The management secrets of Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster

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nRecently, 37 Signals highlighted the management style of Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster. It would be an understatement to say that Jim doesn’t approve of business as usual in America: “[He] doesn’t believe in maximizing profits. He doesn’t believe innmanagement. He doesn’t believe in brands. He doesn’t believe inndiscussing money and he doesn’t believe in smiling.” While some of his advice is spot-on (“Hire good people”), some of his other advice made him sound like a business Luddite:

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• No meetings, ever. “I find them stupefying and useless.” n

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• No management programmes and no MBAs. “I’ve always thought that sort of thing was baloney.” n

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• Forget the figures. “We are consistently in the black, so ifnwe do better or worse in any given quarter it is absolutelynirrelevant.”

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Oh, and he doesn’t reply to any of his 100+ daily  e-mail messages (“I’m not real chatty on e-mail”) and he apparently doesn’t bristle at the notion of being called a “socialistic anarchist.”

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[image: Jim Buckmaster]

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