Latest / Drawn of History / Craigslist Founder Craig Newmark _ This Past Weekend w_ Theo Von _550(M4A_128K)

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Craigslist Founder Craig Newmark _ This Past Weekend w_ Theo Von _550(M4A_128K) · Drawn of History

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: I have some new tour dates to let you know about.
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: I'll be in East Lansing. I'll be in Toledo, Ohio. Rama,
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Ontario in the Canada. Pittsburgh, PA.
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: Eugene, Oregon.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Kennewick, Washington, Seattle. Washington, Victoria, BC in the Canada. College Station, Texas. Belton, Texas.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: San Antonio, Durant. Amarillo, Oxford, Mississippi. Howdy, howdy. Fayetteville, Arkansas, Tuscaloosa, Alabama,
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: and Tallahassee, Florida, Rosemont, Illinois, Winnipeg, and Calgary in the Canada.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: Get all your tickets at theovon.com slash T-O-U-R. Thank you
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: so much for your support. And thank you to the
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: fella in Montana that gave me this jacket. Got some
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: Indian artifacts on the back. And I just want to
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: say thank you. I really like this jacket. We've also
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: got some new merch, some new gang gang tees in
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: pepper and ivory. And we've got a new gang gang hat.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: Check those out and more at TheoVonStore.com. Happy holidays to everyone.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: Today's guest is an entrepreneur and a philanthropist. He worked
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: at IBM. He worked at Bank of America. But most
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: people know him as the founder of Craigslist. a site
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: that has given so many unique experiences to the world.
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: We're so happy to get to spend time today with
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: Craigslist's own Craig Newmark. And just want to let you know, like,
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: we're just excited you're here and we don't have any,
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: this isn't like a, like a got you podcast.
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: We're not trying to do anything uncomfortable.
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: Um, you know, obviously you've had a very unique life and, um,
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: we just want to, I think we're curious about it,
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: you know?
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: Well, two episodes ago you had Ryan Martin. Yeah. And
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: I learned one big thing on, uh, on thinking about
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: what he had said. So, uh, I'm, I'm prepared to
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: even mention that because, uh, he made me realize something
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: which I won't be able to do anything about, but
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: at least understanding helps. Oh, about anger. Yes.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah. He's a, yeah. I thought Ryan Martin was really interesting.
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: He's a professor over in green Bay because I think
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: anger is something that's kind of enveloping people a lot
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: these days. You know, I find it a lot in
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: myself and you almost get him. I mean, obviously it's,
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: it's kind of embarrassing. You know, it's a weird feeling.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: That's like, you know, it can lead to a lot
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: of negativity can lead to, you know, dangerous activities, but
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: it also, you, I feel that you get embarrassed of it,
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: you know, and it kind of just takes you over.
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: Well, in my case, it's tied in with some traumatic stress.
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: And my deal is I learned the hard way that
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: no good deed goes unpunished. I learned that a person
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: who's basically honest will never be able to successfully deal
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: with a person who lies for a living. Uh, that's
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: very frustrating because I have to keep it in. Someday
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: somebody may, uh, be able to do it, to deal
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: with it, maybe with some help from me someday, uh,
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: some situations may turn into, uh, some real drama, possibly
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: criminal referrals, but I'm the kind of guy who people
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: for years have been told, have been telling me that, uh,
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: some areas I just don't have the skills and I
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: contribute by not talking. Hmm. So do you feel like
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: you're kind of a quiet guy sometimes? Uh, Generally quiet,
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: generally restrained, except for reasons of comedy. I know that
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: I'm not as funny as I think I am. And yet, like,
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: I tell my philanthropic grantees that I would like for
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: them to tolerate my sense of humor, but not encourage me. Okay, nice.
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: And so far that's worked out well, particularly last night,
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: the Bob Woodruff thing. I did briefly hang out. What
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: was it last night, just so we can tell our
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: listeners now? Yeah. Last night, there was a fundraiser for
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: the Bob Woodruff Foundation. They run a network called Got
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: Your Six. Got Your Six? Got Your Six, like in
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: the military sense. Right, got your bet.
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: And about 350 organizations who are actually good at helping.
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: And many philanthropic organizations are, challenged when it comes to
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: actually helping. But these guys are good. They need a
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: lot of money to help out, help out vets and
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: their families. And this was both a comedy concert and
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: a music concert. The guys, I think it was Mark Norman. Oh,
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: Mark Norman was there? Yeah. Yeah, he's great. We're both
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: from New Orleans. Well, starting from there, there's Jim Gaffigan. Wow.
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: Jerry Seinfeld and Jon Stewart. on the comedy side, which
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: was great for me.
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: Um, and then on the music side, Nora Jones, and
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: then there's this guy, uh, uh, Springsteen.
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: Cause I, I had spoken to him before and I
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: told him, uh, that, uh, as a nerd, I, I
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: understood that he was very popular, but that I don't
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: know his music. And he reacted, uh, uh, quite, uh, satisfactorily, um,
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: His jaw dropped. His wife, this was a few years ago,
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: but his wife got the joke immediately. The better part
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: of the joke is I was being literal. I really
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: am a nerd. I'm the kind of guy in the
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: late 60s in high school. I wear a plastic pocket protector,
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: thick black glasses taped together. No social skills.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: So you really, you, did you kind of embody that
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: nerd vibe? Like you were like, you saw a nerd
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: and you were like, I'm going.
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: To be over here. I'll be there. I had to
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: originate to say, you found the store of old photos. Oh, wow.
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: That's me in high school. Those are the thick black glasses. Oh, yeah.
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: Not taped together at the time. Now, see, I can
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: simulate or fake normal human social behavior now. but it
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: is a simulation. I have to work hard on it
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: all the time. And after a while, I will start
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: getting cranky. Okay. But the nerd cliche originated right around
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: when I was around, so I do take credit for it.
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: Well, we're glad to have one of the most nerd-torious humans,
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: Craig Newmark. Thanks for hanging out, man. I appreciate it.
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: And we're in the Chelsea Hotel No. 2. Do you
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: know that? I know you're a Leonard Cohen fan.
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: And he had songs that were based out of here.
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: I think he spent time with Janis Joplin here.
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: He did. Yeah, allegedly. And, well, near where I live
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: in the village not far away, walking distance, I have
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: a friend, my comedy consultant, and he lived here during
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: that heyday. He knew both of them. and others. He
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: was intimidated by Leonard Cohen. See, this friend was in
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: the process of transitioning from music to comedy, which turned
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: out to be easier for him to do. He was
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: really big in the 70s and 80s. He may not
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: have invested well. Because I saw him yesterday. But he's
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: much funnier than I am, for real. And That's why
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: I know that I'm not as funny as I think
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: I am. Very fair.
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: Look, you're doing okay with me so far.
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: Thank you. If I knew you better, I'd, I believe
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: comedians indulge in a practice called breaking balls. Oh, yeah.
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: I will introduce my friends sometimes as a guy who
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: used to be funny. I will tell them, oh, yeah,
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: comedy requires actually funny material. Yeah. Yeah, that's a good
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: starting point. But he's given me a couple jokes to use,
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: reminding me that at his age and my age, when
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: you get down to tie your shoes, you look around
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: and you think, what else can I do while I'm
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: down here? And unfortunately, that's turned true. When I do
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: get down, I'm... I have some worries about being able
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: to get back up again.
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Once you get down to the ground
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: floor again, sometimes you kind of want to stay down there.
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: We used to listen to Leonard Cohen when I was
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: a kid. My mom would put it on when we
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: would have to clean the house on Saturdays and my
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: mom would put it on. I remember that song, when
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: the walls came down.
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: Okay, that's older school even for Leonard. All the way
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: to hell.
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: And we'd be like, all right, I'll... I'll clean.
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I vaguely remembered him, well, in like 88 or so,
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: I'm Your Man premiered, and I love that. First, We'll
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: Take Manhattan, and then I found Various Positions.
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: What is that first, We'll Take Manhattan?
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: Then We'll Take Berlin.
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: Then We'll Take Berlin. Yeah, dude, that's crazy. Those lyrics
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: have mildly been in my head over the years, and
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: I didn't even know that that's where they were from.
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: They were from Leonard Cohen. Yeah, he influenced a lot.
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: of musicians after. He's my favorite in an obsessive way.
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: And now and then when I'm in the right mood,
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: I will listen to him. He's not cheerful by the
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: way most people think about him. He's a little dark. Yeah,
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: but he's uplifting if you're into it.
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he reminds me of a kind of a darker
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: Anthony Bourdain of music in a way.
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: I haven't thought about that, but I'm trying not to
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: think too much about food. Okay, okay. Well, my problem
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: simply is that since I've been on the run all morning,
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: I did pass a place which had what looked like
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: a good slice of pumpkin pie. Oh, yeah, brother. I, however,
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: may have been disappointed. So I'll think of something... Later
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: this afternoon. Something a little less risque, huh? Well, my
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: problem is that food is just too delicious. Yeah. And
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: it's hard to know when to stop. Yeah.
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: Well, it's funny because they don't put a stop sign
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: at the bottom of a dessert or something.
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: That may or may not be helpful. I will face
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: the challenge in roughly two hours. Okay. There we go.
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: Well, we have you for a limited time today. I
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: do want to talk. You are the Craig from Craigslist. Yeah.
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: That is true. Yes. Okay.
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: And how did Craigslist start? I know it's a basic question,
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: but you don't even think about it. As a regular human,
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: we don't even know that you're real. You don't even know.
