I'm Craig Newmark, best known for starting something called Craigslist.
But now I spend all my time on Craig Newmark Philanthropies, which is about finding some things that I really believe in that will help everyone.
And then I find good groups of people who are good at doing things in those areas and I help them with resources I have.
So far, I've given over 90 million.
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I grew up in the 50s and then 60s, and good at technology and science and marginal social skills, if any.
Even in high school, I really did wear a plastic pocket protector.
I really did wear a thick black glasses taped together.
But the deal is, a while I've learned to simulate social skills.
I'm faking them even now.
The big thing for me back then, was the original Star Trek.
I perhaps wanted to be Captain Kirk but I knew I was I was really Mr. Spock.
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Okay Craig we are sitting on the doorsteps of where it all began.
Craigslist began right there is not a permanent behind me isn't?
This was over 24 years ago.
A house in rooms in a house.
The teacher is reading a text and then they're completing a listening comprehension activity.
So for the assessment I'm going to say listening comprehension questions about a spoken text because the teacher is reading the text that occurs on day one of the learning segment.
In the first several months, the thing had no name.That's when I said well, maybe I'll call it events list or SF Events.
People around me, smarter than me, told me they already were calling it Craigslist.
I had created a brand inadvertently.
People asked for more and I did that.
People suggested new categories They wanted to be added to the list.
I did that at some point, i realized that as a manager, I kind of suck and it took me a few months for it to sink in which as founder's syndrome goes very bad.
The Internet wasn't that much of a surprise to me in terms of what it was doing what it could do and all that.
Because science fiction, because nerd.
I've been for almost 60 years explorations of possible new technologies.
I've also been reading what amounts to scenarios of the unintended consequences of technology on our society I'm lucky that in Sunday school, Mr. Mrs.
Levin taught me that I should treat people like I want to be treated in the last year.
People have realised consciously that practitioners of technology need to think a lot about the ethics of their work.
When it comes to information warfare or journalism, they have taught me this ninth commandment thing which says that you shouldn't bear false witness.
A trustworthy press is the immune system of democracy.
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In 2016 though, I saw that the immune system a democracy was kind of failing.
So I figured I'd pick up my interest.
And I put my money where my mouth is because supporting journalism is a matter of national security.
We need trustworthy news so we can make smart decisions about voting at Columbia University.
I funded a center for journalism ethics and security.
Security because you got to help keep journalists safe.
Ethics because some of the biggest issues right now in the quality of journalism are questions like, how do you avoid amplifying a lie?
Let's suppose a politician lies, not gray area, but outright clear black and white lie.
Is it ethical for a news outlet to propagate that lie to amplify it?
On the other hand, related areas cyber security.
I'm funding two projects now.
One which trains hundreds of vets each year in cyber security, or actual well paid careers.
Just started just announced a program where 100 women will be trained in 100 days for cyber security jobs.
The country has about 300,000 open cyber security positions, several hundred Is just a start.
But for each individual person who's gotten a shiny new career, that pays a lot, that's pretty good.
The major platforms, Facebook, Twitter, Google, need to work together to figure out how Terms of Service needs to be improved.
We didn't take a broad enough view of our responsibility and that was a big mistake.
That probably will involve some new law, clarifying what's considered free speech or fraud online.
Not easy, but is had begun to happen, I've contributed A lot of other areas like voter protection in the low millions to teachers, education and the about 4 million and also contributed to vets in the higher single digit millions.
I can do a lot of this stuff because in my work I've done pretty well.
I realized that my life should be about taking less and giving more.
It is time for people of goodwill, good conscience to stand up and do something.
Particularly if you have the resources to do something.
That's the deal right there.
I have been lucky And I'm putting my money where my mouth is.
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