would you read a book about Craig Newmark of Craigslist?

Post an honest comment about this item and I'll send you a free, autographed copy of my book. Hey, it's a "must read" according to Publishers weekly! (Other reviews: http://www.richardlbrandt.com/drupal/node/31)

Here's some data about Craig Newmark, the founder of craigslist.org. Is this interesting to you, or old news? Would you buy a well-written, lively book about this guy?

Did you know that:

Outsiders estimate that Craigslist revenues are somewhere between $100 million and $300 million annually

The company has only 30 employees and the sites largely run themselves. That means huge profit margins on a company that takes in between $3.3 million and $10 million in annual revenues per employee. That's between 3x and 10x Google's revenue per employee.

Craigslist sites get more traffic than either Amazon.com or eBay and have over 50 million members.

Craigslist sites now have more job listings than Monster.com, CareerBuilder.com and Yahoo's HotJobs.com combined.

Although Craig netted $9.5 million when a former exec sold his stock to eBay, he would be worth at least $300 million if he took the company public.

He refuses to raise prices, charge for more listings or modernize the site's technology. If he wanted, he could probably be a billionaire. He despises “sociopathic organizations that have the almighty dollar as their only goal.” Craig's goal is to change the world.

A Chicago county sheriff described Craigslist as “the single largest source of prostitution in the nation."

Despite widespread belief in my profession and a study by the Pew Foundation, Craig denies he is helping destroy newspapers by sucking off all their classified ads. He thinks the newspapers are failing because they have abdicated their responsibility to tell people the truth. He's a backer of the non-profit NewAssignment.net, run out of New York University, which advocates “open platform” journalism and posts investigative news stories written by both professionals and amateurs.

He also contributes to a non-profit group called the Sunlight Foundation, which tries to help government departments open up access to information.

The programmer Craig promoted to CEO, JimBuckmaster, likes to describe himself as “possibly the only CEO ever described as anti-establishment, a communist, and a socialistic anarchist.”

Craig has met with President Obama to talk about how technology can be used to enhance government.

Craig's List was started as an email notice to San Francisco artists to let them know where and when the monthly party/art event, called the "Anon Salon" would be held next. It grew into a classifieds list because artists are usually looking for day jobs, shared housing and used furniture, so they asked Craig to add their pleas to his mailing.

The lawsuit with eBay is making Meg Whitman out to be outwardly nice but inwardly evil, and a Republican challenging her bid for governor of California, Steve Poizner, has started referring to "Good eMeg" and "Evil eMeg."

Craig loves Dilbert and has solved the Dilbert problem by having no marketing staff at his company.

He's fond of messing with reporters' minds by saying things like “I'm a guy who may or may not exist. I want to assure all your readers that I don't exist. I'll add, as a bonus joke for all the physics nerds, I exist in a state of quantum superposition, simultaneously existing and nonexisting.”

So, what do you think? Would you read it? Did you know it all already? I need some serious critiques. Any suggestions are very helpful but not required. And let me know where to send your book.

Thanks!
Richard