Jim Buckmaster (born August 14, 1962)
Buckmaster wrote a series of haiku that appear in lieu of error messages on craigslist:he has written appear on the screen at times when users might expect a helpful message from the staff. They function as a gnomic clue that what you are seeing is intentional, while discouraging further conversation or inquiry. For instance, start too many conversations in the forums and your new threads may fail to show up. Instead, you will see this:
'Frogs croak and gulls cry<br>
silently a river floods<br>
a red leaf floats by.'"
Referring to the purple peace sign he created that serves as craigslist's symbol and favicon: which Buckmaster claims is an inaccurate characterization:
:"We are not so much anti-capitalist (...) We're fortunate enough to have built a very healthy business, even though we haven't attempted to. All we have done is stop short of trying to become insanely wealthy. We have met billionaires and it sounds funny but it's not necessarily a bed of roses to have that kind of money. (...) Their life becomes about figuring out how to employ all that money either by philanthropy or other means. So we don't consider it that revolutionary to have stopped short of that."
"Companies looking to maximize revenue need to throw as many revenue-generating opportunities at users as they will tolerate," Buckmaster says. "We have absolutely no interest in doing that, which I think has been instrumental to the success of craigslist."
Buckmaster was once denounced on Fox News by Reverend Jerry Falwell.