It’s one of the most impressive conferences I have ever been to. I am talking about Craig Newmark‘s talk about Craigslist during Kinnernet. Newmark is a real geek, a guy who loves what he does, even if he could get rich very fast. He does not code any more, but he keeps talking to his users. “The way we deal with our users is what makes us special”, he explained. Craigslist has impressive data: 10 bn. pages a month, 34 mm. users a month and a value that could reach 5 bn. dollars. But it only charges for companies putting real estate and job offers in certain US cities. Newmark does not want to sell the company. He wants to keep offering the best service for free, as there are people who need it.

His attitude is so hard to understand for Venture Capitalists and money-oriented entrepreneurs that he admitted that many people think that he does not even exist. But he was there, with all his humbleness, which makes this person even more attractive. Will they keep this model? I am not sure if they will be able to, but I know they will try hard, as they love what they are doing.

By the way, two interesting things Newmark said:
– 10% of the company belongs to eBay because a former employee sold his shares. He did not like what happened, and admitted having had a hard time with some former employees.
– He is pro-Obama, as many of the people who came to Kinnernet. He explained he’s not a socialist, but a libertarian.
– Craigslist is in Spanish because one of their programmers comes from Madrid. That also explains why it is in Basque and catalan.