A Refreshing Attitude

NYTimes blog: “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 […]

NYTimes blog:

“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.”

And

‘How about running AdSense ads from Google? Craigslist has considered that, Mr. Buckmaster said. They even crunched the numbers, which were “quite staggering.” But users haven’t expressed an interest in seeing ads, so it is not going to happen.’

Maybe you’ve heard of other companies with similar, crazy ideas like Vanguard, REI, and Newman’s Own? Yeah, it’s called non-profit. (craigslist isn’t technically a non-profit, but their mentality is much closer to one than a build-to-flip company)

I’ve resisted the Adsense urge so far myself. Maybe I’m a non-profit kind of guy, too.

Even further…can’t it be enough to make operating money while providing a valuable social service? That’s essentially what Craigslist is, now that I think about it. A social service.

Published: December 13th, 2006