Jim Buckmaster, the chief executive of Craigslist, caused lots of head-scratching Thursday as he tried to explain to a bunch of Wall Street types why his company is not interested in “monetizing” his ridiculously popular Web operation. Appearing at the UBS global media conference in New York, Mr. Buckmaster took questions from the bemused audience, which apparently could not get its collective mind around the notion that Craigslist exists to help Web users find jobs, cars, apartments and dates — and not so much to make money.
Wendy Davis of MediaPost describes the presentation as a “a culture clash of near-epic proportions.”
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The Tech Trader Daily blog ponders this question: “If YouTube was worth $1.65 billion, who knows what Craigslist would be worth if Jim and [site founder] Craig Newmark ever considred becoming — what’s the word? — capitalists.”
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Larry Dignan, writing on Between the Lines blog at ZDNet, called Mr. Buckmaster “delightfully communist,” and described the audience as “confused capitalists wondering how a company can exist without the urge to maximize profits.”
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2 comments:
This is an incredible story. Mostly from the pages of comments that follow it. Some further disclosure seems in order-- its one thing to do something for the love of it, or the love of humanity, or fame or whatever, but they still need to eat. I would wager that they eat well.
Also, if CL is really worth $xBillion, why not "sell out" and then do really good things with that incredible amount of money?
Agree with all your points--and you are absolutely right about the interesting reader comments following the article...
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