I'd be curious to know how the economics of craigslist works, such that he's made so many hundreds of millions of dollars. It only charges a modest fee for a small fraction of transactions, but presumably the denominator is big enough that this adds up (and of course he would have subsequently invested the proceeds).

I had assumed that the fee portion of the site was substantial enough to cover all costs, and generate perhaps tens of millions of profit (he's well known for having given away money to media, so obviously there's some profit). But I didn't realize that it made hundreds of millions of dollars.

Are there any articles that break down how this pencils out?

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layer8 7 hours ago | parent | next [-]

A few details are given here: https://fox4kc.com/business/press-releases/ein-presswire/799...

Revenue peaked in 2018 at $1 billion.

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Jblx2 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I suppose some of it is due to craigslist being around for 30+ years. At $25-$30 million a year, it adds up over time. And then if he invests most of it, 30 years of compounding interest does the rest.

	▲	apparent 7 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Yeah, and investing during the last 30 years would yield incredible results even if you are lousy at picking stocks. And of course, if you'd put even a tiny bit into BTC, you'd have even more.

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KennyBlanken 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

He and James made hundreds of millions of dollars off ads for prostitution. Knowingly.

Throwing money at military veterans doesn't erase the stain of having a hand in the explosion of human trafficking and sexual exploitation Craigslist (and Backpages) enabled.

The FBI arrested Gambino family members for child prostitution, and one of their top ways of soliciting Johns was via paid ads in Craigslist. One state AG counted 200,000 ads a year and estimated the revenue to be almost $2M, in their state alone.