodruff Foundation. They fund organizations which help wounded warriors and their families. Now, I’m involved with VetsInTech for example. One thing there is getting vets and their spouses good jobs in technology. A big theme there which I’m exploring now is how do you get vets jobs in cybersecurity because there’s a huge need for people with that background. In New York, I’m supporting the New York Veterans Alliance run by Kristen Rouse and working with the Mayor’s Department of Veteran Services. The deal is to help and to keep helping because Americans were forgetting how much we owe vets, and we never as a people understood how much we owe the families of veterans.
Denver: Although you’ve been living in San Francisco for twenty-odd-some years now, a lot of your initiatives and efforts are really based in New York City, correct?
Craig: Yeah. It seems that for the areas I’m interested in, New York is the center of gravity. Things do go on relative to veterans and others in San Francisco, like Swords to Plowshares, and a lot of other work of my interest goes on in Boston and Washington. But New York is where most of it is.
Denver: Speaking of tech, you have also been a champion of women in tech. Who are some of those organizations that you have been supporting and been involved with?
Craig: I’ve been looking for organizations which actually get good stuff done and for real. Not just talk but action. Girls Who Code is one of the best examples of this because they give, well they provide opportunity and really useful information to girls in high school who may have never had a break. I remember my high school experience, that’s when girls who are valedictorian types and all that started going into other fields even though they are really good at Science and Math, and that felt wrong. And since I’m a nerd and not properly socialized, I didn’t know why that should be.
In terms of role models, there is even small efforts like getting more women editors and writers into Wikipedia and in Wikipedia, getting biographies of more women scientists and so on. Those things matter both in the short and long run, and that’s big thing. Trying to make things better in the short run while investing in the long run.
Denver: We had Reshma Saujani who heads up Girls Who Code on the show, and I was surprised to learn that there are actually fewer women in tech today than there were a decade ago.
Craig: Something is going on that maybe isn’t right. So, the idea is to support women in journalism, technology, a bunch of fields, trying to get them more money for startup work. And also, in terms of role models, there is even small efforts like getting more women editors and writers into Wikipedia and in Wikipedia, getting biographies of more women scientists and so on. Those things matter both in the short and long run, and that’s a big theme; trying to make things better in the short run while investing in the long run.
Denver: Sounds good to me. I also know that you’re very passionate about voter protection in a nonpartisan way. Who’s doing a good job in that space?
Craig: That starts with Mr. Shulsky reminding me that America aspires to be about fairness, opportunity, and respect and that in the Declaration and the Constitution, all people are equal under law. That’s the start. Now, I work with the Brennan Center for Law, part of NYU. I work with VotoLatino, [DMOS]. I work with Ford Foundation, the Sandler Foundation and others; all are trying to figure out how to protect the rights of Americans to vote particularly when there are bad actors, some foreign, some domestic interfering with people’s right to vote. That’s really serious. We got to defend the country against people interfering with our fundamental American processes.
Until about five years ago, I had the stereotypical engineer’s disdain for communications and PR. In some areas, I realize how badly I screwed up, and I started becoming a zealot. Started getting a lot of media training, even more media training, and now I rely on a group called Weber Shandwick to figure out how I can be more effective on behalf of the groups that I support because that’s a really big force multiplier, and I’m finding that nonprofits are really good at doing something often are really terrible about talking about it and unless people are talking about what you do, you kind of don’t exist. What’s worse is that a lot of nonprofits who are good at talking about what they’re doing, a lot of the time, they’re running scams.
Denver: You don’t simply financially support these organizations, Craig. You’re really actively involved and serve on a number of boards, a couple we’ve just mentioned: Girls Who Code, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America but a lot of others. Center for Public Integrity; from what you’ve observed, what makes for a great board of a nonprofit organization?
Craig: There’s the usual things like, you need people who can monitor finances closely. I’m not that guy. What’s missing usually is attention to media, communications, even PR. Until about five years ago, I had the stereotypical engineer’s disdain for communications and PR. In some areas, I realize how badly I screwed up, and I started becoming a zealot. Started getting a lot of media training, even more media training, and now I rely on a group called Weber Shandwick to figure out how I can be more effective on behalf of the groups that I support because that’s a really big force multiplier, and I’m finding that nonprofits are really good at doing something often are really terrible about talking about it and unless people are talking about what you do, you kind of don’t exist. What’s worse is that a lot of nonprofits who are good at talking about what they’re doing, a lot of the time, they’re running scams.
Craig Newmark and Denver Frederick inside the AM970 studio
Denver: You really can’t have real impact or scale if you’re not getting the word out about the good work that you’re doing. You’re just going to stay pretty much where you were. Then of course there is journalism, and we touched on your recent gift of $20 million to City University of New York, CUNY’s Graduate School of Journalism. But you’ve been involved in the space for quite a while. What is at the heart of your concern around the state of journalism today?
