Craig Newmark
Craig Newmark had many years as a software engineer, including 18 years at IBM, before becoming better-known as the founder of craiglist, which he started in 1995.
Craigslist started out to inform people of events around San Francisco and developed into a community bulletin board with classifieds and discussion forums with postings in jobs, for sale, and apartments etc.
Craig Newmark devoted himself full-time to craigslist in early 1999 - the same year that craigslist was incorporated as a 'for-profit' - and it has grown incredibly.
Even with its growth in the early years of the 21st century with craigslist generating many millions of dollars a year in revenue, it nevertheless operated with less than 20 staff.
The site attracts more than 3 billion page views each month through over 10 million visitors.
Craiglist is an intriguing balance between the commercial and the community-minded, between the huge enterprise and the cottage industry - its 19 people work from a victorian house in the Inner Sunset neighborhood of San Francisco, USA.
You can access Craig Newmark's up-to-date pontifications at his blog.