Craigslist Not For Sale

 Online community billboard Craigslist
receives 5 billion page views and 13 million unique visitors a month.
In the eyes of many in the Internet business, those figures would
represent very big dollar signs.

Though Craigslist achieves those enviable numbers, it remains simply “a small community service” to its founder.

“We could sell Craigslist for an enormous amount of money,” says
founder Craig Newmark, but “we tell people, ‘thanks, we’re not
interested.’”

According to a new estimate, MySpace could be worth $15 billion within
three years, and Internet billionaires populate the Forbes “Richest
Americans” list. But money doesn’t get Newmark excited.

“Once we’re living comfortably, we don’t see much point in making
more,” he says calmly. He continues to focus on Craigslist as a
community service — his mantra ever since he started the site in 1995.
He sees it as “following-through on the value system that most of us
share. Most religions emphasize spiritual values over material values.”

ABC News: Craigslist Not Selling Out