Craig: There is that Mr. Shulsky thing, a trustworthy press is the immune system of democracy. One might argue the immune system failed a couple of years ago. There are problems let’s say, false equivalency, of mistruths getting unchallenged. That kind of thing. So, I figure, I can help the people in journalism who want to restore journalism and newspapers to a position where they would challenge mistruths. They would report accurately. They would report fairly and honestly. That’s another way where we defend the country is in a democracy. A democracy can’t survive without news that’s trustworthy, and I figured I could play my part by supporting the people who are the professionals.
Denver: Let me get your take on this. I always worry about the danger of romanticizing an earlier age because I know how fallible my memory can be. But I don’t remember news outlets as being as partisan and biased as they are today, and I say that for both the left and the right. It seems that the current business model demands that you pick a team; they pick team, and then become cheerleaders to the fans who support that team. Do you see it that way or do you see it differently?
Craig: I do see a lot of the press being partisan often fairly, often very unfairly. I figure I’m going to focus on the positive on how to make things better by encouraging trustworthy reporting because even in the most partisan news operations, a lot of them, there’s factions of people who report more accurately which is perceived as being less profitable but the idea is to encourage what’s going on that’s good and usually using quiet back channels and quiet diplomacy to do that and then when something goes wrong, to have news professionals point that out, and I’m beginning to see a fair amount of that. There are really good examples of that like Emily Bell, Brian Stelter. Folks like that standing up at risk to their careers and being pretty brave about it.
Denver: If you were to go home tonight and wanted to read an objective account about what happened today in the news, where would you turn?
Craig: I have a whole collection of news feeds from different places, and I read some newspapers. I read Washington Post, New York Times. There’s always a grain of salt involved particularly if it’s my industry they’re reporting on; that is technology, since I know something. I read a lot of news feeds. Maybe my favorite in politics is Political Wire by Taegan Goddard since what he does is a good sense of what’s real or not, and he will excerpt reports from trustworthy news reports. That way, through the day, you can get a good look at what’s going on in a fairly painless way.
Denver: Before we get to your gift to City University of New York, who are some of the other organizations in this journalistic arena that you have supported?
Craig: I’ll probably forget some as I go geographically. I’m supporting the work for First Draft, Shorentsein Center. I think it is now part of Harvard Kennedy School. They’re doing a lot of work like with their Information Disorder Lab reporting on disinformation attacks, trying to do something about them. At the Columbia University Journalism School, on the one hand, there’s Columbia Journalism Review, and I’ve helped recently by helping get going a disinformation beat. The primary there is Matthew Ingram. On the other side, there’s the Tow Center; Emily Bell and Jonathan Albright. One of their great focus areas is how disinformation warfare is being waged by foreign state actors and their allies here in the US. At CUNY, there’s a bunch of efforts going on, the News Integrity Initiative, which is part of the whole CUNY thing. But also, there’s a group in Manhattan called Data & Society led by Danah Boyd. They’re doing really good focused efforts figuring out what are the networks of disinformation and harassment and how do you do something about that? And just one more. There’s the Alliance for Securing Democracy which is being done out of Washington focusing again a lot on foreign state actors, warfare, because the foreign state actors have declared war on the US focusing on the electoral process and other areas.
Denver: Let me throw in one more, ProPublica.
Craig: ProPublica is a great example of how honest, trustworthy journalism is happening.
When I went to school about 40 years ago, I couldn’t have done it without someone lending a helping hand. So, I figure if I’m going to be about fairness, opportunity, and respect, I should practice what I preach. I should put my money where my mouth is, and that means supporting in a big way the school that does a great deal in that regard in New York which is kind of ground zero for most of the news operations in this country and beyond.
Denver: So, what inspired such a transformative gift that was $20 million to the City University of New York School of Journalism, and how did you decide upon them to be the recipient of that gift?
Craig: I had worked with the CUNY Journalism School for some years, particularly Jeff Jarvis, then Sara Bartlett, and I had seen that they were doing good journalism themselves talking about business models, ethics, that kind of thing. I saw that they were training a lot of regular people; people who might not have much opportunity to get a quality journalism education, otherwise. When I went to school about 40 years ago, I couldn’t have done it without someone lending a helping hand. So, I figure if I’m going to be about fairness, opportunity, and respect, I should practice what I preach. I should put my money where my mouth is, and that means supporting in a big way the school that does a great deal in that regard in New York which is kind of ground zero for most of the news operations in this country and beyond.
Denver: And you’d like to hear a diversity of voices, and you’re going to get that at City University of New York unlike some of the other schools you might have chosen.
Craig: Yeah. When you’re giving a break to people who could use a hand, everyone gets to play.
Denver: Let me ask you a silly question. Maybe the silliest you’ve ever heard. How much do you think facts make a difference in changing someone’s mind?