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And I occasionally tell people that Craig is fake,
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: like Betty Crocker. My deal is that I moved to
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: San Francisco mid-93. Okay. And I saw there were a
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: lot of people helping each other out. on the net,
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: sometimes doing so giving away expensive consulting time. And I
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: took advantage of that. People helped me settle in, told
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: me about neighborhoods and restaurants and events that I might
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: get interested in.
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: So you were communicating on the internet just with people
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: looking for information about living in a new area.
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah. A lot of this was from the well, an
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: early virtual community, some from Usenet newsgroups, which were the
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: first big deal discussion boards, and there is this spirit
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: that we were all going to use the net to
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: help each other out. Yeah. So I thought I should
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: give back, started a simple CC list, telling people about
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: what I thought were cool events, usually arts and technology,
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: like Joe's Digital Diner or the Anon Salon, which was
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: a party fundraiser for a local theater, highly entangled with
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: the very earliest Burning Man. And I never got involved
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: with that because I realized that I'm not a burner
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: at heart. But this mailing list started growing via word
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: of mouth. And I started asking for more stuff than
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: just events. Like if people wanted to sell something, if
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: people had a job or an apartment. So that's how
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: it started.
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: You started just emailing people with information about things to
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: do in the area. It started to grow, and it
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: was just an actual list of people you were sending
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: a message to.
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was literally an email CC list, and that
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: broke at 240 addresses. I had to use a listserv.
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: I had to give the thing a name. I'm very
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: literal as a nerd. I wanted to call it San
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: Francisco Events since it was still mostly that. Yeah. I, yeah,
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: I don't have much of an imagination. Well. But then
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: I was going to call it SF events. People around
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: me told me they had given the name Craigslist. Ah.
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: They told me I had accidentally created a brand. Then
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: they explained to me what a brand is because I
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: was that naive. They were right. Called it Craigslist. Just
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: kept growing increasingly for the first three years after Just me.
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: And how often was the list going out? Whenever somebody
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: had something, I would send it out. Okay. So was
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: that once a week or twice a month? If I
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: was lucky, it could be, let's say, something worthwhile a
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: few times a day. Oh, nice. Okay. The deal is
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: not that big, but let's say high value. And I
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: was being careful. I didn't want to spam anyone. Right.
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: And it just kept growing via word of mouth. And
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: we've never really done any advertising. I should be careful.
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: I'll wrap around to it, but I'm not involved with
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: the thing nowadays. I'm retired, busier than I've been, but retired.
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: But the deal is it's just me for a few years.
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: And you're the only staff member. Yes.
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: And what were some of those early high value items?
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: Like what was something that would come across? Are we
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: talking like kind of like a, like a painting? Are
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: we talking like a little catamaran? What are we talking about?
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: Mostly I was thinking about jobs. Okay. Because one of
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: the best things you could do for someone is to
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: help them get a job. Um, sometimes then help them, uh,
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: well find a place to live. Uh, what Craigslist is
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: about in a lot of ways is helping put food on,
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: helping people put food on the table. Right.
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: You would say, yeah, that's a great point. If you
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: can help somebody get a job, it's such a, yeah,
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: that's residual.
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: And it was, uh, completely free the first three years.
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: but the people who were putting jobs on there wanted
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: me to charge them for to post for jobs.
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: Because they felt some like indebted in some way.
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: Well, they felt that, uh, they were paying a lot
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: more money for job ads and other places with fewer results,
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: less quality results. So they said, uh, charge us a
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: little bit, that'll pay the bills. And they were right. Um,
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: experimented a little bit with volunteers, and charging for jobs
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: in 98, but I got the idea from people in 97,
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: running with volunteers didn't work. What do you mean running
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: with volunteers? You mean to help you? Yes. Okay, and
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: at that point, you're just doing it out of your home?
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: Exactly right. First three years off of your home computer. Yeah.
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: How big did the email list get? Sorry, Craig. You know,
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: I don't really know how big it got through that time,
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: because in 96, I remembered that I'm a programmer, I
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: can write software, which turns emails into web pages. And
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: so I started doing that, which gave me web publishing
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: for free. And when something started taking too much of
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: my time, I wrote some more code, which reduced what
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: might take an hour a day to a few minutes
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: a day. Got it. And that happened a number of times.
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: But in 1998, I tried running it with volunteers. The
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: people who... cared for the thing, who were doing job
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: postings in particular, said, volunteer thing isn't working. Sometimes things
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: would take a while to get posted. So I had
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: to make the thing into a real company. Right.
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: So at that point, you're like, if I wanted to
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: keep this going, there needs to be some checks and balances,
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: and obviously salaries help create that.
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I need to hire other people to do coding,
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: customer service, billing. And that meant... making it into an actual, uh,
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: corporate structure. Was that scary to think about that? Uh,
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: very scary. But the hard part was at that point,
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: you know, at events parties, I would talk to bankers
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: and venture capitalists who wanted me to do the usual
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: Silicon Valley thing. Yeah. Monetize everything. And they would throw
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: a billions at me. And, uh, I was thinking I
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: don't need billions. I don't understand why people would do that.
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: And that has to do with in Sunday school, Mr.
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: and Mrs. Levin, they taught me that you should know
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: when enough is enough. They taught me to treat people
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: like you want to be treated. So nothing altruistic. This
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: is just a return to Sunday school values literally. And
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: so we– Craigslist's philosophy is to monetize only those ads
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: for people who are paying more money for less effective ads.
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: So not an altruistic decision, right? Just basics.
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but also a little bit of barrier to entry,
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: which not in a negative way, because you still everybody
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: needs to hire someone or has the opportunity and maybe
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: they can't afford the ad. But but it provides a
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: little more structure to even just some basic.
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it does provide some structure.
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: Well, that's useful in the sense that, well, everyone is
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: struggling trying to get through the day.
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: Right. And.
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: Some people are doing things for profit, like brokering apartments
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: in New York City. And sometimes with questionable ethics. And
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: I found one year that new apartment brokers might make
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: like $ 20, 000 in a year, which even 15 years ago,
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: you had to work two or three other jobs. So
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: I said, how do you balance the idea that you
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: want to give everyone a break and I was able
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: to suggest stuff to the people running the company at
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: that point, because also in, again, I made Craigslist into
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: an actual company in 99. Okay, so that's when it
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: became an actual company in 1999. Yeah. And at that point,
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: are you guys having office? you guys have uh we
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: turned it from running it in a room in my
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: house into a room in a commercial strip way out
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: in the neighborhoods of san francisco wow that's cool and
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: the other hard decision i had to make that year
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: 99 was that I started to realize with help that
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: as a manager, I suck. Oh, yeah. It's hard to
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: be a manager, isn't it? Very hard.
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: Because you don't realize once you start to have employees
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: and stuff, you're like, suddenly I'm a boss. And if
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: you never wanted to be a boss, it's a very
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: precarious situation to be in.
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: I've been there, man.
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: What were some of the things that you noticed you
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: were not good at?
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: Well, mostly hiring and firing as a nerd. I am
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: not good at reading people. And I needed to promote
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: someone who would be good at that. And I'd already
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: stopped coding because I hired a bunch of people who
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: are better than me. Okay. I stepped down to just
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: do full-time customer service. I'm a great customer service rep. Okay.
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: Not a manager of customer service, but... I was a
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: customer service rep and did that for maybe around 15 years.
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: Okay, so you ended up just being a customer service
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: rep at your own company.
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: Wow, so if somebody had a customer service issue, they
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: would contact you on the phone or email?
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: Well, with some luck, they would contact someone else on
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: phone first. Okay. I took that luxury for myself of
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: not having to answer the phone. Okay. But they would
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: generally email me because I was just Craig at Craigslist.org.
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: Easy to guess. So I spent a lot of time
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: doing that kind of thing and got a lot of
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: stuff done. And you find yourself effective there. Yeah. Well,
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: I saw what I mostly saw was a lot of good.
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: That is people on the net are overwhelmingly good. The
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: bad guys, bad actors get a lot more press because
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: sometimes mainstream media generates clicks and by emphasizing the bad.
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: This is kind of a normal thing. Especially nowadays.
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: What were some of the things you saw in there
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: early that helped you to believe in the good and
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: continue to make it go?
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: Consistently, I saw people helping each other out. Consistently, I
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: saw people give away stuff that they could have sold
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: for some cash. Like sometimes you don't need the cash.
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: and then you would just give away something of actual value,
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: like old computer equipment. That was pretty good. Oh, yeah.
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: A lot of baby cribs on there, a lot of
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: stuff like that. In fact, that's in particular, that's particularly true.
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: Baby cribs, baby carriages, and moving boxes.
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: Which could also be a baby carriage, depending on, you know.
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: Or a cat toy. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. But the
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: idea is that when you move, you have a lot
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: of boxes on, which are still really good, and the
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: chances are nearly 100% someone not far away needs good boxes. Yeah.
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: I used to live with a guy.
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: I lived with this guy named Kenny for a bit,
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: and he was a pretty big stoner, right? And I
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: didn't know him. Met him on Craigslist, right? I'd get
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: over there, and I ended up living over there. And
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: he would stack– he had a couple cats and stuff,
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: and at night he was kind of like a– I
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: guess kind of an avant-garde, like circus-y kind of animal
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: trainer guy. But he would stack all the boxes, these
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: empty boxes in the room, and he would make the
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: cats play on them, and he'd make me come out
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: of my room to watch.
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: The show, you know.
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: So it was crazy, but it was like something I
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: still kind of remember about him. I guess it was pretty,
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: I thought it was interesting. But, yeah, people use boxes, yeah.
