I am going to tell you why I respect Craig Newmark for reasons beyond his admiration of Leonard Cohen (which immediately commands respect for me).

It’s a long story. I have avoided telling this story; but I feel that now is the time.

In 1999, I was working in a development shop in SOMA and playing in a band. We were recording an album.

We went WAY over budget.

I was young and broke.

I owed the studio $5k.

My only recourse was to sell the vintage instruments I had been collecting since I was 14, a very painful solution.

I went to craigslist.

But my vintage gear was posted in the one “for sale” category that existed back then. My Telecaster appeared next to ads for ‘72 Volvos, futons, and toaster ovens.

A programmer I worked with said, “hey, let’s create a Craigslist for musicians.”

And that weekend we did.

It was called SFMusician.

In the first month we had 4000 musicians post on the site.

The site’s popularity grew.

Craig and one of his business partners called me from time to time and said, “hey, would you consider working for us? We’d love to serve musicians better, and we think you can help us do that.”

I was wishy-washy answering that question. I wasn’t thinking about my career; I was trying to be a musician and that was my focus.

On a Monday the next month, my boss called me into his office.

The CEO was there, and there was a lawyer in a suit.

My boss said, “Look, we’ve heard about the success SFMusician has had, and legally, anything you build we own. So we will give you two choices. Either we get rich together on this, or we sue you and make your life miserable.”

I was told that by Friday at 5 PM, I needed to have a response.

I went back to my desk frazzled. I was shaking and nearly in tears.
My life had become horrible.

I owed $5k to a studio, and I was facing a law suit.

My gut was telling me that it would be a horrible thing to turn over a website whose mission it was to create community for musicians to a company that wanted to exploit it monetarily.

I stewed in my misery for about two hours. Then I had a call on my cell phone.

It was one of Craig’s business partners.

“When are you going to come work for us?” he asked.

I walked outside where no one could hear the conversation and told him what was happening.

Shortly thereafter, Craig got wind of the story.

Craig’s partner told me to go to their “office” right after work.

I rode my bike to the CL office, which was Craig’s apartment in Cole Valley.

I told them the story.

Craig reacted.

I guess this was everything he stood against.

Craig sees the Internet as a place that connects people, that creates community. His belief system on this principle is why he has created something so well received, and the point I want to illustrate.

Despite their humble position then, Craig hired a lawyer.

I met with the lawyer, who told me,

“I want you to go to work tomorrow and email the following question to your managers.”

The question basically went like this:

“Is it true that I will be fired because I did {ABC} and that {XYZ} could happen to me?”

The managers responded affirmatively, which dug their grave.

On Thursday night (the day before I had to give my ultimatum to my employer) I met with the lawyer and gave him all the emails. He wrote a “legal analysis”.

I will never forget going into work that Friday so scared, shaking, thinking my whole world was about to crash down. Walking into that room where the CEO, the managers, and their lawyer were licking their chops over how much money they were going to raise on this project.

And they asked me what my answer was.

I didn’t say anything. I just handed the legal analysis over to the lawyer.

He read it. Silently.

He knew, quickly, that he was not going to win.

The legal analysis was passed around the room.

In silence.

It was so awkward, watching them all read that document, and seeing their poker faces reflect their emotions.

And silence continued.

Finally I said, “I presume I am fired?”

Someone nodded, so I gathered my things and rode my bike home.

I remember I was crying as I rode up the hills between SOMA and the Sunset District.

The worst had happened: I was fired, I had no job, I was going to be sued, and I still owed the studio $5k.

I couldn’t help but think, “maybe I should have gone along with their plan to sell out this website.”

But Craig stepped in and enabled me to follow a path of integrity.

He moved my website onto his server. The money he gave paid my legal bills and enabled me to build a company.

Whenever people ask me, “so how did you start your own business?” I like to say, “I got accidentally knocked up with it.”

I never meant to be a founder of a business, and I bet Craig did not either.

But I was put in the situation and when I look back, what I learned from Craig was that you do it with your heart.

I am not an MBA person. I don’t know the meaning of most of the acronyms the operations people around me use.

The only reason I am a founder in the two companies I started comes from Craig.

I know he loves Leonard Cohen. We all derive inspiration from something.

But for me the inspiration comes from him, because he started with a value system and integrity.

It’s so inspiring to me that he has a company that is one of the most visited websites in the world, a site he has been offered unbelievable amounts of money for, to which people regularly ask, “so how do they make money?”.

Craig is also very humble.

He likes to tell people that ask him, “so are you THE Craig from Craigslist?” that no Craig actually exists.

In a world where people are driven by their pursuit of money and ego reward, Craig remains a hero of mine.

He remains a largely unsung hero; Craig does not send out press releases about his integrity: that would defy the point.

I will conclude this long rambling by saying that the greatest compass you can use in your life is your heart, and you will be surprised at how well it will serve you if you let it direct you.

Craig rules, and he is so loving and humble that you might not hear about him (Craig doesn’t exist, he says) except from those of us who know better.

And I am sure he will not like this post because he likes his anonymity.

Which is why he can love Leonard Cohen so much.

Amen.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 20th, 2007 at 12:11 am and is filed under Search. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.