E550 Craigslist Founder Craig Newmark

31:59Okay, Vault. Typhoon, like a big storm. And the FBI have been warning everyone that right now, yep. What is a Vault Typhoon? And a cybersecurity expert explains that Chinese hackers targeting U.S. critical infrastructure. What is this? 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. 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.

32:43The deal is that most of the country, there are rural water systems, rural electrical systems. They don't have the resources to protect them. So a Chinese hacker, a Chinese military hacker, could get in there. And sway our elections and stuff? Well. We'll sway 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, which was our ally. And if the other country, our adversary, wanted to discourage us from fighting on behalf of our ally, they could just start shutting off water and power.

33:33and, 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 compromise cars, which are Internet devices. Oh, that's true, especially as cars become more electric 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 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, and that's where the military is headed these days.

34:15It is not replacing shooting wars, but it's more powerful. Like in World War II, the war came to our shores a little bit. in whatever's happening next. It's going to 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 a network of networks where everyone can protect each other. I'm not the guy to really be Paul Revere. Right. Because that would require, like, social skills. And remember, I'm a nerd. But you could be his horse, maybe. Well, I need to be something.

35:04But the deal is, as I issue this call to action, as I point out that many utilities are not protected, I'm going to 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. And I got, so I'll do it carefully. We're ramping up slowly. Um, we have this, uh, pause take nine campaign. So when you get a, like a suspicious email, that could be phishing and our adversaries are really smart. They're as smart as our guys. Yeah. And, uh, we need to know how to fight back. I need to consider helping out a new group being funded at Vanderbilt.

35:48At 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 going to 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 a big area. like one big area in veterans and military families. And I've now committed to a 200 million. Wow. And I've already spent more than half of it for cybersecurity.

36:34I've also committed a couple hundred million. This is not altruistic. This is just, well, I was raised in the fifties to be a patriot. This is just me following through with basics. and I got the cash. I'm not much for luxuries. I do get all the streaming services I want and I do have a larger TV than I should. I won't say anything. And beyond that, well, again, back to Sunday school, you want to know when enough is enough. Right, and 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 that just have so, it's like, what are you doing?

37:26Like, 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. And that's none of my business. Okay. I figure I should put my money where my mouth is 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? Well, I don't invest really. Okay. I do, I guess, yeah. What in the libertarian movement and the related financial stuff in the 70s, early 70s, there was this idea of capital preservation because inflation was really bad then.

38:20So people were finding assets 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 want to keep that safe. But that's the old libertarian background. These days my philosophy is much more mixed because I'm 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. now and then you want to help people out who need a hand how you do that effectively no one knows the real answers for but i can do a couple things not altruistic it's just uh basics and i learned all that uh over 60 years ago i mean i realized recently how formative that was that's when i started reading uh science fiction yeah it's funny how those young years you they're little things you'll keep.

39:29I still remember like certain things that I told someone I would do like 25 years ago. And every day, every couple of days, someone was like, Hey, don't forget, you still have to do that little thing. You know? Um, it's funny how, how like those formative years and things that we hear when we're young, um, can have such an, in, uh, such an effect on us, even as we grow older. Um, I want to talk a little bit more about the actual site. So the company starts growing, right? 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 um craigslist before you know good did you yourself ever go did you no i i that always felt like a conflict of interest and uh that's true you're like hey i'm craig yeah i got i got lucky in a uh i got lucky in a uh local uh cafe oh you met your wife your wife okay and we've been together for over 20 years now Wow.

40:24And if you have 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, wow. 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 charmed her. Yeah, that's the spirit. So last night we were at this fundraiser because I think she wanted to meet Jerry Seinfeld in particular.

41:09And 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 got to get your head into the moment and you don't want a distraction. Right. Yeah, that's a good point. You just want to kind of be a fly on the wall in some sense. Yeah. Wow. So you started off, said hello in a cafe, And then how long was that, was your relationship, how long did that kind of dating life go for you guys? Well, after about nine years, I think, I brought her over to, I showed her Facebook on a screen.

