Steve Smith
Craig Newmark is a new world order guy. For those of you who don’t follow his blog I encourage you to start. Last week Craig was interviewed by Charlie Rose; the discussion left an impression. He not only knows about the Web, but also knows how the democratization of the Web is now changing our culture and way of life. He is living it. He knows that smart amateurs are closer to the pulse than seasoned professionals and that the ‘wisdom of crowds’ phenomenon is being reflected in everything from blogs to social networking sites to collaborative knowledge bases like Wikipedia. He also knows that the Web is a disruptive force to many of our existing social structures. People become powerful through the Web and create value without money. As the founder and figurehead of Craigslist, he has lived this story; Craig has created something of great value to many people and is becoming powerful as a result. Pretty cool when his path to getting there was a community service based on mutual respect and trust.
In spite of the fact that Charlie Rose speculates that he is worth roughly between 187m and 1.87b, Craig calls himself a tech support rep and genuinely seems to be without ego or greed (evidence enough that he is highly evolved).
At a time when our obsession with consumption impacting both our environment and society in devastating ways, I am a big fan of a new world order. We can learn a lot from Craig Newmark.