Craig Newmark Bio, Age, Height, Net Worth, Wife, Politics and House
Emily Carr
Updated on January 02, 2026
Craig Newmark Bio|Biography
Craig Newmark (Craig Alexander Newmark) is an American Internet entrepreneur and also a philanthropist. He is best known for being the founder of the website Craigslist.
Craig Newmark Age
Newmark was born on 6 December 1952, in Morristown, New Jersey, United States. He is 66 years old as of 2018.Craig Newmark Height
There are no known records showing Crag’s height as he prefers keeping it lowkey and out of the limelight.
Craig Newmark Net Worth|Salary
In May 2017, Forbes reported that Newmark’s net worth is at least $1.3 billion based on his ownership of at least 42% of Craigslist. He called a prior worth $400 million Forbes estimate of his net worth “bogus.” In an interview which was published in 2017, Crag claimed that it was through monetizing Craigslist just the way he had done it previously in 1999, by giving away already 90 percent or more of his potential net worth.
Newmark also described his business philosophy as a minimal profit rather than non-profit saying that he basically decided on a different business model in ’99, nothing altruistic. While Silicon Valley VCs and bankers were telling him that he should become a billionaire, he decided no one needs to be a billionaire but should just know when enough is enough. So he decided on a minimal business model, which worked out pretty well. This meant Crag could give away tremendous amounts of money to the nonprofits he believes in. As of 2019, Crag has a net worth of 1.6 billion USD.
Craig Newmark Wife
Earlier in 2012, Craig and Eileen Whelpley tied a knot. The couple was married in a lavish ceremony in New Jersey, United States. Presently, the couple lives together in San Francisco and they don’t have any children yet.
Craig Newmark Education
Newmark was born in Morristown, New Jersey, United States. He is the son of Joyce and Lee Newmark. While growing up, he attended a Jewish religious school. His father, who is an insurance salesman, died when Craig was only thirteen. His mother then struggled financially, moving Craig and his brother Jeff into an apartment in Jacob Ford Village.
Later in 1971, Crag graduated from Morristown High School and thanks to scholarships, he attended college at Case Western Reserve University. While there, he received a bachelor of science degree in 1975 and after two years, in 1977 he attained a master of science degree.
Craig Newmark Career
After college, Newmark worked as a programmer at IBM for a period of 17 years, living in New Jersey, Boca Raton, Florida, and Detroit. In 1993, Crag moved to San Francisco to work for Charles Schwab. There, he was introduced to the Internet—which at that time was still commercial-free. A self-professed nerd, he developed Craigslist as a free marketplace where people could come together for free and exchange information.
It has been explained as an “internet commune.” Newmark still remains active at Craigslist in customer service, where he deals mostly with spammers including scammers. Crag also operates Craigconnects, a site that publicizes charitable organizations.
Craig Newmark House
Craig Newmark Politics
In 2014, Crag was one of 60 Democratic Party donors who urged the creation of a system of public election funding. Later after two years (2016), Newmark joined with the progressive RAD Campaign including Lincoln Park Strategies which were founded by Democratic Party stalwart Stefan Hankiz in order to commission a poll examining user perceptions concerning social media conflicts during the 2016 election year.
Newmark has also donated to the presidential campaigns of Democratic Senator and former United States Secretary of State John Kerry. He also gave support to former President Barack Obama. In 2015, Variety said that he contributed to the presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton.
Craig Newmark Quotes
- Right now, the biggest shared value that I can think of is that you should treat others the way you want to be treated, and just have some good sense about what matters to you. Craig Newmark
- A lot of people, myself included, are excited about blogging and stuff like that, citizen journalism, but I do remind people that no matter how excited we are, there’s no substitute for professional writing, no substitute for professional editing, and no substitute for professional fact-checking.
- Craigslist does serve as a platform where people help each other for the basics, and also, shows people that the Internet is good for mutual support. I do feel pretty good about that.
- I’m not in the news business and won’t tell people how to do their job. I’d like to restore trust in the news business, though, and feel that restoring fact-checking will really help. News business realities mean that such fact-checking has to be practical, it has to be fast and cheap.
- Okay, I’m not in the news business, and I’m not going to tell anyone how to do their job. However, it’d be good to have news reporting that I could trust again, and there’s evidence that fact-checking is an idea whose time has come.
- I do think the biggest problem newspapers have is loss of trust, and I feel that’s a result of failure to speak truth to power.
- I’d like to build a way for people doing good work to connect, to learn from each other, protect each other, and then I want to get out of their way.
- I do think the biggest problem newspapers have is loss of trust, and I feel that’s a result of failure to speak truth to power.