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, the deal is that people everywhere in the
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: country are okay with, I when you're doing customer service
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: at that deeper level, you see a lot of stuff
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: and most of it is great. I did see some
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: stuff I wish I didn't. And that's the problem with
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: content moderation. It's a very tough job, especially if it's
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: full time and you're not getting paid much. And so
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: these people are only seeing questionable stuff. And that can
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: do some damage.
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: So at that point, yeah, I guess because Craigslist started
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: to be this place, it kind of became everything really
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: fast is what it felt like just as a user, right?
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: It became like a first place where you could get
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: a blender or an air balloon or a roommate. But
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: then it started to escalate to where there was like
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: people would buy drugs on there or you'd see people
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: like I would do it. you know, and you would
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: see people, but they also had code names for the drugs.
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: So it made it to be this kind of like,
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: it had a fun spot to it. You know, you'd
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: be on there. I mean, they had like, I remember
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: Beef Jerky was a code name. Those mini bennies they had,
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: that brain dander, that baby hay was one of them.
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: I'm trying to think of any other, that Pedrito Blanco
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: was a Span, but you know what it was, that
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: Dragon de Negro they had.
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: Uh, I'm trying to eat that whispering mother. That was,
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: that was a kind of a native one that they were,
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: it was peyote.
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: Well, I know that, uh, the mainstream press greatly exaggerated
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: a lot of this. They didn't point out that what
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: you see on the street always makes it online and
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: online everywhere. You guys weren't producing it. Well, what they,
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: what the mainstream press doesn't point out that if you're
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: a conscientious site, you, uh, keep around the digital forensics.
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: And because people leave a lot of trace evidence around
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: CSI style. And that years and years ago, I talked
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: with a lot of cops who were real pleased with
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: the way that we kept around the forensics. And because
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: of high school history, I learned the balance between fighting
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: crime and the rights of the accused, what's in the
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: Bill of Rights, what's in the constitution. Wow.
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: So you had to, so you took that upon yourself to,
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: it must've been kind of a tough navigation.
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: Was it tough to navigate that personally?
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: Because you have this, this atmosphere that people can kind of,
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: it's a, it's just a pathway, right?
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: Well, what I did is I mentioned this to the
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: boss and to the lawyers and said that we got
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: to do this balance. We had the advantage of having
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: the electronic frontier foundation available and because they're the big
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: pioneers of all this stuff online. What does that mean,
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: the Electronic Frontier Foundation? Well, what they did is they're
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: a great voice in standing up for the rights of
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: regular people and that balance. You've got to do the
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: right thing for victims and cops. You've got to do
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: so in an American way, meaning looking at the Bill
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: of Rights. And if a cop wants to see the forensics,
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: there needs to be something like a subpoena or a
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: search warrant.
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: That's the way things are done in our country. Those
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: are the laws. That's judicial overview. And that's the ultimate
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: purpose of that was to prevent the kind of abuse
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: we saw under King George, literally speaking. I did have
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: that really good high school history teacher. He taught the
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: kind of civics that you don't have nowadays. But I
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: took this in 1970. I'm really old. You look great. Well,
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: thank you. This teacher was great because he even took
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: us once to a taping of a firing line, which
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: was William F. Buckley Jr. He invented American conservatism, at
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: least the modern form of it. And that really influenced
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: me because at that point, I'm going to get off
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: on a tangent, but at that point I was looking
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: at that. I was starting to take a bit of
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: a look at libertarianism, that kind of stuff. And this is,
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: More than 50 years ago.
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: So it's funny because you kind of ended up in
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: this space later on where you're trying to look at
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: the ethics of communication, who has rights, how do you
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: protect people, but also give people the freedoms that they
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: deserve under their own life.
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: Is that what you're kind of saying? That's pretty much it.
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: These days, frankly, I've given up on politics for some years.
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: I now regard terms like liberal and conservative, as kind
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: of a bullshit. And I gotta, well, I gotta focus
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: on helping people who protect the country. Like there's vets
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: and their families, there's active service members and their families.
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: And right now we're beginning to see battles on our soil,
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: on our own systems as a precursor to a cyberspace warfare.
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: When you think about businesses that are selling through the roof,
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: like ALO or Allbirds or Skims, sure, you think about
• 29:08
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• 29:12
  Speaker 1: an often overlooked secret is actually the businesses behind the
• 29:17
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• 29:23
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• 29:30
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• 29:39
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• 29:59
  Speaker 1: to shopify.com slash T-H-E-O to upgrade your selling today. Shopify.com
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: slash Theo. You know, since the last holiday season, things
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: have changed, certainly. The world has gotten busier and different.
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: Your life has changed. Maybe something you did last year
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: you don't do anymore and something you didn't do now
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: you do.
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: Things evolve.
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: Certainly, we have that with our online store, different items,
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: switching to a new storefront. All those sorts of things
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: come into play. ShipStation helps us achieve our shipping goals.
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 30:41
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• 30:45
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• 30:50
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• 30:54
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• 30:57
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• 30:59
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• 31:03
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• 31:10
  Speaker 1: Use code Theo to sign up for your free 60-day trial.
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: That's ShipStation.com, code T-H-E-O. Right now, people like you, as
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: an influencer, you're a target. Yeah, we get stopped for things,
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: and we have to take certain things down, things that
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: we think are just fair speech.
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: We have to put it all through a filter. Well,
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: I'm more worried about our foreign adversaries, and I'm most
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: worried about our foreign adversaries starting to compromise our utilities, water, power,
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: and even our cars, because that's a thing that's happening
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: in the here and now. Really? You could do a
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: search online for something called Volt Typhoon. How do you
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: spell it? Vault, like electrical vault. Okay, vault. Typhoon, like
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: a big storm. And the FBI have been warning everyone
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: that right now... What is a vault typhoon?
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: A cybersecurity expert explains that Chinese hackers targeting U.S. critical infrastructure.
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: What is this? Can you tell me a little bit
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: about it, do you mind, Craig?
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: Right now, what they're doing is they're infiltrating home systems
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: to be used to attack other systems. What's worse is
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: they're attacking... the programmable controllers which control the flow of
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: water into our taps. They're controlling the flow of electricity
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: into our homes. And a lot of those systems for
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: much of the country are not protected. The deal is
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: that most of the country, there are rural water systems,
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: rural electrical systems. They don't have the resources to protect them.
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: So a Chinese hacker, a Chinese military hacker, could get
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: in there. And sway our elections and stuff? Well. Or
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: sway our waterways? Sway if we have access to water? Well,
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: what they can do is turn off the water supply.
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: And so if, let's suppose you wanted to invade a
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: small island country, which was our ally. And if the
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: other country, our adversary, wanted to discourage us, from fighting
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: on behalf of our ally, they could just start shutting
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: off water and power. And, you know, if they did
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: that where you're living, that would kind of ruin your day.
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: And for that matter, they could compromise cars, which are
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: internet devices.
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: Oh, that's true, especially as cars become more electric and
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: more like digital, really.
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: Yes, they could shut off your car, stall it out,
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: in the middle of rush hour traffic, if they did
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: that in a city like New York, if they could
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: just do 100 cars, that snarls traffic indefinitely. Wow.
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you do that, and then they shut the power down,
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: and now things are getting really weird.
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and all they would have to do is show
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: they could do it, and that's where the military is
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: headed these days. It is not replacing shooting wars, but
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: it's more powerful now Like in World War II, the
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: war came to our shores a little bit. In whatever's
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: happening next, it's going to be a much bigger thing.
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: I'm planning to issue a national call to action wherein
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: we tell everyone that we need to protect our homes.
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: Utility companies need to protect themselves. We're trying to build
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: the networks of networks where everyone can protect each other.
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: I'm I'm not the guy to really be Paul Revere. Right.
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: Because that would require, like, social skills. And remember, I'm
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: a nerd. But you could be his horse, maybe. Well,
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: I need to be something. But the deal is, as
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: I issue this call to action, as I point out
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: that many utilities are not protected, I'm going to piss
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: off a lot of people. You think so? Why would
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: they be upset? I don't understand that part. Well, sometimes
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: people kill the messenger. Right. So I'll do it carefully.
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: We're ramping up slowly. We have this pause, take nine campaign.
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: So when you get a suspicious email, that could be phishing.
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: And our adversaries are really smart. They're as smart as
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: our guys. And we need to know how to fight back.
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: I need to consider helping out a new group being
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: funded at Vanderbilt. At Vanderbilt? Yeah. Oh, nice. That's where
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: I live in Tennessee. Well, they've just started, within the
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: past couple weeks, started a new facility, which is going
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: to be led by General Paul Nakasone, who led, I
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: think it was Cyber Command. And they have this philosophy
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: of defense forward, where they're not waiting for the adversary
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: to come and get us. We're taking more active measures.
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: And that's a big concern for you. So that's something
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: you donate to, right? Well, that's a big area, like
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: one big area in veterans and military families. And I've
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: now committed to $ 200 million.
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: And I've already spent more than half of it. For cybersecurity,
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: I've also committed a couple hundred million. This is not altruistic.
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: This is just, well, I was raised in the 50s
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: to be a patriot. This is just me following through with... Basics.
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: And I got the cash. I'm not much for luxuries.
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: I do get all the streaming services I want. And
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: I do have a larger TV than I should. I
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: won't say anything. And beyond that, well, again, back to
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: Sunday school, you want to know when enough is enough. Right.
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: You have to give back. Yeah. We talk about that
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: on here sometimes. I wonder if there should almost be
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: a law.