41:58I 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 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 move. 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 suave, you may also be a bit of a nerd. I think when it comes to, yeah, talking with women, it definitely, it's not my, you know, I wouldn't, yeah.

42:47Yeah. You're not, yeah. Yeah. Okay, that's the nerd cliche again. Yeah. I'm still socially awkward. Sometimes I can disguise that. Yes. But that's still me, and it's not going to change now that I'm in my sunset years. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sometimes it doesn't go away. You kind of start to learn it. I think I just had the, I have the tough thing of asking a girl out. Like sometimes I'm okay with talk. 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.

43:26Yeah. Well, that's the purpose of 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 a 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 name?

44:07Jim 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. He's a smaller guy? He's a foot taller than me. He's a taller guy, okay. So it makes for a good... Oh, there you are. You actually did it in your box. That's the old office space, and I was the one who suggested the gag there. Yeah, that's right. And kudos to your guys for being really good at pulling stuff up. Craigslist.org, yeah, man. When you guys were the first one to do.org, people were like, what is it? People thought I meant Oregon.

44:50People didn't even know, 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 so misconnections, do you remember like the first misconnection that was ever put up or the first personal that was ever put up? I'm sure people ask you that a lot. I don't remember much of that at all. 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 and the Wayback Machine, I could see the first site that I put up was mid or late 96.

45:38And that was pretty good. And I evolved that kind of minimal style. Like right now our site hasn't changed much in appearance. in 30 years. Why is that? Well, I talk to a lot of people, and they want it simple, fast, effective. They want what you see is what you get. 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. but that seems to be the minority. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This is, you know, what you want. What do you want? You want heavy equipment outside of South Jersey.

46:26What do you want? You know, you want biotech out, you know, in Mendocino, you know, you want legal issues, you know, you want ride shares, 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 And even the terms you have on there, it's like child care, right? Pets, rants and raves. It's like it's just anything you could need is kind of right here. And that means the site is always fast. Oh, because it's not a lot of big background. Wow. And see, we've helped people in the tens of millions or more put food on the table.

47:11What jobs, you mean? And selling things. Exactly. Okay. And advertise their services. But also, the site is so simple, we've shown tens or maybe hundreds of millions of Americans that the Internet could be useful and reasonably easy to use. And that meant a lot of people who may have been hesitant to get on the net. They get on the net. And again, that's fairness for everyone. that's treating people like you want to be treated, and that ain't bad. Yeah. Fairness, that's an important word, huh? It's important to you. Very much so because you try. Sometimes it's hard. There are often tough decisions to be made.

48:03But Jim took over that for the company, and maybe he's done a better job than I ever could, and I did make for a great customer service rep. 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 two jobs, manager and programmer, because getting good programmers is hard. And Jim, over time, hired a tech staff, everyone better at their job than I was. Wow. That's cool. 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.

48:49Yeah. I'm funnier than any of them are. Of course. But that's a, that may not be a high bar. Well, they did sometimes do great things. And like they would sometimes pull out great, great ads of all sorts, particularly Miss 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 guess I am in a mission. You know, vets and their families need our help. So that's one of your important causes. Independent journalism, veterans.

49:34What is another philanthropic cause you 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 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 at great length and 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.

50:14Okay. $25 million 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 pre-announce. A fundraising event? Well, if you guys ever need a comedian at one, I'd love to come. I can't believe it. I wish I'd have known last night. I would have gone. That would have 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, but people are busy.

50:53I should do other things. The comedy cellar is down the street from me. I've never gone in. Really? Yeah, well, they seem to be booked all the time. Yeah, they're pretty, and it's limited seating, too, in there. Yeah, and they're supposed to open at least one more space. 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 fortunately, we can do a good job about that. but uh i got to stay focused on the areas where i'm doing some good right the cyber security 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 cyber security is going to be such a big thing was there a lot of like attacks on security at craigslist like Did that happen?

51:54Well, there was always something, but we had a good team for that. Right. But do you have to have that? 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 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. But people thought that we had some quote unquote secret sauce.

