The Management Philosophy of Jim Buckmaster
Posted September 25th, 2007 under lessons learned, management, what I do for moneyJim Buckmaster is the CEO of Craigslist.com. In a recent interview, he gave the following philosophy. I want to work for him…
The management philosophy of Jim Buckmaster
- Listen to what users want. Try to make the site faster and better.
- Hire good people. “We work hard trying to get the right kind of folks.” It pays off: they hardly ever leave.
- No meetings, ever. “I find them stupefying and useless.”
- No management programmes and no MBAs. “I’ve always thought that sort of thing was baloney.”
- Forget the figures. “We are consistently in the black, so if we do better or worse in any given quarter it is absolutely irrelevant.”
- Occasionally, give people “a very gentle nudge”. This can be done over lunch or on the instant messaging boards.
- He doesn’t reply to any of his 100 daily messages, most of which beg Craigslist to do a deal. “I’m not real chatty on e-mail.”
- Put speed over perfection: “Get something out there. Do it, even if it isn’t perfect.”
- “Don’t screw it up by doing things that make people feel worse about their work.”
September 28th, 2007 at 4:19 pm
I take exception to that comment from Buckmaster.
Craigslist is a multi-billion dollar company that’s not nearly living up to their potential as a business, and that’s just how Craig Newmark, the founder, likes it.
For that reason alone this interview with the CEO of Craigslist should come with a disclaimer. I did him a favor by writing one :
When reading this interview please keep in mind that Craig Newmark basically hired this fella to help him retain an idealistic business model, not to grow an organization, work towards a liquidity event, or build a business.
I am not debating that he’s doing a good job maintaining the founder’s vision. What bugs me about this interview is that it seems framed as ”learn how you can build a business like craigslist by listening to this awesome CEO”.