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: I mean, you couldn't make it a law, but that
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: at a certain point, people, somebody doesn't need any more money,
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: you know, like, because then it becomes, you see some
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: people that just have, so it's like, what are you doing? Like,
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: you know, it becomes almost this obsessive thing where, um,
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: I don't know. It just, it seems scary to think
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: that some people have so much money.
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: Well, I don't judge any of that. Everyone decides what's
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: right for themselves. And that's none of my business. Okay.
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: I figure I should put my money where my mouth
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: is and then try to get some good stuff done,
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: make the occasional mistake. And some of my decisions weren't great,
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: but they weren't really mistakes.
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: You mean like in what, investing and stuff like that
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: you mean?
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: Well, I don't invest really. Okay. I do, I guess, yeah.
• 38:08
  Speaker 2: What in the libertarian movement and the related financial stuff,
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: In the 70s, early 70s, there was this idea of
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: capital preservation because inflation was really bad then. So people
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: were finding assets where they could preserve their capital. Of course,
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: I was in college. I didn't have much.
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: But I invest, in the literal sense, very little. I
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: just want to keep what I have for nonprofits and
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: some for myself, and I want to keep that safe.
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: And- But that's the old libertarian background. These days, my
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: philosophy is much more mixed because I am told in
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: Sunday school and elsewhere that you do want to, well,
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: now and then you go on to be your brother's
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: or sister's keeper. Now and then you want to help
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: people out who need a hand. How you do that effectively,
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: no one knows the real answers for. But I can
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: do a couple things. Not altruistic. It's just basics. And
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: I learned all that over 60 years ago. I mean,
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: I realized recently how formative that was. That's when I
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: started reading science fiction.
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's funny how those young years, there are little
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: things you'll keep. I still remember like certain things that
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: I told someone I would do like 25 years ago.
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: And every day or every couple of days, someone's like, hey,
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: don't forget, you still have to do that little thing.
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: You know, it's funny how like those formative years and
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: things that we hear when we're young, you know, can
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: have such an in in uh such an effect on
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: us even as we grow older um i want to
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: talk a little bit more about the actual site so
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: the company starts growing right and in addition to people
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: helping each other get jobs people were helping each other
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: people were starting relationships on there i went on dates
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: off of um craigslist before you know good did you
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: yourself ever go did you.
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: No, I always felt like a conflict of interest. Yeah,
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: that's true. You're like, hey, I'm Craig. Yeah, I got
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: lucky in a local cafe. Oh, you met your wife.
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: Your wife, okay. And we've been together for over 20
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: years now.
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: Wow, and if you have some social awkwardness, what was
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: that like for you?
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: I decided I would take a big chance. Yeah, I've
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: been there, dude. And told her that she's beautiful. The
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: guy next to me, she tells me, rolled his eyes.
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: And because he rolled his eyes, that's why she started
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: talking to me. Oh, wow.
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: So there was a little bit of some empathy there,
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: human empathy.
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: Well, it could have been a pity discussion. That's another
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: way of saying empathy, yeah. Obviously, I charmed her. Yeah,
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: that's the spirit. So last night, we were at this fundraiser. Mm-hmm.
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: because I think she wanted to meet Jerry Seinfeld in particular,
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: and I don't blame her. I had nothing to say.
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: I was tongue-tied, but that's how I normally act when
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: I talk to celebrities, particularly if you're backstage and there's
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: a show going on. And having done a little bit
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: of that, you've got to get your head into the moment,
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: and you don't want a distraction.
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: Right. Yeah, that's a good point. You just want to
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: kind of be a fly on the wall in some sense.
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Wow.
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: So you started off, said hello in a cafe, and
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: then how long was that? Was your relationship, how long
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: did that kind of dating life.
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: Go for you guys? Well, after about nine years, I think,
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: I brought her over to, I showed her Facebook on
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: a screen. I don't really use it anymore, but I said,
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: Is it okay if I change my relationship status to engaged? Wow.
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: And it took her a moment, but she said, oh,
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: that's good. Because I calculated at that point that parental
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: pressure had grown significantly. From yours and hers? Hers. Okay.
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: And that worked out pretty well.
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: That's a pretty suave online move. That's almost the most
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: online way you could ask someone to marry you, I
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: feel like.
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: Well... I hate to say it, but if you consider
• 42:33
  Speaker 2: that a suave, you may also be a bit of
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: a nerd.
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: I think when it comes to, yeah, talking with women,
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: it definitely, it's not my, you know, I wouldn't, yeah.
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah. You're not, yeah. Yeah. Okay. That's the nerd cliche again. Yeah.
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: I'm still socially awkward. Sometimes I can disguise that. Yes.
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: But that's still me. And it's not going to change
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: now that I'm in my sunset years. Yeah. Yeah.
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Sometimes it doesn't go away. You kind of start
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: to learn it. I think I've just had the, I
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: have the tough thing of asking a girl out. Like
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: sometimes I'm okay with talk. I'll get good with talking
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: with a woman, but it's just that next part. And
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: we'll just be standing there and we'll be like, well,
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: somebody should ask somebody out or walk away from somebody.
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: And then you're just still just standing there.
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, that's the purpose of Miss Connections. Yeah. Which- Anecdotally,
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: I know works once in a while because I've encountered
• 43:36
  Speaker 2: over the years a bunch of couples which had gotten married. No,
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: off of misconnections. Yes. And I like that a great deal.
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: It is romantic in an understated way. Oh, yeah. Well,
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: how did that start? How did that misconnection start? Well,
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: Jim decided he wanted to put it up. He was
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: the boss then, so he did.
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: Oh, Jim was the guy running the company.
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: At that point?
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: When I realized that, again, I'm a terrible manager, I'd
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: already hired Jim, who's a good manager. Jim, what's his name?
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: Jim Buckmaster. Jim Buckmaster, yeah. You'll see pictures of us together,
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: and if it looks like we're at eye level, it's
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: because I'm standing on a box.
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: Okay. He's a smaller guy? He's a foot taller than me.
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: He's a taller guy, okay. So it makes for a good... Oh,
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: there you are.
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: You actually do have your box. That's... the old office space.
• 44:30
  Speaker 2: And I was the one who, who suggested the, the
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: gag there. Yeah. And, and kudos to your guys for
• 44:39
  Speaker 2: being really good at pulling stuff up. Craigslist.org.
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, man. When you guys were the first one to do.org,
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: people were like, what is it? People thought it meant Oregon.
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: People didn't even know what, you know, where is it?
• 44:52
  Speaker 2: Well, it was an early use of it. And, our
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: approach was to be this minimal monetization thing and there's
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: no category for that online. So that caught the spirit
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: and worked. Yeah.
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: And, um, and so misconnections, do you remember like the
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: first misconnection that was ever put up or the first
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: personal that was ever put up?
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: I'm sure people ask you that a lot. Don't remember
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: much of that at all. Um, I, everything is a
• 45:19
  Speaker 2: blur and unfortunately I wasn't smart enough to keep a
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: lot of records.
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: Hmm.
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: And so a lot is lost. Like from the internet
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: archive in the Wayback Machine, I could see the first
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: site that I put up was mid or late 96.
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: And that was pretty good. And I evolved that kind
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: of minimal style. Like right now our site hasn't changed
• 45:47
  Speaker 2: much in appearance in 30 years. Why is that? Well,
• 45:52
  Speaker 2: I talk to a lot of people, and they want
• 45:55
  Speaker 2: it simple, fast, effective. They want what you see is
• 45:59
  Speaker 2: what you get. And we've heard from a lot of
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: designers who want fancy. Yeah. And fancy may not be
• 46:09
  Speaker 2: the answer for a lot of things. Yeah. Sometimes, you know,
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: you do see something which is impressive, fancy and yet effective,
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: but that seems to be the minority. Wow. Yeah. Yeah.
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, this is you know what you want. What do
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: you want? You want heavy equipment outside of South Jersey?
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: What do you want? You want biotech out in Mendocino?
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: You want legal issues? You want ride shares? You want
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: rodeo interests outside of Fort Worth? It's just it's all
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: right there. You can put it together quick. Even someone
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: who isn't technologically advanced could go here. And even the
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: terms you have on there, it's like child care, right? pets,
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: rants and raves. It's like, it's just, it's every, anything
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: you could need is kind of right here.
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: And that means the site is always a fast and
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: it's not a lot of big back it back in
• 47:03
  Speaker 2: the ground. Wow. And see, we've helped people in the
• 47:08
  Speaker 2: tens of millions or more put food on the table,
• 47:11
  Speaker 2: but also jobs you mean and selling things. Uh, exactly. Okay.
• 47:15
  Speaker 2: And advertise their services. But also we've, The site is
• 47:20
  Speaker 2: so simple, we've shown tens or maybe hundreds of millions
• 47:25
  Speaker 2: of Americans that the internet could be useful and reasonably
• 47:32
  Speaker 2: easy to use. And that meant a lot of people
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: who may have been hesitant to get on the net,
• 47:39
  Speaker 2: they get on the net. And again, that's fairness for everyone.
• 47:43
  Speaker 2: That's treating people like you want to be treated. And
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: that ain't bad.
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: Fairness. That's an important word, huh? It's important to you. Uh,
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: very much so because, uh, you try, sometimes it's hard.
• 47:58
  Speaker 2: There are often tough decisions to be made. And, uh,
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: but Jim, uh, took over that for the company and,
• 48:07
  Speaker 2: you know, maybe he's done a better job than I
• 48:09
  Speaker 2: ever could. And I did make for a great customer
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: service rep.
