What is Jim Buckmaster’s Net Worth?
Jim Buckmaster is a computer programmer and businessman who has a net worth of $40 million. Jim Buckmaster serves as the CEO of Craigslist, having assumed the role in 2000. Under his leadership, the website expanded into hundreds of cities and regions around the world, receiving over 560 billion page views per month. Jim works very closely with Craigslist founder Craig Newmark. Buckmaster is known for his unconventional, relaxed leadership style, which privileges user needs over profit and the influence of programmers and accountants over marketers.
Early Life and Education
Jim Buckmaster was born on August 14, 1962 in Ann Arbor, Michigan. For his higher education, he attended Virginia Tech, from which he earned his Bachelor of Science degree. Buckmaster went on to attend the University of Michigan as a medical student, but he discontinued his program in 1986 due to a lack of interest. However, he remained enrolled at the school for the next decade by taking at least one class for credit, allowing him to maintain some student privileges. During this time, Buckmaster taught himself how to code.
Career Beginnings
In the early 1990s, Buckmaster did computer programming for the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research, and designed the institution’s web interface. He later worked as a webmaster for the short-lived tech company Creditland, based in San Francisco, California.
Craig Newmark (left) and Jim Buckmaster (right) (Justin Sullivan /Getty Images)
Craigslist
At the dawn of the new millennium, Buckmaster became the lead programmer and CTO of the classified advertisements website Craigslist. In his roles, he contributed to the site’s homepage design, self-posting process, multi-city architecture, search engine, discussion forums, personals categories, and flagging system, as well as the “best-of-Craigslist” feature. Due to his success, Buckmaster was promoted to CEO of Craigslist in late 2000. Over the subsequent years, the website expanded into many cities in the United States, and in 2004 it began charging $25 for users to post job openings on the Los Angeles and New York pages. Also that year, Craigslist added the new section “Gigs,” featuring low-cost and unpaid jobs that could be posted free of charge. In 2008, the website began supporting non-English languages, such as Spanish, French, and German. By 2012, it had expanded to over 700 cities and regions in countries around the world.
Buckmaster has been noted for his unconventional leadership of Craigslist, fostering a company culture based around the influence of programmers, accountants, and customer service representatives, as opposed to marketers. The company has no business development, sales, or human resources, and there are no meetings, only email communications. At the UBS Global Media Conference in New York in late 2006, Buckmaster told Wall Street analysts that Craigslist was less interested in maximizing profit than in helping users find what they needed, whether that be jobs, apartments, cars, or dates. Because of his ethos, he has often been called “anti-establishment” by the press. Buckmaster also managed the nonprofit Craigslist Foundation, which provided free and low-cost events and online resources for community building.
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