Damn spinless liberal not interested in making millions...what is wrong with this guy? Someone call Bill O'Reilly.

Craigslist Meets the Capitalists

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.” She recounts how UBS analyst Ben Schachter wanted to know how Craigslist plans to maximize revenue. It doesn’t, Mr. Buckmaster replied (perhaps wondering how Mr. Schachter could possibly not already know this). “That definitely is not part of the equation,” he said, according to MediaPost. “It’s not part of the goal.”

“I think a lot of people are catching their breath right now,” Mr. Schachter said in response.

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.”

Craigslist charges money for job listings, but only in seven of the cities it serves ($75 in San Francisco; $35 in the others). And it charges for apartment listings in New York ($10 a pop). But that is just to pay expenses.

Mr. Schachter still did not seem to understand. 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.

Following the meeting, Mr. Schachter wrote a research note, flagged by Tech Trader Daily, which suggests that he still doesn’t quite get the concept of serving customers first, and worrying about revenues later, if at all (and nevermind profits). Craigslist, the analyst wrote, “does not fully monetize its traffic or services.”

Mr. Buckmaster said the company is doubling in size every year, as measured by page views and listings.

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.”

I would love to be in a position to do what they are doing and to be able to do it as they are.

I only wish I could have been there to see the looks on the faces of the singleminded in attendance.

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Strength without compassion is brutality. Compassion without strength is weakness.

We must train our minds to desire what the situation demands.

Wish I coulda been there too.

They'll ultimately be seen as subversive and a threat and will have to be eliminated. No shining examples allowed here.

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"Who's more foolish - the fool or the fool that follows him?" - Obi Wan Kenobi

I dunno. Me, I'd take the billion dollar buyout. (And give a lot of the money to charity of course.)

This is a classic model of a public service oriented business being better than charity.

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Strength without compassion is brutality. Compassion without strength is weakness.

We must train our minds to desire what the situation demands.

Bless those guys...I've been an avid Craigslister for about 3 years and just LOVE that place; I'm absolutely adicted and view certain pages about once every 30 minutes. I've found great turn around deals and have made serious beer money.

If only most of the people on there looking to buy weren't frothing highly medicated mental cases, like the one that called me first thing this morning.