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: What, what made you choose Jim Buckmaster? What was it
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: about him when you interviewed him?
• 48:18
  Speaker 2: Uh, He believed in the mission, and he was good
• 48:22
  Speaker 2: on the technology side because he, in a way, had
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: two jobs, manager and programmer, because getting good programmers is hard.
• 48:34
  Speaker 2: And Jim, over time, hired a tech staff, everyone better
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: at their job than I was. Wow. Wow. That's cool.
• 48:43
  Speaker 2: It's also cool to hear you recognize that.
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: Like, yeah, these people are better than I was, you know,
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: to learn where your spaces were best.
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm funnier than any of them are. Yeah, of course.
• 48:53
  Speaker 2: But that may not be a high bar. They sometimes
• 48:59
  Speaker 2: did great things, and like they would sometimes pull out
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: great ads of all sorts, particularly Miss Connections, and for
• 49:08
  Speaker 2: a while ran a running best of Craigslist. although I
• 49:12
  Speaker 2: haven't looked at that in a while. You see, with
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: the uh philanthropy stuff i'm doing that's consuming i'm now
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: working harder than i've ever been wow um because i
• 49:24
  Speaker 2: i guess i am in a mission uh you know
• 49:27
  Speaker 2: vets and their families need our help.
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: So that's one of your important causes i know independent
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: journalism veterans um what is another philanthropic cause.
• 49:36
  Speaker 2: You enjoy specifically also active service members and their families. Okay.
• 49:41
  Speaker 2: Without going on in length, I'm shocked that military families
• 49:45
  Speaker 2: aren't paid enough to get both a good place to
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: live and food. And the model used to be the
• 49:55
  Speaker 2: volunteer army would be single guys. Well, there's a lot
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: of families. They're relocated about 600,000 times a year. Oh, yeah.
• 50:04
  Speaker 2: And that's where Blue Star Families comes in, I can
• 50:07
  Speaker 2: go on a great length, and I think I'll stop there.
• 50:10
  Speaker 2: But that's the name of an organization that you help support? Yes. Well,
• 50:13
  Speaker 2: Bob Woodruff Foundation for Vets. Okay. $ 25 million from last night. Wow.
• 50:18
  Speaker 2: And I happen to have a meeting, an event with
• 50:21
  Speaker 2: Blue Star Families, which could also use something like that,
• 50:26
  Speaker 2: but which I won't pre-announce.
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: A fundraising event? Well, if you guys ever need a
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: comedian at one, I'd love to come. I can't believe it.
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: I wish I'd have known last night. I would have gone.
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: That would have been awesome.
• 50:35
  Speaker 2: Well. The connection is through Caroline Hirsch, who used to
• 50:38
  Speaker 2: run Caroline's and now runs the New York Comedy Festival. Yeah,
• 50:42
  Speaker 2: that's going on this week. Yeah, that's a world I
• 50:45
  Speaker 2: know nothing about. I kind of would like to, but
• 50:51
  Speaker 2: people are busy. I should do other things. The comedy
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: cellar is down the street from me. I've never gone in. Really? Yeah, well,
• 51:01
  Speaker 2: they seem to be busy.
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: Booked all the time they're pretty and it's limited seating
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: too in there yeah and.
• 51:06
  Speaker 2: They're supposed to open at least one more space and
• 51:08
  Speaker 2: uh yeah i uh should get off my butt and
• 51:15
  Speaker 2: do something but there's always lots more work um not
• 51:20
  Speaker 2: only my own work but let's say my in-laws need
• 51:22
  Speaker 2: some help oh yeah they always do god fortunately we
• 51:26
  Speaker 2: we can do a good job about that but uh
• 51:30
  Speaker 2: I got to stay focused on the areas where I'm
• 51:32
  Speaker 2: doing some good. The cybersecurity part is part of that
• 51:37
  Speaker 2: because this is the new war.
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: And did you start to learn that? Where did that
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: interest come from? Or where did that realization that cybersecurity
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: is going to be such a big thing? Was there
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: a lot of attacks on security at Craigslist? Did that happen?
• 51:54
  Speaker 2: Well, there was always something. But we had a good
• 51:57
  Speaker 2: team for that. Right. But did you have to have that?
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: Say if someone was attacking Craigslist, this is what I'm asking,
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: what would they be trying to get?
• 52:05
  Speaker 2: Well, they would be trying to disrupt service. Okay. They
• 52:09
  Speaker 2: would try to steal proprietary information, which did happen. What
• 52:15
  Speaker 2: does proprietary information mean? I'm sorry, Craig. Proprietary information at
• 52:18
  Speaker 2: any company is like secret information, like payroll, client list.
• 52:24
  Speaker 2: We didn't have much of that because we were a
• 52:26
  Speaker 2: simple classified site. But people thought that we had some, quote, unquote,
• 52:33
  Speaker 2: secret sauce. Yeah, some big fancy stuff. And the irony
• 52:37
  Speaker 2: is that that was never the case. And yet people
• 52:42
  Speaker 2: tried to do things. There were some problems with leakages
• 52:46
  Speaker 2: of that information. But the problem that I'm not concerned
• 52:52
  Speaker 2: with that at Craigslist now I'm concerned, well, I've been
• 52:56
  Speaker 2: reading about this for decades, and now I see that
• 53:01
  Speaker 2: an adversary would do something like, well, you know, they
• 53:06
  Speaker 2: would try to, a form of warfare would be to
• 53:09
  Speaker 2: try to jam or hack a drone. Right. If they
• 53:13
  Speaker 2: turn your drone against you, you're going to have a
• 53:16
  Speaker 2: bad day. If it's an autonomous drone, one that's figuring
• 53:20
  Speaker 2: out where the enemy is for itself, if they could
• 53:24
  Speaker 2: subvert it, they would turn our autonomous drone back against us.
• 53:30
  Speaker 2: That would make for someone's bad day.
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, imagine if we sent out a drone and it's
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: supposed to get information, send it to an artillery unit
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: or a missile that's supposed to fire automatically from the
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: information from that drone and they're able to hack it.
• 53:45
  Speaker 2: You could literally... Our army could do it themselves. Wow.
• 53:48
  Speaker 2: There's a lot of mundane things like our... Well, our
• 53:54
  Speaker 2: hot water heaters at home are becoming internet connected, so
• 53:59
  Speaker 2: sometimes they could diagnose it remotely. Boilers like that in factories.
• 54:06
  Speaker 2: There are painting robots. And those things, if hacked, they
• 54:10
  Speaker 2: could start running them at high. Another could be just
• 54:15
  Speaker 2: told to run at high until it burns, causes a fire.
• 54:21
  Speaker 2: And if there's a few fires like that, your first
• 54:23
  Speaker 2: responders can deal. But if there's a thousand, you have
• 54:28
  Speaker 2: a problem.
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, if somebody hacks your ovens, you don't even think
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: about that. Somebody hacks your ovens, next thing you know,
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: there's 1,100 fires in an area.
• 54:35
  Speaker 2: Now the deal is that there's room for optimism for
• 54:38
  Speaker 2: help because there are already people who are really good
• 54:42
  Speaker 2: at dealing with this. What I'm doing is gathering together,
• 54:47
  Speaker 2: funding them so that they could work together, starting to
• 54:50
  Speaker 2: work with local governments everywhere, everywhere through the country, starting
• 54:56
  Speaker 2: to come up with, let's say, some best practices because
• 55:00
  Speaker 2: we have some breathing space, we think. Got it. And
• 55:03
  Speaker 2: the idea is that water supplies, power supplies, they also
• 55:08
  Speaker 2: go down because of natural disasters. They need to be resilient.
• 55:12
  Speaker 2: They need to be where you knock them down, they
• 55:15
  Speaker 2: can come back up in a small amount of time.
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: It's even funny, like even with drones, like when I
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: was a kid, you had to do a little bit
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: of peeping Tom and right. If you wanted to look
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: into somebody's window, you had to go over there.
• 55:26
  Speaker 2: I don't know anything about that. Yeah. I'm not saying
• 55:29
  Speaker 2: you do. Yeah.
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: And I, you know, and I'm not saying I do,
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying? But I did, you know,
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: but I did, I know, but yeah, somebody here does.
• 55:37
  Speaker 2: And it's me.
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: Well, what I'm saying is this now as a kid,
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: you can use a drone. Uh, and that's the laziest
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: thing we, you had to go risk getting beat up
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: by a woman's husband. To look in their window, even
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: if they were just cooking or whatever, right? I'm not
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: getting lewd with it. I'm just saying, you know, but
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: now you can just get a drone and go do it.
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: It's like, just breaks my heart, some of.
• 55:59
  Speaker 2: That kind of stuff. Well, in Manhattan, apparently that's illegal.
• 56:04
  Speaker 2: And like, oh, right now I wonder, I like my
• 56:09
  Speaker 2: tech toys. Yeah. I would get a drone and I
• 56:12
  Speaker 2: would be bored with it after a few minutes. Yeah.
• 56:14
  Speaker 2: My neighbor kids would enjoy it. Because they would learn
• 56:17
  Speaker 2: how to use it really well, and their parents have
• 56:21
  Speaker 2: vetoed the idea for the reason you mentioned. I'm sure.
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: I didn't even think about that. Yeah, because I'm still, like,
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: just squinting real hard and hoping I'm seeing something.
• 56:29
  Speaker 2: Well, it's a big problem in New York. I bet.
• 56:32
  Speaker 2: That's awesome. Lots of big problems, lots of big cities
• 56:36
  Speaker 2: all near each other.
