What if the founder of one of the internet’s most enduring brands… never wanted to run a company?
In 1995, Craig Newmark was a 42-year-old computer programmer in San Francisco who simply wanted to share local tech meetups with friends. He started an email list that became Craigslist—a website that reshaped how we find jobs, apartments, and community.
In this conversation, Craig opens up about how not having a grand vision (or a taste for power) led to one of the most popular platforms in the world. With fewer than 50 employees, Craigslist still generates hundreds of millions in revenue—while looking like a website frozen in 1996.
This is the story of an “accidental entrepreneur” who built a global brand by being in the right place at the right time—and why he now calls himself the Forrest Gump of the Internet.
In this episode, you’ll learn:
Timestamps:
Follow How I Built This:
Instagram → @howibuiltthis
X → @HowIBuiltThis
Facebook → How I Built This
Follow Guy Raz:
Instagram → @guy.raz
X → @guyraz
Substack → guyraz.substack.com
Website → guyraz.com
This episode was produced by Chris Maccini with music composed by Ramtin Arablouei.
It was edited by Kevin Leahy with research by Sam Paulson.
Our engineers were Patrick Murray, Maggie Luthar and Robert Rodriguez.
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