Craig Newmark, founder of craigslist.org, embraces media new and old. As he told Zócalo audiences in Los Angeles and San Francisco, he blogs, Facebooks, and twitters, often “bad bird haikus” about the creatures he spots from his window. But he also reads “the paper on paper” and watches plenty of TV. “I’m a big fan of ‘The Simpsons’. I watch a lot of news, particularly Stewart and Colbert,” he said. Below, he tells us more about himself.
Q. What do you wake up to?
A. I listen to the NPR affiliate, usually KQED. I get up, then I do customer service as long as it takes to get customer service done. Then I can get coffee and read the paper.
Q. What music have you listened to today?
A. None, although ever since I got to Hollywood I’ve been humming the theme from Beverly Hillbillies.
Q. What’s your favorite word?
A. Nerd.
Q. What do you find beautiful?
A. Some of the music I listen to. A lot of the birds I see around the house. I do get a lot of visitors.
Q. How would you describe yourself in five words or fewer?
A. Not as funny as I think.
Q. When you were a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
A. At first a paleontologist, then a physicist.
Q. What is your favorite cocktail?
A. Now and then I’ll have a vodka tonic or, depending on my mood, a Cosmo.
Q. What is your greatest extravagance?
A. My shower.
Q. If you could take only one more journey, where would you go?
A. New York.
Q. What profession would you like to practice in your next life?
A. A complexity theorist.
Q. What would be your death row meal?
A. A lot of lobster, possibly Kentucky Fried Chicken.
Q. What is your favorite holiday and why?
A. Holiday? What’s that?
Q. What is your fondest childhood memory?
A. Pajamas with footies.
Q. What is your most prized material possession?
A. I don’t have one.
Q. What promise do you make to yourself that you break the most often?
A. To eat less.
Q. What should you throw away but haven’t been able to part with?
A. Some old clothes.
Q. Who is the one person living or dead that you’d most love to have a beer with?
A. Ben Franklin.
To read more about Newmark’s talk in San Francisco, click here. To read about his talk in Los Angeles, click here.
*Photo by Aaron Salcido.