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 56:38
  Speaker 2: And a contested airspace because we need the cops to
• 56:42
  Speaker 2: have drones.
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: That's just getting crazy. You don't think about all those things.
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: You don't think about all the ways that we could
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: be hacked and the immediate effects of it.
• 56:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So we need to protect ourselves in all sorts
• 56:56
  Speaker 2: of ways. And that's why the idea is to build
• 57:00
  Speaker 2: networks of volunteers who are running, let's say, the nonprofit world,
• 57:08
  Speaker 2: the NGO world. And that way, then they cooperate with
• 57:12
  Speaker 2: other parties and But we do have to, well, it's
• 57:16
  Speaker 2: like World War II. We looked out for each other.
• 57:19
  Speaker 2: Everyone tried to play their part. And the looking out
• 57:23
  Speaker 2: for each other in that positive way isn't bad. Yeah.
• 57:28
  Speaker 2: And like right now, if something starts happening weird with
• 57:34
  Speaker 2: my baby camera equivalent, I would like to be able
• 57:38
  Speaker 2: to get help from someone. Right. And- Even worse, if
• 57:43
  Speaker 2: the oven started running away, I would want to know
• 57:47
  Speaker 2: what to do about that.
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. When Craigslist, when you, at what point were
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: there ever, like, categories that you wouldn't do?
• 58:00
  Speaker 2: Were there ever? Right very early on, we heard in
• 58:05
  Speaker 2: large numbers that people didn't want gun sales on the site. Mm-hmm.
• 58:12
  Speaker 2: And there I am thinking, because I still have some
• 58:14
  Speaker 2: influence then, there are constitutional rights there. But one of
• 58:19
  Speaker 2: them is property rights. So if you have a site,
• 58:24
  Speaker 2: it's your property. You get to set the rules. So
• 58:27
  Speaker 2: you decide what's right and wrong there. So I believe
• 58:31
  Speaker 2: in property rights and freedom of choice. And that's what
• 58:35
  Speaker 2: you exercise. And that's what people do through the net.
• 58:40
  Speaker 2: It's your site, your thing. You decide what the rules are.
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: So you actually got to decide that or not decide it,
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: or you and your team?
• 58:49
  Speaker 2: Team. Okay. I had an opinion, but I wanted the team,
• 58:54
  Speaker 2: as such as it was, to work it out. That
• 58:58
  Speaker 2: was a little bit of good management, but I couldn't
• 59:03
  Speaker 2: consistently deliver good leadership. And even now I'm not a
• 59:08
  Speaker 2: top down kind of leader maybe I could lead by
• 59:11
  Speaker 2: example my frustration in a way is that I want
• 59:15
  Speaker 2: to be able to lead by example when it comes
• 59:18
  Speaker 2: there's a lot of people with a lot of discretionary
• 59:21
  Speaker 2: money billionaires who maybe could be doing really good stuff
• 59:26
  Speaker 2: with that and I'd like to have the skills to
• 59:31
  Speaker 2: inspire them. Understood. I don't have those skills. Well, I
• 59:35
  Speaker 2: don't even.
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: I mean, I think even here and today, the things
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: that you care about are things that sometimes I don't
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: even think to care about in some ways or fears
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: that I don't think that... You know, you don't even
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: think that, oh, somebody has to... We need to have...
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: A person needs to donate to this because maybe our
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: country isn't worried about it enough yet.
• 59:52
  Speaker 2: You know, it's... You know, so I think it sounds
• 59:55
  Speaker 2: like you're doing a good job. When you.
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: Did your company, because I'm trying to think like, so
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: guns was a thing.
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 2: Did you guys end up selling them on there or no? No,
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 2: he said no guns. Swords, anything? I have a feeling
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 2: swords are okay, but I've never thought about it. Yeah.
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 2: I'm trying to think of some, I mean, because he,
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 2: I mean. Drugs are illegal. They're off.
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: So drugs were off. But people would try to skirt
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: around that. But even then, some of that was sometimes also... Now,
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: were there ever.
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 2: Could the cops use your.
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: Site as well if they wanted to, like as decoy
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: type of stuff?
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 2: I hear gossip about that. I don't know how true
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 2: that really is. Right, because you don't know, right? I
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 2: do know that the cops have used the site in
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 2: different ways to fight crime. Sometimes, let's suppose they think
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 2: they see a stolen item being listed on the site,
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 2: then they would, well, this is true for anything on
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 2: the net. If a cop sees something they think is
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 2: wrong and they have a shot at doing something about it,
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 2: they send a subpoena or a search warrant to the site,
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 2: and then the site, the operators usually pass it to
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 2: their lawyers, and then the site operators provide the forensic
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 2: evidence to the cops. which again is like CSI and
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 2: just fighting, uh, fighting crime there. The deal is in
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 2: this country, we have these checks and balances, uh, in
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 2: the constitution and bill of rights. And, you know, the
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 2: founders of the country did a really good job of that.
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 2: You know, there are amendments and so on, which we
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 2: only thought of years after, but the, uh, the people
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 2: who did the initial work did great work and it, uh,
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 2: for the most part, stands up today. They built a
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 2: good structure over there.
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, it's funny because you guys, there was, yeah,
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: it's just like, it's such a part of history, you know,
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: it's such a, I mean, I went on dates from it.
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: I remember I met a girl, we, I met a
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: girl on, I mean, I would use casual encounters too,
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: you know, it's like, that was sometimes, I met a
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: girl one time and we watched a Nets game and
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: made love, honestly, and she let me sign her cast, right?
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: And I was like, you know, And we had a
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: great time.
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 2: I think we dated for a little bit. Well, there's
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 2: no accounting for taste. Yeah. But I'm glad you left. Yeah,
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 2: I know. Who wants to be a Mets fan? Yeah,
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 2: your guys can remember that one for later years. Oh,
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 2: they've been on there, dude. I think we accidentally met
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 2: up once.
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: But there was a place, you know, I was like,
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: I had such a tough time at a certain point
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: in my life dating. There was something that added a
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: level of mystery about it that I really liked.
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 2: I've never thought about that. Oh, yeah. Everyone works differently.
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 2: Everyone does have different tastes. And that's none of my business. Yeah.
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 2: You know, as long as it's legal. Oh, yeah. It
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 2: was legal.
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: It's funny to say that people started marriages. So people
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: even got married off of putting out a dating, like
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: I would like to meet someone.
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 2: Did you ever get invited to a wedding or anything?
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 2: I have gotten invited a number of times. I'm not
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 2: much for ceremonies or galas or anything like that. And
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 2: my relatives know this very well. I have a dispensation
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 2: to not go to some of the more obscure events
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 2: on my wife's side. And on the record, I'm very grateful.
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 2: I think your comedy is getting better. I've promised... So
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 2: if I'm offered open mic night, I will not do it.
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: Is pornography causing a problem in your life? Do you
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: find yourself watching porno for longer periods of time and
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: having trouble stopping? Is porn affecting your relationship or dating life? Well,
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: you're certainly not alone. Watching pornography has become so commonplace
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: today and oftentimes men use porn to numb the pain
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: of loneliness, boredom, anxiety, and depression. Shame and stigma prevent
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: men from talking about these issues and getting help for them.
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: I want to introduce you to my friend Steve. Steve
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: is the founder of Valor Recovery, a program to help
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: men overcome porn abuse and sexual compulsivity. Steve is a
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: long-term sexual recovery member and has personally overcame the emotional
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: and spiritual despair of abusing pornography and has dedicated his
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: life to empowering men to do the same. Steve is
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: an amazing person, and he is a close friend of mine.
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 2: I mean that.
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: Valor Recovery helps men to develop the tools necessary to
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: have a healthier sex life. Their coaches are in long-term
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: recovery and will be your partner, mentor, and spiritual guide
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: to transcend these problematic behaviors. To learn more about Valor Recovery,
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: please visit them at www.valorrecoverycoaching.com or email them at admin
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: at valorrecoverycoaching.com.
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: When you guys, at what point did you realize, okay,
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: I need to, had you had enough of the day-to-day,
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: what made you start to decide I want to sell
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: the company?
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 2: I haven't sold the company. Oh, you haven't sold. Okay. Sorry.
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 2: Here's the, well, the history to prevent some confusion. Okay.
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 2: I gave a guy some equity. I made it a gift. Okay.
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 2: On the expectation that he'd deliver. Mm-hmm. That may have
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 2: not happened. Mm-hmm. But he wanted to sell. Mm-hmm. Sold
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 2: to eBay. Mm-hmm. Didn't work out, and we bought that
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 2: equity back from eBay. Nice. Now what I've done is
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 2: I had a chunk of equity stock, and again, thinking,
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 2: I don't need this. So I created a 501c4 foundation,
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 2: put all the equity in there, and that's what generates
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 2: dividends and sales. And that's what I'm using to fund
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 2: these things. So I now have a good idea of
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 2: of how much money I have to give away in
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 2: the rest of my life.
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: Because you can look at the dividends and the earnings.
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 2: That kind of stuff. And I figure I've got five
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 2: to 20 years, and I know roughly how fast I
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 2: should do it. And my trouble, though, is that I'm 72.
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 2: 20 years out, I may have to conduct due diligence
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 2: via a seance. Yeah. And... Ouija boards don't have the
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 2: bandwidth I need, so I may just come back and
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 2: haunt people. Yeah, hey, that would be awesome, yeah.
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: Oh, I could definitely see a spirit looking for a
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: place to stay, you know?
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 2: You have an excellent point there, although computers don't operate
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 2: very well in the afterlife. Although I'm making an assumption.
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 2: I don't know if that's true. So you still own it?