52:34Yeah, some big fancy stuff. And the irony is that that was never the case. And yet people try to do things. There were some problems with leakages of that information. But the problem that I'm not concerned with that at Craigslist now, I'm concerned, well, I've been reading about this for decades. 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 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 one 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 sent out a drone and it's supposed to get information send it to artillery unit or missile that's supposed to fire automatically from the information from that drone and they're able to hack it.

53:45You could literally, our army could do it themselves. Wow. There's a lot of mundane things like our hot water heaters at home are 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 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 you don't even think about that somebody hacks your ovens next thing you know there's 1100 fires in an area.

54:35Now the deal is that there's room for optimism for help because there are already people who are really good at dealing with this. 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, starting to come up with, let's say, some best practices because we have some breathing space we think got it um 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 peep and tomming right if you wanted to look into somebody's window you had to go over there uh i don't know anything about that Yeah, I'm not saying you do.

55:30Yeah. 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. But what I'm saying is this. Now as a kid, you can use a drone. And that's the laziest thing. 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'm not getting lewd with it. I'm just saying, you know. But now you can just get a drone and go do it. It's like, it just breaks my heart, some of that kind of stuff. Well, in Manhattan, apparently that's illegal. And like, oh, right now I wonder, I like my tech toys.

56:10Yeah. 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, 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 a contested airspace because we need the cops to have drones. That's just getting crazy. You know, yeah, I just, you don't think about all of those things.

56:49You 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 volunteers who are running, let's say, the nonprofit world, the NGO world. And that way then they cooperate with other parties. But we do have to, well, it's like World War II. We looked out for each other. Everyone tried to play their part. And the looking out for each other in that positive way 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.

57:40Right. Right. And even worse, if the oven started running away, I would want to know what to do about that. 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, we heard in large numbers that people didn't want gun sales on the site. And there I am thinking, because I still have some influence then, there are constitutional rights there. But one of them is property rights. So if you have a site, 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.

58:37And that's what people do through the net. It's your site, your thing. You decide what the rules are. So you actually got to decide that or not decide it, or you and your team? Team. Okay. I had an opinion, but I wanted the team, as such as it was, 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 kind of leader. Maybe I could lead by example. My frustration in a way is that I want to be able to lead by example when it comes, there's a lot of people with a lot of discretionary money, billionaires who maybe could be doing really good stuff with that and uh uh 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 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 um when you um did your company because i'm trying to think like so guns was a thing do you guys end up selling them on there no uh no he said uh no guns uh-huh and uh 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, I mean, yeah.

1:00:20Drugs 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 site 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. Sometimes, let's suppose they think they see a stolen item being listed on the site. 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.

1:01:08And then the site, the operators usually pass it to their lawyers. And then the site operators provide the forensic evidence to the cops, which again is like CSI and just 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 people who did the initial work did great work. And it, for the most part, stands up today. They built a good structure over there. Yeah.

1:01:55Well, it's funny because you guys, there 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 um i met a girl one time and we watched a nets game and made love honestly and she let me 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 uh there's no accounting for taste yeah but uh i'm glad i'm glad yeah i know who wants to be a nets fan yeah your guys can remember that one for later years oh they've been on there dude i think we accidentally met up once um but there was a place you know i was like i had 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 uh i've never thought about that oh yeah everyone works differently everyone does have different tastes.

1:02:55And, uh, uh, that's, uh, none of my business. Yeah. You know, it's as long as it's legal. Oh yeah. It was, it was legal. Did you, um, it's funny to say that people started marriages. So people even got married off of, um, 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.

1:03:37I'm very grateful. Yeah.

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1:05:25Thank 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 want to sell the company? I haven't sold the company. Oh, you haven't sold. Okay, sorry. Here's the history to prevent some confusion. I gave a guy some equity. I made it a gift on the expectation that he'd deliver. That may have not happened, but he wanted to sell, sold to eBay, 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 501c4 foundation, put all the equity in there, and that's what generates dividends and sales.

