Craig Newmark: the nerd who shook up the media giants

Twenty-five years ago, Craig Newmark lost his job at a brokerage and fired off an email to friends. That seeded a venture, Craigslist, that dominates online advertising in the US to this day.

Craig Newmark
(Image credit: © Mike Coppola/Getty Images for The Bob Woodruff Foundation)

In March 1995, Craig Newmark fired off an email to his friends, says Forbes. Having just been laid off from his job at discount brokerage Charles Schwab, he “used his severance package and newfound time off” to compile an electronic list of upcoming art and technology events in his recently adopted city. Originally called “San Francisco Events”, the missive swiftly went viral among the city’s new technorati – morphing into Craig’s List and, later, Craigslist.

A bold and radical vision

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Jane writes profiles for MoneyWeek and is city editor of The Week. A former British Society of Magazine Editors editor of the year, she cut her teeth in journalism editing The Daily Telegraph’s Letters page and writing gossip for the London Evening Standard – while contributing to a kaleidoscopic range of business magazines including Personnel Today, Edge, Microscope, Computing, PC Business World, and Business & Finance.

She has edited corporate publications for accountants BDO, business psychologists YSC Consulting, and the law firm Stephenson Harwood – also enjoying a stint as a researcher for the due diligence department of a global risk advisory firm.

Her sole book to date, Stay or Go? (2016), rehearsed the arguments on both sides of the EU referendum.

She lives in north London, has a degree in modern history from Trinity College, Oxford, and is currently learning to play the drums.