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: Oh, I.
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 2: this is an important distinction. I now own no equity.
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 2: It's in that, uh, foundation 501 C four. Okay.
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: So the company was transferred into a foundation or sold
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: to a foundation.
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 2: My parts of it. Other people do own chunks of
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 2: the company and they do what's right for them. Okay. Me,
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 2: what's right for me is frankly to keep a little
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 2: for myself. Um, because, uh, the wife insists that she
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 2: needs to buy socks. Yeah. Oh yeah. And, uh, So
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 2: we have some leftover, which we do share with family.
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 2: But the vast bulk of it is now for charity.
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 2: I mean, just yesterday, a guy, I guess an economist,
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 2: analyzed what I would have made had I done the
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 2: usual Silicon Valley thing. He said, now I'd be worth
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 2: $ 11 billion. If you had saved the company and just
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 2: sold it? Well, if I did the usual. Right. And-
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 2: Maybe he's right. I don't understand the analysis. Right. But
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 2: I don't know what I would do with that. $ 11 billion? Yeah. Yeah,
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 2: what would you even do it?
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: How many... Yeah, because how much money can you put
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 1: in your bank?
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 2: Well, I don't think about it. There are some luxuries
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 2: I like, but I don't own a car. Really? Frankly,
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 2: between the subway and Uber, cabs, or Lyft, that's what
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 2: I need. Yeah.
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: And.
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 2: Again, this is not altruistic or anything like that. This
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 2: is just being sensible. just so our listeners know. Altruistic
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 2: means that you sometimes value helping other people more than yourself. Okay.
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 2: It's the Bible thing.
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 2: And I, uh, agree. I just, uh, my variation of, uh,
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 2: have enough to be comfortable and to indulge your family,
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 2: maybe friends sometimes, and then better to give stuff away.
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 2: It's a difficult balance because the future is unpredictable, and
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 2: I guess it's gotten more unpredictable, but there are people
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 2: who need a lot of where I can help without
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 2: digging into my personal stuff. Yeah.
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 1: Understood yeah i just wanted to know because yeah sometimes
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 1: i forget and sometimes maybe some of our listeners forget
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 1: did you ever feel like other tech companies even though
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: they were probably i bet secretly jealous look down at
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 1: craigslist because it was this.
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 2: Like what was that like i just wonder oh they've
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 2: uh they're they're quite explicit they don't it's not a
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 2: secret they don't like this model we have of doing
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 2: well by doing good um sometimes uh Let's say they're
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 2: not respectful of it, and that's okay. The thing is,
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 2: I remember what I learned in Sunday school, and people
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 2: often forget. And again, not pious of me or anything
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 2: like that.
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: No, I think it's fair to stand up for also
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 1: what you were aiming for.
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 2: Well, I've met a bunch of rich people. None of
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 2: them are all that happy. And yeah, having too much
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 2: money is a big trap, and you get surrounded by people,
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 2: by yes men, and you get insulated from the needs
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 2: of regular people, and that does some real damage.
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 1: How do you keep yourself balanced from that? Yeah, because
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 1: it's interesting, because you seem like someone who would have
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: a fair answer to what are some of the side effects,
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 1: the negative side effects of.
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 2: Well... The deal is that it. Money. I've had some money,
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 2: you know, or coming into some money. Yeah. The deal
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 2: is to be a little bit as cheap as I
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 2: was when I grew up in the 50s. And to
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 2: do things for yourself or by yourself, like especially going
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 2: cross town. I don't need to take a car. The
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 2: subway is usually better. And so I do that. Although
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 2: I did get here on a limo because someone else
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 2: paid for it. Yeah. And they really wanted to. Good.
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 2: So the deal is that now and then I will
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 2: go to a fancy dinner. Oh, yeah, that's nice. You
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 2: have to treat yourself to good food. Well, the thing
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 2: is that you could find good food a lot more
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 2: cheaply and with a little bit more fun. And so
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 2: a lot of those things I just don't get. And I...
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 2: wouldn't mind having a smaller house, but the wife's side
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 2: of the family is very, very large. Yeah. I have
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 2: one nephew and one niece. The nephew just got married,
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 2: and I had to attend that one. Yeah. However, on
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 2: my wife's side, we have 20 nephew and nieces. Oh,
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 2: that's too many. Well, it mostly means that I've learned
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 2: to control my language. Yeah. Because I don't want to...
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 2: I don't want to catch shit from any of my relatives. Yeah.
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 2: And it works out pretty well. Typically, I know, as
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 2: they say, that when the kid is allowed to watch HBO,
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 2: I'm allowed to use saltier languages.
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah. I like that, buddy. Yeah, only salt in
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 1: our languages. Yeah, I was just wondering, what was, was
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 1: there one thing, like it was, whether it was something
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: like a, like a, like a specific Leonard Cohen piece,
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 1: a record that he made that he'd autographed. Was there
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 1: one nice thing you bought for yourself that, um, what
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 1: was something that was meaningful to you?
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 2: I bought some of the prints that he made. Oh,
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 2: you did. Okay. He's an artist for real. The thing
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 2: which I regret is that around here, there was an
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 2: auction of a lot of his letters and stuff. And
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 2: I should have, uh, I should have, uh, overindulged myself. Yeah. Um,
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 2: But it was the first auction I actually seriously participated in,
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 2: and I just didn't get anything. Yeah, man. I don't
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 2: recognize it. I didn't have anything in color. I did
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 2: as a black and white prince, and you're heading into
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 2: some of the ones that just passed. The ones in
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 2: the middle right now, two of them I think I have. Wow,
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 2: that's cool. Yeah, especially the one that's exactly what I have. Really? Yeah,
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 2: and I may have that one on a T-shirt. Wow. Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: Something like that's nice, man. Especially if it's art or
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: something like that. It's like, you know, if I could
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 1: go back in time, there was like a time, one
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 1: time I was in, I was in Tanzania, you know,
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 1: and I was doing a Mount Kilimanjaro.
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 2: Okay. Right.
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 1: And we, and afterwards we went someplace and they had
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 1: a piece of art in there and it was like $ 500. Right.
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 1: And I could spend like maybe $ 300, but I wished
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 1: I'd have spent, cause going like, it was 15 years
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 1: ago and it's like, you know, the $ 200 didn't, wouldn't
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 1: have changed my life that much. You know, it was
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 1: a lot of money at the time, but it's like,
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 1: I didn't even think about it two weeks later for
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 1: two months later, you know? So I just wish that
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 1: I would have, cause I really liked the painting, you know?
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 1: And I was like, God, I just, and sometimes I
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 1: wish like every now and then there's little things like that.
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: I wish I'd have gotten like a nice piece of
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 1: art or something, you know?
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And the, uh, let's see on my side of the, uh,
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 2: the house, that's the, uh, biggest investment I've made in art.
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 2: My wife was an art major, so she knows this stuff,
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 2: and a lot of it these days is cheap at auction,
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 2: and she's good at that. She's gotten good at a
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 2: number of things, including free upgrades while flying. Oh, yeah,
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 2: it's a deal. That's her new hobby, and she's good
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 2: at it. I'm trying to think of something else. Were
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 2: there other... So Craigslist was kind of the....
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: The stepchild of the tech industry in a weird way.
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 1: Was it looked at like that? Cause I could imagine
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 1: how jealous, cause here's people putting billions and millions of
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 1: dollars in a building, this thing, this new Avenue and
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 1: all these venture capitalists and stuff like that. And then they,
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 1: all this advertising and here you are with this basic
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 1: kind of peer to peer. How can I offer something
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 1: that could potentially help my neighbor or connect to neighbors
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 1: that could use something?
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah. We've always been an outlier and, As one person
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 2: put it, we're one of the few un-gentrified sites on
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 2: the net. And I guess we like it that way.
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 2: Not everything has to be expensive or fancy. To give
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 2: credit to a site I consider un-gentrified, that's Wikipedia. Wikipedia
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 2: is where facts go to live. And in the long run, Wikipedia,
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 2: I think, is the Most important of all sites, I
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 2: work with them. And even in New York, I'm working
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 2: with their local chapter to give classes Wikipedia for beginners. Really? Well,
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 2: when you get to write an article or change an article,
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 2: that gives you a lot of power. Well, in a
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 2: small way to determine how people think of things, you
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 2: get to write history.
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 1: Oh, and some of it's not true. Like, there's stuff
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 1: on my Wikipedia, like, attaching me to, like, a part
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 1: of my family. Like, they have half my family members
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 1: wrong on it and stuff, and it, like, puts me
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 1: in a.
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 2: It's crazy. I'm like, all right. The deal, unlike newspapers, well,
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 2: they don't correct themselves normally, especially not in a big way.
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 2: But in Wikipedia, you can do that, and basically you
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 2: can get a good citation, some evidence... of what's right
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 2: and wrong, and then send it to someone who knows
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 2: how to edit it. And they can do it. They
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 2: can do that. Oh, dang. I've got to get in there. Yeah.
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 2: You guys know how to get hold of me. Okay.
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 2: And then I know I can get hold of someone
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 2: who knows how to do the edits. At least how
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 2: to do it. I have not gone to the class yet. Okay. And, yeah,
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 2: the deal is that the system isn't perfect. Hmm. but
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 2: it's better than anything anyone else has tried. Yeah, it's true.
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 2: And things do get fixed. It may not happen as
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 2: fast as anyone wants. Um, but again, there's things, uh,
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 2: let's say in the, uh, newspaper of record, uh, and
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 2: things which I know are wrong and which have been
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 2: presented to them and they're just not going to fix it. Yeah.
