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Tavis: Ten years ago, Craig Newmark started a small Website designed to help his friends and colleagues share information about things like jobs and apartments and events. He just happened to call the site Craig's List. Today, as you well know, (laugh) Craig's List is in 34 countries around the globe, used by some 10 million users a month. Craig Newmark, nice to have you on the program.

Craig Newmark: Hey, it's my pleasure.

Tavis: It's a pleasure to meet you. So, I'm sure you've been asked this a thousand times, but not by me. So you could not have had any idea, when you came up with this idea for your friends and coworkers, that Craig's List would be, like, all the rage.

Newmark: You're giving the wrong guy credit. I had one simple idea about telling friends about arts and technology events. People in the community suggested everything else to us, and that's our theme. We're really run by the people who use the site. We just run the infrastructure, and help out with problems.

Tavis: Tell me, you're very modest and I respect that, but tell me how the idea started, though. So you're in your apartment one day, or?

Newmark: (laugh) Well, in '94, I was at Charles Schwab, the discount brokerage? And I was evangelizing the Net there, you know, to use in the business. I saw a lot of people helping each other out, I thought I should do some of that. So in early '95, I started emailing a few friends.

Tavis: And?

Newmark: They suggested more stuff. I did it. They suggested more. When they told me I had to give it a name, they said hey, we already call it Craig's List. And they were right. And that's been pretty good, since when things go wrong, which is not often, but when they go wrong, I take it personally.

Tavis: I would assume you would, given that your name is on it. I wanted to ask you, so I will, I guess, how it feels to have started something. It's one thing to have eBay, which I wanna get to in a second, 'cause they're now your partner in this project. But eBay or Amazon or Google. But yours bears your name. So is that a good thing or a bad thing?

Newmark: It's a mixed blessing. I'm proud of what's happened. But when there's any kind of problem, not often, 'cause we have a really good culture of trust. But I take it all seriously. That's why I do full time customer service. I was doing it minutes ago; I'll be doing it minutes into the future.

Tavis: So when you say customer service, what does Craig do every day?

Newmark: (laugh) I handle specialized cases. Things like moderating our discussion boards. Lightly, very lightly. And also dealing with apartment brokers in New York. That's my biggest project. Because in that market, they've controlled, you know, apartments and rentals too long, and they haven't been very kind. That's changing.

Tavis: Yeah, speaking of apartment rentals, if I got my numbers right here, $20 million, is it $20 million a month that you guys make just off the apartment listings here?

Newmark: That's one estimate for the whole site over the course of a year. And frankly, first I don't know the answer. And secondly, I don't care. Jim Buckmaster cares. He's the guy who really runs things now. He's my CEO. My focus is just on getting customer service done every day. We've left behind a lot of money on the table, we continue to do so. How much does a guy need to earn?

Tavis: Yeah. Why does money not matter to you? You got something that's big, and yet you seem like you don't care whether you make money or not.

Newmark: Well, it does matter. I need to make an okay living. The people who work for us need to. But after you make a comfortable living, how much more do you need? It's like I make a joke about nerd values, 'cause I'm very much in the rich nerd tradition. And (laugh) you know, we say, like, hey, people pay us for this stuff, like programming. You know, what else do we need?

Tavis: Yeah. How many people make up the company of Craig's List now?

Newmark: There's 19 of us, and again, I'm not management, I'm a line worker, just in an odd position.

Tavis: So 19 people run this whole operation in 34 countries.

Newmark: Yup.

Tavis: Wow. I mentioned eBay earlier. You got a partner at one point who had a percentage of the company who sold their percentage of the company to eBay, so now eBay, in fact, is one of the owners of Craig's List.

Newmark: Yeah, yeah, there was a guy who I gave away some equity to, I made it a gift. Thinking that temptation was looming. And normally, I can resist anything but temptation. So, (laugh) that was less likely that I would go middle age crazy and sell out in a big way. Now, well, that didn't work out great, except that eBay is a good partner to have around.

They share with us a similar moral compass. Google too, to give them some credit. And the deal there is that the extent to we talk with eBay, mostly it's on how to prevent or handle fraud or abuse. They have contacts which I could use.

Tavis: Yeah. So, not to put you on the spot here, but I'm gonna put you on the spot anyway. (laugh) So since this is not about money, were you at all disappointed when your partner sold his share to a big company like eBay?

Newmark: Perhaps it was disappointing. But eBay, again, a good partner, since they share that, let's say some of the same values.