1:06:21Okay. 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 within the rest of my life. Because you can look at the dividends and the earnings. That kind of stuff. And I figure I've got 5 to 20 years, 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 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?

1:07:10You have an excellent point there, although computers don't operate very well in the afterlife. Although I'm making an assumption. I don't know if that's true. So you still own it? Oh, this is an important distinction. I now own no equity. It's in that foundation, 501c4. Okay, so the company was transferred into a foundation or sold to a foundation? Well, 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.

1:07:55And so we have some leftover, which we do share with family. 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 billion. 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 billion? 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.

1:08:39There are some luxuries I like, but I don't own a car. Really? Frankly, between the subway 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. Well, altruistic means that you sometimes value helping other people more than yourself. Okay. It's the Bible thing. Right. And I agree. I just, my variation of have enough to be comfortable and to indulge your family, maybe friends sometimes, and then better to give stuff away. It's a difficult balance because the future is unpredictable.

1:09:30and 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 uh 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 who even though they were probably i bet secretly jealous look down at craigslist because it was this like what was that like i just wonder oh they've uh 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 um sometimes uh let's say they're not respectful of it and that's okay yeah uh 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 were aiming for?

1:10:27Well, I've met a bunch of rich people. None of them are all that happy. Yeah. And, uh, yeah, having, uh, too much money is a, uh, is a big trap and you get surrounded by people, by yes men and you get insulated from the needs of, uh, of regular people. 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 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 50s and to do things for yourself or by yourself, like especially going across town, I don't need to take a car.

1:11:29The subway is usually better. 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 now and then I 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. And so a lot of those things 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 one nephew and one niece. The nephew just got married. And I had to attend that one.

1:12:22However, 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 because I don't want to 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, was there one thing, like whether it was something like a specific Leonard Cohen piece, a record that he made that he'd autographed, was there one nice thing you bought for yourself that was meaningful to you?

1:13:13I bought some of the prints that he made. Oh, you did? Okay. 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. And I should have overindulged myself. Yeah. But it was the first auction I actually seriously participated in. And I just didn't get anything. Yeah, man. I don't recognize it. I didn't have anything in color. I did is a black and white prints. And you're heading into some of the ones that just passed. The ones in the middle right now, two of them I think I have. Wow, that's cool. Yeah, especially the one that's exactly what I have.

1:13:57Really? Yeah, and I may have that one 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, one time I was in, i was in tanzania you know and i was doing uh mount kilimanjaro okay right and we and afterwards we went someplace and they had a piece of art in there and it was like five hundred dollars right and i could spend like maybe three hundred dollars but i wish i had spent because going like 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 the time but it's like i didn't even think about it two weeks later or two months later, you know?

1:14:41So I just wish that I would have, cause I really liked the painting, you know, I was like, God, I just, and sometimes I wish like every now and then there's little things like that. I wish I'd have gotten like a nice piece of art or something, you know? Yeah. And the, uh, let's see on my side of the, uh, the house, that's the, uh, biggest investment I've made in art. Uh, 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. 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.

1:15:16Oh yeah. And she's good at it.

1:15:21I'm trying to think of something else. Were there other, so Craigslist was kind of the stepchild of the tech industry in a weird way? Was it looked like that? because I could imagine how jealous because here's people putting billions and millions of dollars into 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 one person put it we're one of the few ungentrified sites on the net.

1:16:02Yeah. And I guess we like it that way. Nothing has, not everything has to be expensive or fancy. Yeah. To give credit to a site I consider ungentrified, that's Wikipedia. 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 him and even in New York I'm working with their local chapter to give classes Wikipedia for beginners. Well, when you get to write an article or change an article, that gives you a lot of power. 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.

1:16:52Like, there's stuff on my Wikipedia, like, attaching me to, like, a part of my family. Like, they have half my family members wrong on it and stuff. And it, like, puts me in a, it's crazy. I'm like, all right. 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, some evidence of what's right and wrong. and then send it to someone who knows how to edit it. And they can do it. They can do that. Oh, dang. And you guys know how to get hold of me. And then I know I can get hold of someone who knows how to do the edits.