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 2: And they don't want to, uh, I don't understand the
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 2: reason they want to shape history. Sometimes you think, well,
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 2: The deal is they were brought something which was wrong.
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 2: It was proven to be wrong. And they say they
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 2: weren't going to be truth vigilantes. And I guess I disagree. Yeah.
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's interesting. Well, that's a big thing about information now.
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 1: It's like it's something I worry about with AI because
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 1: if there's and even just the history of the web,
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 1: like things in the history of the web, because people
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 1: can alter that over time.
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 2: Uh there's uh big problems with that now uh a
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 2: number of ai systems are feeding on the output of
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 2: other ai systems which could be hallucinating or it could
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 2: be if you compromised uh yeah well that's one way
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 2: to do that and i like the idea of uh
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 2: really good AI replacing or supplementing search. But I worry
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 2: about that also because even if I just casually screw around,
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 2: I can get the AI systems to produce wrong information.
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 2: And I talk about it with some of the people
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 2: at these companies and hope that they get it right.
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 2: I do have a lot of hope for AI doing
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 2: customer service because if it's done with commitment, if it's
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 2: done right, um, it can be done much better because
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 2: sometimes like you call up for a customer service, you
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 2: get a call center someplace where they just don't know
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 2: how to do it. They don't know. And I try
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 2: to be kind to people who have been effectively sabotaged
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 2: by their management. Sometimes I, uh, become less impatient than
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 2: I should be. Yeah. Oh yeah.
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 1: Oh, you'll call a customer service and they're like, we
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 1: don't even know what you're talking about, but they still
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 1: answer the phone.
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 2: I'm like, well, who are you? Yeah. Yeah. Instead of
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 2: complaining about that, I'm trying to talk about it and
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 2: I am putting my money where my mouth is like
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 2: for consumer reports, which I'm involved with and working with
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 2: a lot. With the magazine website? Yeah. Okay. Because they're
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 2: trustworthy and the idea is, is that, yeah, I would
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 2: enjoy working with an AI system which would be responsive
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 2: and give me good information. And even if it can't,
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 2: maybe it would kick it to a person who might
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 2: have to do research, but at least they would be
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 2: good at it. Understood.
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I actually have a question about that, but I
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 1: want to remember to ask this. How did Craigslist make money?
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 2: Oh, oddly enough, since we run very lean... Jim runs
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 2: us very lean. And even though we minimally charge, that
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 2: makes enough because we're not, we're not expected to produce
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 2: great results for VCs. For venture capitalists. Yeah.
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 1: So you don't have these, you don't have these money guys,
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 1: like I need my return.
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 2: Right. Uh, if no one's invested millions in us, we
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 2: don't have to go public. No one's looking to get, uh, uh, billions. And, uh, I'm, uh,
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 2: happy with the current results. Yeah. The future is scary sometimes,
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 2: but this works out pretty well. You've also talked a
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 2: lot about, yeah, that's your water. Yeah, thank you. I
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 2: have just like one or two more questions. Sure. I
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 2: can get it for you. I'm stubborn. You're stubborn? I
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 2: am stubborn. What?
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 1: Oh my God, dude, you're crazy, Craig, because... I've never
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 1: heard somebody imagine I'm trying to open a water, right?
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 1: I can't open it. And then I say, I'm stubborn.
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 1: Like I'm stubborn. I don't know. It didn't even make
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 1: sense to me. It was very, that was very funny. Well,
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 1: you're like, I can't open it. And I was like,
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 1: I don't know if you could open it out. I
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 1: was just trying to, I don't know, but I was like, oh,
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 1: can I help you? And then you're like, I'm stubborn.
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 1: But to me, in my head, I was like, he
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 1: can't open it, but he just, the bottle's stubborn.
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 2: Anyway, this didn't make any sense. My deal is that
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 2: as an old man, I'm happy when I can still
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 2: do some things. Oh, I see what you're saying. You've
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 2: talked a lot about independent journalism, right? Okay.
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 1: And that's something that I've read anyway is near and
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 1: dear to your outlook.
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 2: In the world. Okay. Well, what we learned in U.S.
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 2: history in this high school class is that a free
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 2: and trustworthy press is just required to keep a republic alive.
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 2: And the whole media system is fractured in all sorts
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 2: of unpredictable ways. You're part of that. I'm a lesser
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 2: part of it. And I don't know what to do now,
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 2: except that I try to support things that I know work,
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 2: like the journalism school at the City University of New York. Okay.
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 2: And Wikipedia is now modern journalism. There are other things
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 2: that I try to help, but I'm confused and I'm
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 2: kind of paralyzed around a lot of this. So I
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 2: did a lot in the past, but these days I'm
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 2: just trying to focus in those areas where I can
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 2: help Americans defend the country because that's a well-defined good
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 2: which we need in a big way right now. Like
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 2: service members, active or veteran, and their families have given
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 2: up a lot for us, and we don't treat them right,
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 2: so I could do something about that. Cyberwarfare, is a thing,
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 2: and it needs help, because the government can do some stuff,
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 2: but everyone needs to play a role, like in World
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 2: War II, everyone needs to harden their systems a little bit,
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 2: depending on how much of a target you are.
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's funny, I didn't realize until you said some
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 1: of those things, like, what if suddenly all of our
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 1: cars were compromised, or half of them, or all of
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 1: our ovens were compromised to the point where they started
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 1: fires in all of our homes, you know?
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 2: It was just kind of fascinating to me, you know? Well,
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 2: it means also I've read too much science fiction in
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 2: my time. But if 1% of those systems were compromised,
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 2: that alone is a big problem. Yeah, and we don't
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 2: even realize it.
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 1: Were there other businesses that you tried to start before
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 1: or after?
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 2: No, I am not a real businessman. It's been a
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 2: happy accident. I'm like any success I've had. has been
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 2: by accidentally being in the right time at the right place.
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 2: And that makes me the farthest gump of the internet.
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 1: But also with the right attitude to bring one person
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 1: to another, you know, try to keep the golden rule
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 1: in your mind, things you learned from Sunday school. Um,
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 1: what about, are your parents pretty proud of your parents
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 1: still alive, Greg?
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 2: Uh, they passed long ago. They did. I'm sure they, uh,
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 2: would be. I, uh, know that my high school history
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 2: teacher learned about his contributions to all my stuff. He
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 2: heard about it while he was still around, and that
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 2: was a big deal. Oh, that probably meant a lot, huh?
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 2: And, well, because teachers work hard for little pay.
• 1:25:59
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah.
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 2: So anything, anytime they have any long-term effect is a
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 2: big deal. Yeah.
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's so funny. I still keep in touch with
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 1: a lot of my teachers, you know? It's important to me.
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 2: I should, but at my age, there may not be
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 2: many left. Well, that's why we got to get that
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 2: Ouija board going. Yes.
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 1: You know, I think that's the next level. What are some,
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 1: what are some small, before you leave, Craig, what are
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 1: some goals in your life like right now? I know
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 1: you've talked about some of the kind of work oriented
• 1:26:28
  Speaker 1: and giving back. Are there any kind of personal goals
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 1: or are there anything like, I don't know, is there
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 1: any kind of goals you have, even if they're just
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 1: like human goals?
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 2: To yourself, things you still want to learn or do? Professionally,
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 2: I want cybersecurity to be a household word that everyone
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 2: takes seriously. Personally, I'll be glad if the dentist tomorrow
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 2: uses nitrous oxide.
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 2: And I will make the same joke over again. That is,
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 2: can I take the bottle home? And he will refuse me.
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 2: But we like to do that.
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 1: No, we do like to do that.
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 2: I think that's good, guys. Pretty good. Is there anything
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 2: else that you want to share that's important to you?
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 2: I think you got it all, and I think people
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 2: will be tired of hearing from me after 90 minutes.
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 1: Well, look, I do know if you really want to
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 1: get some nitrous oxide, you might be able to find
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 1: some on Craig's list.
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 2: I've been advised by my medical team against it. All
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 2: I can remember, well, for sure, is like the Batman says,
• 1:27:35
  Speaker 2: I'm not the nerd you want, but I'm the nerd
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 2: you got.
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 1: Man, I don't know how somehow I almost get your
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 1: sense of humor now, Craig.
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 2: It's very interesting. That might be tragic. Yeah. Well, thank you, man.
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 1: Thank you for, uh, I like, I just like some,
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 1: I like your initial goals of like, my goal is
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 1: to help one person find something. This person's in need.
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 1: This person might have this. How can I be of
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 1: service there? Um, learning when you notice that I'm not
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 1: a good manager of this. So I need to get
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 1: some help here, right? It's not a strong suit of mine,
• 1:28:06
  Speaker 1: maybe this world, but the customer relations is a strong
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 1: suit of mine, you know, and And that's interesting just because,
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 1: you know, sometimes we all feel like we have to
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 1: do everything in different spaces. And then, yeah, and I'm
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 1: glad you found a lady.
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 2: Along the way.
• 1:28:19
  Speaker 1: How long has your marriage been now?
• 1:28:21
  Speaker 2: Married 12 and together 20. That's great. And it's good
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 2: that I'm better at remembering those dates than she is. Yeah, amen.
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 2: Craig Neumer, thank you so much, man. Hey, it's my pleasure.
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 2: I appreciate your time.
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 3: Now I'm just floating on the breeze And I feel
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 3: I'm floating like these leaves I must be cornerstone Oh,
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 3: but when I reach that ground I'll share this peace
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 3: of mind I found I can feel it in my
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 3: bones