Craig Newmark, a web-oriented software engineer, founded Craigslist in 1995.

Newmark is one of those guys you hear about who grew up wearing a plastic pocket protector, thick black glasses, (taped together), and who expresses his inner nerd via obsessive commitment to customer service to the Craigslist community.

Craigslist has over 6 billion page views per month and operates with a staff of 23 people! Craigslist is an on-line service where users post free classified advertisements in jobs, housing, personals, for sale/barter/wanted, services, community, gigs and resumes categories. Craiglist includes "forums" sorted by various topics.

After incorporation in 1999 in San Fransisco, Craigslist expanded into nine more American cities in 2000, four each in 2001 and 2002, and 14 in 2003. As of the end of last year, Craigslist had established itself in approximately 450 cities all over the world.

Craigslist's sole source of revenue is paid job ads in select cities and paid broker apartment listings; individuals' listings are free. With over 10 million new classified ads each month, Craigslist is the leading classifieds service in any medium. The site receives over 500,000 new job listings each month, making it one of the top job boards in the world.

Newmark has around thirty years of experience, including 17 years at IBM. He's compiled extensive experience evangelizing the internet, leading and building on-line services, including efforts at Bank of America and Charles Schwab.

Craig is also involved with a number of community efforts, particularly involving Mideast peace and new forms of media, involving "participatory journalism" and blogging.

He's been featured in the Associated Press, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, Business Week, Time, and Esquire.

NOTE: Bio is as it appeared in the Forum program from October 3, 2007.