1:17:39At least how to do it. I have not gone to the class yet. Okay. And, yeah, the deal is that the system isn't perfect, 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. But, again, there's things, let's say, in the newspaper of record, and things which I know are wrong and which have been presented to them, and they're just not going to fix it. Yeah. And they don't want to? I don't understand the reasoning. They want to shape history sometimes, you think? Well, the deal is they were brought something which was wrong.

1:18:24It was proven to be wrong. And they say they weren't going to be truth vigilantes. And 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. Yeah, well, that's one way to do that. And I like the idea of really good AI replacing or supplementing search.

1:19:13but I worry about that also because even if I just casually screw around, I can get the AI systems to 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 can 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.

1:20:05Sometimes I become less impatient than I should be. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, you'll call a 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 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, which I'm involved with and working with a lot. With the magazine website? Yeah. Okay. Because they're trustworthy. And the idea is that, yeah, I would enjoy working with an AI system which would be responsive and give me good information.

1:20:47And 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 actually have a question about that, but I want to remember to ask this. How did Craigslist make money? Oh, oddly enough, since we run very lean, Jim runs us very lean, and even though we minimally charge, that makes enough because we're not expected to produce great results for VCs. For venture capitalists. So you don't have these money guys like, I need my return. That's right. Yeah. If no one's invested millions in us, we don't have to go public.

1:21:29No one's looking to get billions. And I'm happy with the current results. Yeah. The future 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 one or two more questions. Sure.

1:21:52Can you get that or I can get it for you? I'm stubborn. You're stubborn? I am stubborn. 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 know it 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 Like, I don't know if you could open it out. I was just trying to, 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't open it, but he just, the bottle's stubborn.

1:22:40Anyway, this didn't make any sense. My deal is that as an old man, I'm happy when I can still do some things. Oh, I see what you're saying. You've talked a lot about independent journalism, right? Okay. And that's something that I've read anyway is near and dear to your outlook in the world. Okay. Well, what we learned in U.S. history 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. You're part of that. I'm a lesser part of it. and I don't know what to do now except that I try to support things that I know work like the journalism school at the City University of New York okay and Wikipedia is now modern journalism there are other things that I try to help but I'm confused and I'm kind of 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 because that's a well-defined good which we need in a big way right now.

1:24:01And 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 and it needs help because the government can do some stuff, but everyone needs to play a role, like in World War II. 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?

1:24:43That was just kind of fascinating to me. Well, it means also I've read too much science fiction in my time. But 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. It's been a happy accident. 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 farthest scump of the Internet. But also with the right attitude to bring one person to another, you know, try to keep the golden rule in your mind.

1:25:28Things you learn from Sunday school. What about are your parents pretty proud of your parents still alive, Greg? 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 while he was still around, and that was a big deal. Oh, that probably meant a lot, huh? Yeah. Well, because teachers work hard for little pay. Oh, yeah. So anytime they have any long-term effect is a big deal. Yeah. Yeah, it's so funny. I still keep in touch with a lot of my teachers. It's important to me. I should, but at my age, there may not be many left.

1:26:17That's why we got to get that Ouija board going. Yes. I think that's the next level. 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? 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 want to 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.

1:26:55Yeah. 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 um i think that's good guys pretty good is there anything else that you want to share that's important to you uh i think you got it all and i think people will be tired of hearing from me after 90 minutes well look i do know if you if you if you really want to get some nitrous oxide you might be able to find some on craigslist i i've i've been advised by my medical team against it well 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.

1:27:40Man, I don't know how somehow I almost get your sense of humor now, Craig. It's very interesting. 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 one 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 mind, maybe this world, but the customer relations is a strong suit of mind, you know? And that's interesting just because, you know, sometimes we all feel like we have to do everything in different spaces.

1:28:15And then, yeah, and I'm glad you find a lady along the way. 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 than she is. Yeah, amen. Craig Neumer thank you so much man hey it's my pleasure I 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 peace of mind I found I can feel it in my bones but it's gonna tell you Amen.