Treat people like you want to be treated; live and let live; and also give the other person a break now and then.
The stuff that works best is driven by passion rather than dollars.
There's no genius behind it. It's persistence and listening to people.
We think of Craigslist as a form of Social Media.We provide a simple service that is mostly free and we leave money in the community, instead of taking it away. Shared values, nothing fancy, treating people like we want to be treated. What works on the net works for people in general. The net has very little to do with technology, what matters is how people use the technology.
I don't expect to be a ‘leader’ with this thing. I'd rather be a builder. I'd like to build a way for people doing good work to connect, to learn from each other, protect each other, and then I want to get out of their way.
Sometimes a slow gradual approach does more good than a large gesture.
Death is my exit strategy. I'll be doing significant customer service only as long as I live.
Choose your mistakes carefully.
Finding a good cause is incredibly hard and time-consuming.
Follow through with basic values, and remember to provide good customer service.
I want you to know, at this very moment, I am simulating normal human behavior.
I admit that when I think of the money one could make from all this, I get a little twinge. But I'm pretty happy with nerd values: Get yourself a comfortable living, then do a little something to change the world.
People everywhere have the same needs and values. They need a place to live and a job. Beyond that, they may need to sell stuff or get a mate.
What works on the net works for people in general. The net has very little to do with technology, what matters is how people use the technology.
Getting out of the way is really important.
Crooks are early adopters.
Craigslist does serve as a platform where people help each other for the basics, and also, shows people that the Internet is good for mutual support. I do feel pretty good about that.
We are a very open, very democratic site, which means we get all sorts of people. We do get some bad guys who are a few fries short of a Happy Meal. So we have to enlist the aid of our community to help us. The lesson implicit in this is that people will help you out and behave in a really good way. If you trust them, they will respond to that trust.
In business, there are times when you disagree, and sometimes it turns out that you're just plain wrong. Humor takes away tension and helps you realize you're wrong.
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. The deal is, it's a mixture of luck and persistence.
I am committed to doing customer service for Craigslist for the rest of my life. The exit strategy is death.
From the very beginning, I was involved in talking to people, listening to people. And it hasn't stopped. The idea was that people send me information; I'd ask them about it, listen, try to do something about it - and then ask for more feedback.
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.
I feel that one of the best things a person can do for another is to create a job. So you do OK commercially, and then you try to make a difference of some sort.
I look at what the phone company does and do the opposite.
