Is Silicon Valley, the high-tech world generally, fulfilling its social responsibilities?
“I do feel most people want to make things better, but we don’t know what to do, because we delegate a lot of that responsibility to our government, which sometimes succeeds and sometimes fails,” in education and in other areas, he responded. “That’s why I think you now see people like Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Pierre Omidyar or Jeff Skoll. What they’re trying to do is they’re setting aside billions of dollars, tens of billions, to try to figure out how to make things better.” Why has craigslist made so many unique choices–more community oriented than most corporations, less bottom-line oriented? “There’s nothing noble or altruistic about it,” Mr. Newmark said. “Jim Buckmaster and I, we’re both engineers, and we don’t know any better. There’s no MBAs in the company. We’re just doing what feels right.” “And we both live pretty simply. For example, I don’t think Jim has ever owned a car. I normally do own a car, but I tend to keep them for a while. Currently I have the old Prius. The
