Craig Newmark "Fireside Chat," from TieCon East

Last month, I had the chance to interview Craigslist founder Craig Newmark in front of a great big audience at the annual TieCon East entrepreneurship conference.

Craig was hugely entertaining -- he's a witty, code-writin' blend of Woody Allen, Oscar Wilde, and Groucho Marx.

Here's a podcast (in mp3 form) of the event, just posted to Boston.com.

We talk about:

- Craig's pre-Craigslist career
- How any why he started Craigslist
- His shortcomings as a manager, and hiring Jim Buckmaster to be CEO of Craigslist
- Whether he posts things on Craigslist
- How Craigslist's unique culture spread around the globe
- Why the company doesn't try to make more money from the site
- What he does as a "customer service rep"
- Craigslist's tempestuous relationship with eBay, which owns 28 percent of the company
- Craig's views on the future of journalism
- Whether he gets a newspaper at home
- How he answers his e-mail so quickly
- Politics (he's an Obama man)
- His future

(Update #1: TIE has just put up a short video clip from the conversation.)

(Update #2: Here's my Sunday Globe column on Newmark and the growth of Craigslist.)

Interviewing Craig Newmark at TieCon East

The nice folks at TIE have invited me to conduct an on-stage interview next Friday with Craig Newmark of Craigslist, at their big annual conclave.

I hope you can make it...and if you want to post some questions here for Craig, I'll consider them for inclusion in our chat.