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No one knows what to make of Craig. The founder of one of the most ubiquitous web sites in the world; Craig does not want to sell to Google or eBay for billions of dollars; does not want to tweak his web site to make it pretty; does not want to maximize revenue; does not want to add myriad social networks; is not interested in driving web 2.0 or 3.0 (or wherever we are now) applications; does not want to tinker with different revenue models; and does to want to do much of anything but add cities and answer his email. He has 30 or so employees to eBay’s 16,000, and Amazon’s 20,000. Yet they drive 20 billion page views a month in what is largely a free site. Yet Craig’s revenue is guestimated at anywhere in the tens to hundreds of millions. Let’s see what is that on a revenue per employee basis. Whoa. We say leave Craig alone. We are so shocked by anyone who is not after every dollar he can squeeze out of a situation we don’t understand it. We have to question and criticize. We have no idea what motivates Craig, but we believe that Craig is, and should be, free to do whatever he wants with the business he started. Just as we are free to speculate about what he is doing, use his site, start a competitor or ignore him. One thing is for certain, Craig is unique and, as with any entrepreneur, everyone who enjoys using his site would be poorer but for what he has done. We say, “Go Craig...wherever you’re going.”
-- Paul Marotta
The Buzz tries not to get too political, we enjoy the diversity of thought that comes with everything from communists to anarchists, but we hear more and more complaints about “corporations” and we don’t understand it. Now, we admit, we kind of like business, and kind of distrust government. And, of course, corporations come in all sizes. When people complain about “corporations” we think they mean really big ones that they don’t like. Not their friend’s 501(c)(3) or their uncle’s wholly owned consulting corporation. And, hello, “corporation” is in our name, so what’s not to love? But, what can a corporation do to you? Crummy employer? Quit. Product breaks? Don’t buy it. Making “obscene profits”? Buy their stock and share in those profits. Board is evil? Sell their stock or vote them out. So what’s the problem? After all, our standard of living was produced by the hard work of businesses, not government. Government never really produces one job unless it takes money from you to pay for that job. One could argue that some musicians or athletes make “really obscene profits” but as long as I am free to not buy their music, attend their games, or go to their concerts, what do I care what they make? Everyone but government is in the “contract“ business, they can’t make you do anything you don’t want to do; government is in the “coercion” business. Put on your bike helmet, buckle your seat belt, file this, stop here, or it’ll take your money away. We’ll take corporations any day.
-- Paul Marotta
