Lesson #2: “Getting out of the way is really important”

In the late 1990s, just about every major IT-focused venture capital firm in San Francisco was offering financial backing to Newmark and his young company. It would have been any entrepreneur's dream, had that entrepreneur not been Craig Newmark, who refused funding "somewhere in the low tens of times...We needed to stay the course," he says. "That's hard to do if someone else owns 51 percent of your shares."

Still, Newmark's refusal to bring on a partner was not a power grab. He would hand over the reigns where and when it felt right, and that time came in 2000, when he decided to promote entrepreneur Jim Buckmaster as CEO.
"I had to take measures to keep myself from going nuts," says Newmark. "He's a much better manager than I am, and because the guy who started a company is not always the right guy to lead it into the future."

Newmark was not above recognizing his own limitations. When he tried bringing on volunteers to run the site in 1998, he quickly realized it would not work, "mainly because of lack of leadership on my part," he says. "Frankly, as a manager, I kinda suck, but fortunately Jim didn't."

Newmark knew he had stumbled upon a "happy accident" with Craigslist, but he also recognized that "people that start companies, and lack management skills, they fail." To that end, he quickly realized that "getting out of the way is really important." His great idea did not mean that he had the skills to see that idea to fruition.

It is that attitude that continues to govern the way the site is run. "We're really run by the people who use the site," he says. "We just run the infrastructure, and help out with problems." To that end, Newmark admits he never intended for the site to be used as a discussion forum for people seeking friendships or even romantic connections. But, he was not about to close that part of the site down. Instead, he took it and ran with it.

"We didn't care that the site wasn't being used how we had imagined," he says. "The Internet is about inclusion. On the Net, no one should be left out."

It was by taking himself out of the equation and letting others take his place that Newmark was able to create his successful recipe for success. He knew that his one brilliant idea did not necessarily mean that he alone would have all the rest.