Craig Alexander Newmark (born December 6, 1952) is an American internet entrepreneur and philanthropist best known as the founder of the classifieds website Craigslist. Before founding Craigslist, he worked as a computer programmer for IBM, Bank of America, and Charles Schwab. Newmark was chief executive officer of Craigslist from its founding until 2000. He founded Craig Newmark Philanthropies in 2015.
Newmark was born to Joyce and Lee Newmark, a bookkeeper and insurance and meat salesman, who were Jewish, in 1952 in Morristown, New Jersey. As a child, Newmark liked science fiction and comic books, and wanted to become a paleontologist. When Newmark was thirteen, his father died from cancer. His mother then moved him and his younger brother, Jeff, to Jacob Ford Village in Morristown.
As a teenager, Newmark attended Morristown High School, where he became interested in physics. He wore taped-together, black-rimmed glasses and a pocket protector. In an interview, he described his high school self as "possible nerd patient zero". During high school, he sang in the school choir, joined the physics club, co-captained the debate team and was in the honor society. Newmark graduated from high school in 1971.
During his freshman year of college, Newmark began studying computer science. He earned Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees in computing and information sciences from Case Western Reserve University in 1975 and 1977, respectively.
Before establishing Craigslist, Newmark worked as a contract computer programmer for companies such as Bank of America, Sun Microsystems, and others. His first job out of college was with IBM, where he worked for 17 years as a programmer and systems engineer. During that time, he lived in Boca Raton, Florida, Detroit, Michigan, and then Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He moved to San Francisco in 1993 after accepting a position with Charles Schwab. There, a coworker introduced him to the World Wide Web—which at the time was still relatively free of commercials.
In 1995, Newmark started emailing a list of upcoming events to a few friends to "cultivate a bit of community". Other people asked to be included on the list and as members grew, so did the kinds of information on the list. Newmark launched craigslist.org in 1996, where people could exchange information, mostly without charge. It started as a newsletter about San Francisco events. He operated it as a hobby while continuing to work as a software engineer until 1999 when he incorporated Craigslist as a private for-profit company. In her book An Internet for the People: The Politics and Promise of craigslist, Jessa Lingel described the website as "the internet ungentrified". In 2000, Newmark stepped down as chief executive officer and handed off the role to Jim Buckmaster. Since then, Newmark has not been involved in the "day-to-day operations" of Craigslist. As of 2018, he continued to respond to Craigslist customer service inquiries, primarily dealing with spammers and scammers.
In 2005, Time magazine listed Craig Newmark as one of the 100 people shaping the world.
Newmark is on the board of several non-profit organizations such as CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, Girls Who Code, and Vets in Tech, among others. He also holds roles on the advisory boards of 18 other non-profits.
As far back as 2004, Newmark was using his wealth to support philanthropic causes. His philanthropic interests include journalism and cybersecurity. In 2015, he founded Craig Newmark Philanthropies which acts as an umbrella for his other foundations, such as his private charitable foundation, to which he contributed $50 million in 2016 to support military families, voter registration efforts, and women in technology.
In 2018, Newmark's donations totaled $143 million.
The Chronicle of Philanthropy ranked Newmark 17th out of 50 in its 2020 ranking of individual donors, giving a total of $100 million. In 2022, Newmark donated $81 million through the Craig Newmark Foundation and Craig Newmark Philanthropic Fund again ranking in Chronicle of Philanthropy's top 50.
In December 2022, he announced his intention to give almost all of his money to charity.
While consulting for the VA Office of Healthcare Innovation and Learning Newmark dubbed himself "Nerd-in-Residence” while focusing his computer science skills on the Blue Button initiative, which is designed to make electronic health records, including family history, available to all veterans thereby accelerating the processing of claims, improving patient care, and saving lives.
In 2022, Craig Newmark Philanthropies announced a $2.95 million grant to The Bob Woodruff Foundation's Got Your 6 Network. As of 2022, Craig Newmark Philanthropies reported more than $28 million in contributions to military and veteran communities, including Military Veterans in Journalism.
In 2023, Newmark donated $1 million to Blue Star Families, a non-profit organization supporting the families of military personnel and veterans.
In 2023, Craig Newmark Philanthropies donated $10 million to The Bob Woodruff Foundation's Got Your 6 Network at the 17th Annual Stand Up for Heroes fundraiser gala that will support comprehensive mental health services for veterans and their families.
In 2023, Newmark pledged an additional $100 million to organizations focused on veterans and military families.