Interview w/ Aspie Creator of Craigslist. Submit Questions!

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I will be interviewing Craig Newmark, the creator of Craigslist. He has made public comments about having Asperger's although I don't think he's officially Diagnosed.

I will be submitting your questions to him so please come up with some good ones.

here are some articles

http://www.thefastertimes.com/techlife/ ... bushed-me/
http://craigconnects.org/2009/01/my-ner ... drome.html
http://gawker.com/5885196/the-tech-indu ... -or-insult

I also interviewed another startup founder Bram Cohen a few years ago: http://www.wrongplanet.net/article214.html

When/Where did you first hear about Aspergers?

I have a couple of hardball questions if you're interested:

I tend to be more of a history and social studies nerd, but I can do math if I put a lot of time into it and can actually be pretty good at it. So, from '98 to 2000, I took C++ classes as a post-bac student and got pretty good at it and had a portfolio of work. But what I found is that the only thing human resource departments looked at, and I do mean the ONLY thing, was years of corporate experience.

Q1: Why does our tribe the nerds start profitable businesses and then we give away the keys of the kingdom to the goody-two-shoes human resource "professionals"?

Q2: Care to comment on the standard failure rate for new businesses of 80%? (That's right. The standard statistic is that four out of five new businesses fail.)

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=li8Rs013314&feature=colike[/youtube]

sorry, couldn't resist.

what i'd like to know... does he still feel connected to the site? does he think that Craisglist today is like he originally envisioned it or is it evolving organically?

How come my "local" listings aren't that local. I'm an hour away from Cincinatti, Ohio and I've gotten listings that were so far away it was practicaly in Michigan. Why aren't you cracking down on puppy mills and backyard animal breeders?

bumpity bump

Any more questions? Don't be shy

Questions:

what role did autism play, while you were growing up?

how did you find out/come to the conclusion that you were autistic, and when?

do you take part in the autistic community?

what do you see as the greatest challenge to the autistic person today?

what do you think of the changes to the DSM V (ok, me might not even what your talking about here)

how come you are now "comming out" autistic? and what impact are you hoping that will make?




-Felix

It is said that difficulties socializing are core to Asperger Syndrome.

What with the traits you think you might have, out of those that might be, or may have been social difficulties, which ones do you think you had to overcome in order to make a success of Craig's List?

How did you manage to overcome them enough to make the contacts, connections, and form the relationships necessary to pull the Craig's List venture off?

What advice could you offer to others with Autistic social difficulties who feel they don't fit into the "employment" world, have good business ideas, but lack certain aspects of "social adeptness" (for lack of a better term) necessary to gain the relationships needed to make a business successful?

At the risk of being "offensive" I would love to ask the following question as well, not because of anything I know about Craig, but because of what I know of myself, as well as certain things I've observed through documentaries about many highly successful people (Steve Jobs for example).

Does there come a point where you just have to accept who you are and just tell yourself, "To hell with what everyone thinks of me, I'm going to do this no matter what it takes, even if it means people think I'm an ________."? (Fill in the blank with any colorful term of your choice.)

How much do you really concern yourself with how or what others think about you? Is image of any importance at all? If so, in what ways, and why?

What advice does he wish he got / got sooner? (Related to business, Asperger's, or neither.)

What AS attributes have uniquely contributed to you success?

Do you hone these unique traits to suit your career, or, alternatively, did your career shape your own innate traits?

Were you bullied when you were a child? Or discouraged by others? Then, how do you think this rejection toughened you to be a survivor in your career, to persevere despite the odds?

Over time, what's the single most meaningful/memorable experience that's made a difference for you?

And, do you have any pets??



Thanks Alex - we are a font of queries here!

I'd like to hear if, as a successful entrepreneur with Asperger's, he has any plans to give back to the community and lend financial support to autism organizations.

were you in sped as a child or got any help fotr dealys

Can you say the alphabet backwards?


In all seriousness, ask him if he "thinks in pictures" like other famous autistics have said they do.

Craigslist has a pretty bad reputation. I don't think is a very good idea to have anything to do wih this website.

I think its a totally awesome idea.

regardless of whatever rep craigslist has, this is a story about an autistic person who made it big.

i like stories like that.