Craig: The answer given that this is a research area, seems to be that if you find the right way to approach people, facts do matter. If there is a person who’s invested a great deal in something delusional, then it’ll be really hard, really expensive to convince someone like that but everyone is capable of redemption, and people have reasons for wanting to invest in something which may not be in their interest. There are people who will vote for people who actually will affect, let’s say trade practices, which hurt those folks and maybe the only thing that will convince them if there’s a problem is when they lose their jobs.
A lot of the stuff that’s going on right is being done through quiet back channels, diplomacy because when you criticize any kind of organization publicly, people resent that even if the criticism is entirely correct. So, what’s happening is that, in all the big dot coms are now processes starting or well under way, where people are wondering how they can do things better.
If an organization that was primarily a disinformation operation, maybe there’s a moral responsibility not to host that kind of thing. There’s a whole range of alternatives. Users should be able to choose the range of things they see.
Denver: More and more people today are receiving their news from big internet companies – Facebook and Google and Twitter. What do you think that impact has been? What worries you about that? What do you think that these companies are doing right?
Craig: A lot of the stuff that’s going on right is being done through quiet back channels, diplomacy because when you criticize any kind of organization publicly, people resent that even if the criticism is entirely correct. So, what’s happening is that, in all the big dot coms are now processes starting or well under way, where people are wondering how they can do things better. For example, people are wondering if they’re hosting let’s say a platform which gets things right sometimes and gets things wrong sometimes. How do they deal with that? Maybe what they got to do is when pieces come in which have been fact checked and shown to be wrong, maybe those should be down ranked. That’s one approach. If an organization that was primarily a disinformation operation, maybe there’s a moral responsibility not to host that kind of thing. There’s a whole range of alternatives. Users should be able to choose the range of things they see. But I do think a platform shouldn’t give material support to a known disinformation operation particularly if it’s being run or influenced by foreign state actors, bad actors, who are attacking the country.
Sometimes it’s hard to admit you have a problem, and when you admit you have a problem, sometimes you don’t ask for help and you don’t get the fixes right. Meanwhile, people of good and bad intent are harshly criticizing you. It’s kind of hard to make progress under those circumstances but the big dot coms are making progress.
Denver: As a technology founder, you bring a special empathy to understand what some of these organizations, these big companies are going through, and they’re probably trying to get a lot of it right but many people are getting to be pretty frustrated at the pace of them getting it right.
Craig: Sometimes it’s hard to admit you have a problem, and when you admit you have a problem, sometimes you don’t ask for help and you don’t get the fixes right. Meanwhile, people of good and bad intent are harshly criticizing you. It’s kind of hard to make progress under those circumstances but the big dot coms are making progress.
Denver: You seem to be an optimist. Would that be fair?
Craig: I am very much an optimist because I see how when things are done well, progress can be made.
With my name on the thing, that gives me a big moral responsibility to get it right, to keep it right. If it was San Francisco Events or something else, maybe I would have felt more comfortable selling at some point years ago, and I could have done so with a clear conscience and today I’d be still living pretty comfortably. But right now, I can legitimately feel that I’ve helped other people make the world better; that ain’t bad.
Denver: A couple of closing questions, and I know this probably has no impact on you personally. But do you suspect people would perceive you a little bit differently today if you in fact had named that website San Francisco Events or some other generic name and not Craigslist?
Craig: With my name on the thing, that gives me a big moral responsibility to get it right, to keep it right. If it was San Francisco Events or something else, maybe I would have felt more comfortable selling at some point years ago, and I could have done so with a clear conscience and today I’d be still living pretty comfortably. But right now, I can legitimately feel that I’ve helped other people make the world better; that ain’t bad.
Denver: Finally, Craig, as Warren Buffet has said, it’s much more difficult to give money away than it was to make it in the first place. You’ve been at this for a number of years, since 2011 and more recently with the Craig Newmark Philanthropies in 2016, what lessons have you learned about giving money away effectively and achieving optimal impact?
Craig: I cheat a bit. I tend to find organizations which are already good in having impact, and those are often the ones that I’ll tend to support. I am not good at evaluating let’s say, a startup nonprofit which may have a lot of potential but I just don’t know, and then I provide help often in the forms of influence, often cash, and then relentless nagging about doing a better job with communications and PR.
Denver: You are a nudger.
Craig: That’s true.
Denver: Craig Newmark, the Founder of Craigslist and Craig Newmark Philanthropies, thanks so much for being here this evening. If people want to learn more about what you’re doing and the causes you’re supporting, your website would be?
Craig: Craignewmarkphilanthropies.org.
Denver: Fantastic. Thanks, Craig. It was a real pleasure to have you on the show.
Craig: My pleasure.
Denver: I’ll be back with more of the Business of Giving right after this.
The Business of Giving can be heard every Sunday evening between 6:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. Eastern on AM 970 The Answer in New York and on iHeartRadio. You can follow us @bizofgive on Twitter, @bizofgive on Instagram and at www.facebook.com/businessofgiving.