Craig Alexander Newmark (born December 6, 1952) is an American internet entrepreneur and philanthropist best known as the founder of the classifieds website Craigslist. Prior to founding Craigslist, he worked as a computer programmer for companies such as IBM, Bank of America, and Charles Schwab. Newmark served as chief executive officer of Craigslist from its founding until 2000. He founded Craig Newmark Philanthropies in 2015. Early life and education Newmark, the son of Joyce and Lee Newmark, was born to a Jewish family in 1952 in Morristown, New Jersey. As a child, Newmark liked science fiction and comic books, and wanted to become a paleontologist. Newmark's mother was a bookkeeper and his father was an insurance and meat salesman. When Newmark was thirteen, his father died from cancer. His mother then moved him and his younger brother, Jeff, to Jacob Ford Village. As a teenager, Newmark attended Morristown High School, where he became interested in physics. He wore taped together, black-rimmed glasses and a pocket protector. In an interview, Newmark described his high school self as "possible nerd patient zero". During high school, he sang in the school choir, joined the physics club, co-captained the debate team, and was in the honor society. Newmark graduated high school in 1971. During his freshman year of college, Newmark began studying computer science. He earned Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees in computing and information sciences from Case Western Reserve University in 1975 and 1977, respectively. Career Newmark is best known as the founder of Craigslist. Prior to establishing the website, he worked as a contract computer programmer for companies such as Bank of America, Sun Microsystems, and others. His first job out of college was with IBM, where he worked for 17 years as a programmer and systems engineer. During that time, he lived in Boca Raton, Florida, Detroit, and then Pittsburgh. He moved to San Francisco in 1993 after accepting a position with Charles Schwab. There, a coworker introduced him to the World Wide Web— which at the time was still relatively free of commercials. In 1995, Newmark started emailing a list of upcoming events to a few friends to "cultivate a bit of community". Other people asked to be included on the list and as members grew, so did the kinds of information on the list. Newmark launched craigslist.org in 1996, as a place where people could exchange