Craigslist 창업자, 반억 달러 기부

출처: 해커 뉴스

크레이그 뉴마크, 다액 재산가인 크레이gislist 설립자는 입을 다물지 못하는 데 오랜 기간을 겪어 왔으며, 이는 곧 “유의미한 실수”를 초래했으며, 그는 이를 인정한다.

하지만 그는 자신이 설립한 지 30년 전부터 자선단체에 반 이상의 10억 달러를 기부했다고 해서 판단 오류라고 보지는 않는다 – 또한 거대한 재산을 가진 다른 사람들이 비슷한 길을 가길 바란다는 그의 희망도 그대로다. [https://www.independent.co.uk/us/money/money-health-impact-wealth-finances-b2987545.html]

최근 미국에서는 자선 활동보다는 단단한 개인주의와 부를 과시하는 화려한 표현으로의 전환이 일어나고 있으며, 심지어 최고 직위에서도 그렇다.

도널드 트럼프 대통령은 제2차 임기 동안 순자산을 [$43억에서 $73억]로 늘렸으며, 백악관 볼룸에 6억 달러를 지출할 계획이라고 밝혔고, 매번 수도를 금박으로 꾸미는 등 행보를 가다듬고 있다.

Billionaire venture capitalist 피터 틸 told The New York Times earlier this year that he had been encouraging wealthy peers to undo commitments to The Giving Pledge(기부 서약), a longstanding philanthropic campaign that encourages the ultra‑rich to give away vast sums during their lifetime to causes of their choosing.

Thiel claimed contributions would go to “left-wing” nonprofits, according to an audio transcript provided to Reuters, and dubbed it an “Epstein‑adjacent fake Boomer club.”

Newmark signed The Giving Pledge(기부 서약) last year and recently wrote a*New York Times *op‑ed on how he was놀라워했다.

“제 1990년대 중반에 Craigslist을 시작했을 때, 부자가 될 줄은 생각조차 못 했어요. 하지만 저는 부자가 되었죠. 그때 tech 업계 사람들도 운이 좋았습니다. 수억, 심지어 수십억 달러가 단순히 올바른 시간에 올바른 곳에 있었던 결과였죠,” he wrote. “그 돈은 누구에게나 너무 많아서 저는 이를 필요로 하는 사람들에게 대부분 나눠줍니다. 다른 사람들이 이 정도의 돈을 가지고 비판을 퍼부어서는 안 된다고 생각하지 않아요.”

Newmark, 74**, told The Independent that he doesn’t judge other wealthy people who don’t want to give their money away but nevertheless finds their decisions hard to fathom.

“Everyone has to make their own moral decisions,” he said*. “There are some highly visible, super‑rich people who’ve made their own decisions, and it’s their right to make those decisions. I just don’t really understand.”

His own financial decisions are rooted in a classroom at the Jewish Community Center in Morristown, New Jersey. It’s there that six‑year‑old Newmark attended the Sunday school of Holocaust survivors** Rafael and Rachel Levin in the late Fifties, and never forgot the lesson that kindness was more important than riches.

“They told me that I should treat people like I want to be treated,” he said. “I should know when enough is enough. And they told me I should be my brother’s keeper or my sister’s keeper. And that made sense to me.”

The sentiment remained with him early in his career when he was a software engineer at Bank of America and Charles Schwab, and even after he launched his unexpectedly popular classifieds site Craigslist in 1996.

The site started as a weekly email detailing upcoming events that Newmark would send to friends while living in San Francisco. Over time, the email transformed into a classifieds site with listings for everything from cars and free couches to jobs and events.

In 1999, Craigslist took off and Newmark realized he had to turn it into a “real” company. But he didn’t know how to manage the growing site with a team mainly made up of volunteers, and he needed paid staff, such as programmers and customer service.

Newmark had a choice – get cozy with venture capitalists and bankers for funding, change the business model and get rich, or do it his way.

“The VCs and bankers I met at industry events said they wanted to throw huge amounts of money at me – billions,” he said. “But I’d have to do the usual Silicon Valley thing and they would then monetize the site thoroughly, and it would become a very different place.”

Rather than succumb to a model that likely would have charged people for listings, Newmark chose to charge businesses for their posts but kept Craigslist free for the average user.

Craigslist grew into an amazing success story, loved for its simple design and quirky listings, and remains among the top‑500 most visited websites in the world. More than 100 million users visited Craigslist in April, according to web analytics firm Semrush.

While Newmark said he was never a billionaire, his wealth could have bought a fleet of luxury vehicles, superyacht and homes on each continent. But aside from an occasional lavish meal, he says the trappings of extreme wealth held little pull for him. He doesn’t own a car and takes public transportation in New York City.

Billionaire venture capitalist Peter Thiel told The New York Times earlier this year that he had been encouraging wealthy peers to undo their commitment to The Giving Pledge, claiming contributions would go to ‘left‑wing’ nonprofits.

Newmark and his wife, Eileen married in 2012. They enjoy an occasional lunch together on work days and spend most evenings watching TV.