Pierre Omidyar
Pierre Omidyar
Pierre Morad Omidyaris a French-born Iranian-American entrepreneur and philanthropist. He is the founder of the eBay auction site where he served as Chairman from 1998 to 2015. He became a billionaire at the age of 31 with eBay's 1998 initial public offering. Omidyar and his wife Pamela are well-known philanthropists who founded Omidyar Network in 2004 in order to expand their efforts beyond nonprofits to include for-profits and public policy...
NationalityFrench
ProfessionEntrepreneur
Date of Birth21 June 1967
CityParis, France
CountryFrance
The interesting thing was, I started eBay off as a hobby so it was free of charge.
The revenues came in at $500, and I thought, 'This is pretty good,'
In the early days of eBay, I articulated for the very first time this belief that people are basically good.
I developed an interest in supporting independent journalists in a way that leverages their work to the greatest extent possible, all in support of the public interest.
The personal wealth that's coming is absolutely secondary to the stories that I hear about our users who have given themselves some financial independence as well by starting businesses, and all the lives we've touched positively.
Give the individual the power to be a producer as well as a consumer.
I want people to be entrepreneurs, but I want them to do it for the right reasons, because they think they can change the world, because they think they have got something of value to give to the world. Not because they think they can make a lot of money.
In the same way that you're driven in your business to keep innovating - Facebook is a wonderful example of constant innovation - think about doing that in philanthropy.
eBay's business is based on enabling someone to do business with another person, and to do that, they first have to develop some measure of trust, either in the other person or the system.
We believe that business can be a tool for social good.
What makes eBay successful.. the real value and the real power at eBay is the community. It's the buyers and sellers coming together and forming a marketplace.
Whatever future you're building, don't try to program everything.
I built a system simple enough to sustain itself.
I never had it in mind that I would start a company one day and it would really be successful. I have just been motivated by working on interesting technology