Tavis: For those who've not gone on Craig's List, and I'm sure there's a bunch of folk logging on right now who may never have used the services of Craig's List, tell me what, we've talked about the apartment stuff. But what else does one find on a thing like Craig's List?

Newmark: Pretty much everything you want. Remember, the site is run by the people who use it. The people who use our site decide what's on there, so you can also buy and sell your stuff, you can get a date, you can announce your events, you can ask for help. The deal is, we're kind of like a marketplace, a lot like a flea market, which is as much about socializing as about commerce.

Tavis: To your point about socializing and commerce, this may sound like a stupid question, given that the thing makes so much money now, even though you don't care about money. (laugh) Since I like money, I don't mind talking about it. 'Cause I'm PBS, so I can't like the money that much, either. That's another issue.

That said, (laugh) is it a good business strategy, or did you just luck into this, to have a site that does so much? There are a lot of sites that specialize, I think of WebMD and certain other sites that specialize on certain things. Craig's List, to your point, is a flea market. And when we think of flea markets, we typically don't think that that's a really sound business strategy to do.

I don't know anybody got, well, I'm sure they're somewhere. But I don't know anybody who's independently wealthy off running flea markets, but I'm sure there's somebody somewhere.

Newmark: Well, (laugh) we don't have much in the way of a business strategy. Like no business plan. Which I say to torment all my friends who are VCs or MBAs. That's always entertaining. (laugh) The deal is, it's a mixture of luck and persistence. Again, one has to make enough money to, well, be comfortable, maybe. But after that, how much do you need? You know, I already have all the gadgets I need. Well, no, maybe not all the gadgets I need, but most of the gadgets I need.

Tavis: Well, they'll keep making them every year, so you can (unintelligible).

Newmark: Thank you, that's very kind of the electronics industry.

Tavis: Yeah. (laugh) But I guess what I'm trying to get at is when you started this, did you ever have any idea that it would be as massive, and I'm not talking about in terms of size, now, but that all of these goods and services, that this hodgepodge would be what makes Craig's List what it is?

Newmark: I had no clue. I'm trying to not really believe it, in a way, 'cause that way, I stay hungry. And that way, I stay committed. And that works for me.

Tavis: All right, so tell me, then, for a guy who doesn't value money beyond a certain level, and, you know, you got what you need, how much more do you need, I got all that. So, what gets you up every day working at Craig's List? If it ain't about the money, what's the goal here? You ain't got no freaking business plan, so what you doing every day?

Newmark: I'm committed (unintelligible) my job is doing customer service, and I know that overnight, a lot has come in from, well, late night people on the west coast. And then the people on the east coast have been up for a few hours. And I know there's people who need a hand. And I'm obligated.

Tavis: What can Craig's List get better at? What's the future for Craig's List?

Newmark: Well, we always assume that we need to get better at everything. There are probably ways that we need to serve people better that we don't know yet. And there's better ways to do customer service in different ways. For example, in New York, again, that's where I spend a lot of time dealing with these apartment brokers. Bait and switch is a big problem, and I don't know how to handle it. Not yet. I'll find a way.

Tavis: Yeah, I'm sure you will. (laugh) So these brokers in New York are not necessarily in love with Craig Newmark.

Newmark: Well, they actually do love what we do. They've asked us to charge them as a means of getting rid of some of the bad stuff.

Tavis: The newspapers, and not just in New York, (laugh) you chuckle 'cause you know where I'm going with this. So you're not seen as a friendly, how do I wanna phrase this? Newspapers don't like you.

Newmark: We're finding that actually, the people in newsrooms really like us. There's some mythology about the way we're damaging newspaper classifieds. And while there's some truth in it, it's primarily mythology. The deal is that there is a crisis in news today. And we're doing things, and I'm doing things as an individual to try to help out with that.

We need better ways of finding the news that we trust, and we need better ways of helping people, well, keep and expand their jobs. There's a lot of excitement about citizen journalism, but I keep reminding that we need professional journalism, like fact checking, research, editing. Those are really important. And people say, who do good blogs, still sometimes forget you need professionalism.

Tavis: Well, you'll come back some other time; we'll talk more about it. That's a fascinating subject in and of itself, to talk about how we can transform the news that we get off of the Internet that isn't always reliable. We'll come back and talk about that next time, but it's glad to have you on. Glad to have you.

Newmark: Thanks, it's my pleasure.

Tavis: Nice to meet you, Craig.

Newmark: Take care.

Tavis: That's our show for tonight. You can catch me on the weekends on PRI, Public Radio International. Check your local listings. See you back here next time on PBS. Until then, good night from Los Angeles. Thanks for watching, and as always, keep the faith.