Craig Newmark: belief

Transcript context

…According to Susan Freese, who wrote about you, in one year, you answered 40,000 customer service emails. Is that possibly true? If so, what did you learn about humanity doing that? I have the vague memory of being asked and then counting the number of emails I had sent that year. It’s hard to believe, but I work every day, so I guess that’s 10 times 365. That’s maybe 4,000. I don’t know if I got the number right, but it’s too much. The thing is, like I say, a nerd’s got to do what a nerd’s got to do. What I learned about people doing customer service at Craigslist was that people everywhere are the same. We want to get through the day, which is sometimes tougher than other days. One thing I noticed in New York is that New York is a collection of small towns, not so much a big city. New Yorkers aren’t all that different than people anywhere. For the most part, New Yorkers want to get through the day. It may be harder to get an apartment. Rent stabilization is a passion. Otherwise, people everywhere are similar. The amount of bad actors is actually very tiny. You became more trusting of people, helping them?…

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