201–210 of 341 posts
I think he has given away a whole lot more than half a billion dollars when you think of the opportunity squandered to grow CL the way other unicorney companies grew
By hiring McKinsey to tell them they need to start selling and and acquire their competitors? That is the only way the unicorns established their position.
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Your point is totally and completely wrong. Germany has public benefits that actually matter. Germany's average life expectancy is ahead of Mississippi by *10 years*. Germany ranks as one of the highest in the world in general satisfaction of the people, Mississippi does not.
> Your point is totally and completely wrong. Germany has public benefits that actually matter. Objectively wrong, because Germany does better in the things that subjectively matter to you? > Germany's average life expectancy is ahead of Mississippi by 10 years . Comparing like for like, that gap drops down to 5-6 years and puts Mississippi on par with, say, Thailand or Latvia. Hardly grounds for condemnation. > Germ…
Different groups of people have different ideas of what "general satisfaction" is. Hence, such cross-group studies are pretty suspect.
I'd be curious to know how the economics of craigslist works, such that he's made so many hundreds of millions of dollars. It only charges a modest fee for a small fraction of transactions, but presumably the denominator is big enough that this adds up (and of course he would have subsequently invested the proceeds). I had assumed that the fee portion of the site was substantial enough to cover all costs, and generat…
Throwing money at military veterans doesn't erase the stain of having a hand in the explosion of human trafficking and sexual exploitation Craigslist (and Backpages) enabled.
The FBI arrested Gambino family members for child prostitution, and one of their top ways of soliciting Johns was via paid ads in Craigslist. One state AG counted 200,000 ads a year and estimated the revenue to be almost $2M, in their state alone.
It is all about the system of values. The system of values that the stereotypical high powered CEO billionaires have is unfathomable to me. Do they have time to breathe? Do they have friends? Their lives sound boring and unfulfilling.
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I've always been an advocate of the free market. And I'll tell you why. When I was 9, my dad arranged a tour of East Berlin for his family. As part of the deal with the USSR when the 4 zones were partitioned, this was allowed for an Air Force officer. This was at the height of the Cold War. The Wall is gone now, but it was something to behold in those days. There's the Wall, the kill zone, the tank traps, the dogs, t…
Some time ago, an American leftist told me that the Berlin Wall was necessary to keep the West out of East Berlin. he wasn't happy when I started laughing. I said that even to a 9 year old, it was clear the tank traps were set up to stop people fleeing to the West. It's too bad the Westerners did not leave a section of the Wall standing. It would stop people from rewriting the truth about it.
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> Your point is totally and completely wrong. Germany has public benefits that actually matter. Objectively wrong, because Germany does better in the things that subjectively matter to you? > Germany's average life expectancy is ahead of Mississippi by 10 years . Comparing like for like, that gap drops down to 5-6 years and puts Mississippi on par with, say, Thailand or Latvia. Hardly grounds for condemnation. > Germ…
> And in any case, why do people keep leaving those satisfactory countries for America? https://www.census.gov/newsroom/blogs/random-samplings/2026/... America used to be a great place to be. To put it in perspective, I myself am an American in the top 5% of earning households. I am strongly considering leaving. The value is no longer here. I don't want to live in a country where my healthcare is conditional, on prin…
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Yes. Even if you take out revenue from scams, it does not change the question of what Craigslist could or should have done regarding governance. Craigslist adhered to basic features and community volunteers partly to avoid responsibility. The org had no problem enforcing its moat around UGC (posts) with lawsuits but only at after extraordinary foot dragging did they implement basic advancements in the best interests…
Anon.penet.fi is clear prior art - from 1993[1]. Anyone who thought they had invented something new here were kidding themselves. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penet_remailer
I’d have presumed this would have come up in the evidence for that case but afaik it has not.
IANAL, but perhaps Craigslist’s response to our product, which included blocking its usage on the site after they implanted their version, served as a stronger example of the commercialization of the product still well ahead of the Rally Patent.
It is great that he’s doing this and it’s making the world a better place. It’s a bit disappointing that in articles like this there’s relatively little discussion around what organisations receive the money and what impact it has. We should ultimately judge people by that, not abstractly by “charity == good”? If a billionaire donates millions to the Against Malaria Foundation I would judge that differently than a do…
He seems like a private person doesn't flaunt his wealth and has mostly avoided inserting himself into public discourse, unlike many of his tech-rich peers.