Craig Newmark, the founding father of Craigslist, is celebrating his 73rd birthday by giving his fortune away. The entrepreneur is the most recent signee of the Giving Pledge, a marketing campaign urging the ultra-wealthy to donate the vast majority of their internet price to charity. Ringing in his birthday earlier this month brought about Newmark and his spouse Eileen to resolve “it was time to firmly announce my intentions,” he advised Observer over e-mail. “Additionally, I figured which may encourage other people to pony up some dough.”
Newmark is finest recognized for launching Craigslist, which began out as a mailing record within the Nineteen Nineties earlier than rising into the favored classifieds web site beloved for its utilitarian structure. Since stepping away from Craigslist in 2018, Newmark has largely shifted his focus to philanthropy, steadily freely giving his wealth to causes together with veteran help, cybersecurity, journalism and even pigeon rescue.
By signing the Giving Pledge, which was established in 2010 by Warren Buffett, Invoice Gates and Melinda French Gates, Newmark joins greater than 250 rich philanthropists, together with Mark Zuckerberg and Sam Altman.
In a LinkedIn put up, Newmark identified that the pledge is usually dubbed the “Billionaire’s Pledge.” He insisted he’s by no means been a billionaire himself, “significantly after I gave away all my Craigslist fairness to my charitable basis.”
Newmark mentioned his pledge was impressed by the teachings of his Sunday College academics, Mr. and Mrs. Levin, and by the lyrics of Leonard Cohen. He additionally framed it as a continuation of his 1999 choice to monetize Craigslist “as little as potential.” His restricted monetization technique, which entails fees for less than a small set of posts, meant turning down an estimated $11 billion from bankers and enterprise capitalists trying to capitalize on the positioning.
Even so, Craigslist’s success nonetheless made Newmark a rich man. He has since funneled a lot of that cash into philanthropic causes geared toward defending America, donating or pledging a whole bunch of tens of millions of {dollars} to organizations working in areas like cybersecurity protection and veteran help.
He’s additionally a significant backer of reliable journalism, supporting unbiased newsrooms and journalism colleges such because the Craig Newmark Graduate College of Journalism on the Metropolis College of New York. The varsity was renamed in 2018 after receiving a $20 million donation from Newmark, who promised one other $10 million final yr.
After which there are the birds. A longtime avian fanatic, Newmark is especially keen on pigeons and earlier this yr gave Palomacy, a pigeon rescue in Northern California, its largest-ever donation: a $30,000 reward. Newmark and his spouse Eileen even nicknamed their favourite neighborhood pigeon “Ghost Confronted Killer” and steadily chronicled his adventures on social media. The chook, which has since handed away, “now seems down at us from Pigeon Heaven,” Newmark advised Observer.
Trying forward, Newmark is very desperate to develop his work combating on-line scams. Alongside launching the PauseTake9 marketing campaign, which urges individuals to take a nine-second pause earlier than downloading or sharing info, he helps the World Anti Rip-off Alliance and the World Sign Alternate. Earlier this month, the latter acquired a $1 million pledge from him.
“I’ve been quietly preventing scams for over 25 years,” mentioned Newmark. “Time to get severe.”
