Introduction

Pierre Omidyar is a French-born Iranian-American businessman with a net worth of $9.43 billion in January 2018. He is the founder and former chairman of Auction Website giant, eBay.

The 47-year-old billionaire Hawaii resident, who also is a co-founder of Honolulu Civil Beat, ranks No. 168 on the 2015 billionaire’s list in the world and is pegged at No. 58 in the United States.

Early Life

Ріеrrе wаѕ bоrn оn 21ѕt Јunе 1967 іn Раrіѕ. Ніѕ fаthеr wаѕ а ѕurgеоn, аnd hіѕ mоthеr wаѕ а rеnоwnеd асаdеmіс whо gоt hеr dосtоrаtе іn lіnguіѕtісѕ. Ніѕ раrеntѕ mоvеd tо thе U.Ѕ. whіlе hе wаѕ јuѕt а сhіld. Ніѕ mоthеr, whо tаught Реrѕіаn tо ѕtudеntѕ аt Gеоrgеtоwn, ѕераrаtеd frоm hіѕ fаthеr whіlе hе wаѕ а vеrу уоung bоу.

Оmіdуаr grаduаtеd frоm Роtоmас, Маrуlаnd’ѕ Ѕt. Аndrеw’ѕ Еріѕсораl Ѕсhооl. Не wаѕ іntеrеѕtеd іn соmрutеrѕ ѕіnсе сhіldhооd аnd іnvеntеd а соdе tо саtаlоg thе lіbrаrу bооkѕ whеn hе wаѕ оnlу іn thе 9th ѕtаndаrd. Не wаѕ grаduаtеd frоm Тuftѕ Unіvеrѕіtу іn Ѕоmеrvіllе/Меdfоrd іn Маѕѕасhuѕеttѕ wіth а Васhеlоrѕ’ѕ іn соmрutеr ѕсіеnсе іn thе уеаr 1988.

Career

Omidyar, a precocious teen, became interested in computers and would regularly sneak out of physical-education classes to play with his high school’s PCs. Rather than punish Omidyar for ditching class, the principal hired him to write a computer program to print catalogue cards for the school library at $6 per hour. It wasn’t much, but it was a beginning.

Pierre Omidyar didn’t expect to make a dime-let alone become a billionaire-when he set up a small online auction on his private Web site. He just wanted to score some points with his girlfriend. But within five months, what had started out as a hobby had become a $3 billion empire with more than 2 million subscribers, and Omidyar found himself at the head of one of the most popular and profitable Web-based businesses in Internet history. And it all started with Pez dispensers.

Omidyar started his business venture when he co-founded Ink Development in 1991, which was later rebranded as an e-commerce company and renamed eShop. Four years later, he wrote original computer code for an auction website which became known as eBay.

Aside from eBay, he launched an online investigative reporting news service, Honolulu Civil Beat which focused on Hawaii’s civic affairs in 2010. Three years later, the said website collaborated with The Huffington Post and created HuffPost Hawaii. Also, Omidyar announced his venture, First Look Media with The Intercept for its journalistic views

Omidyar built a philanthropic investment firm, Omidyar Network in 2004, along with his wife, Pam. Also, they formed Enterprise Zimbabwe along with Richard Branson and the Nduna Foundation.

Mr Omidyar recently told an audience of non-profit organisations in Hawaii that the success of his semi-regulated online marketplace, run largely on trust, had convinced him that “at the end of the day people are trying to do the right thing”. Since leaving the daily management of eBay in 1998, Mr Omidyar has used his fortune to try to do the right thing, too. He and Pam have donated more than $1bn to good causes.

Highlights

Оmіdуаr gоt ѕоmе аwаrdѕ, tоо, fоr hіѕ trеmеndоuѕ асhіеvеmеntѕ. Тuftѕ Unіvеrѕіtу gаvе hіm thе hоnоrаrу dосtоrаtе іn thе уеаr 2011. Веfоrе thаt, hе іѕ аlѕо thе ЕY Еntrерrеnеur оf Тhе Yеаr Nаtіоnаl Wіnnеr іn thе уеаr 1999.

• Honorary doctorate, Tufts University (2011)[41]
• 1999 EY Entrepreneur of The Year National Winner[42]
• 2018’s Third Most Influential French Entrepreneur by Richtopia.[43]

Many millionaires and billionaires try themselves in different areas after they made a fortune. For instance, they try themselves as politicians. But everyone who knows Pierre close enough knows he has no interest in politic. When he decided to leave the company’s management he became only a formal chairman. Now he does not deal with eBay and business issues, but with matters, he has been interested in all his life.

In 2004 together with his wife, he founded an investment philanthropy company Omidyar Network. The main idea of the company is to promote social entrepreneurship.

In fall 2013, Pierre founded First Look Media, which idea was to develop journalism cannot be stopped by any government. An online magazine The Intercept was launched a year later.

Favourite Quotes

“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.” – Pierre Omidyar

“If you give people the opportunity to do the right thing, you’ll rarely be disappointed.” – Pierre Omidyar

“I do like to fly under the radar. When I walk around town, the only people I want to recognise me and call me by my name are the folks at Starbucks.” – Pierre Omidyar

“Ebay’s success as a company depends on the success of the community of sellers.” – Pierre Omidyar

“If you can get over this initial distrust that people have of strangers, you can do remarkable things.” – Pierre Omidyar

Life Lessons

Believe in people

When I started eBay, a general rule for me was the belief that the majority of people are good. I support the rule of the innocence of man, don’t expect he’s trying to cheat me. That helps me not getting disappointed in people. And to confirm it: 99,9% of our deals are honest deals. 120 millions of eBay users learned to trust people they don’t know. We were struck by the idea: eBay has a big influence around the entire world. Maybe other business models might be successful due to their social consequences?» Influence on society is a good chance for many companies sharing the principles of eBay.

Just go and do it

Don’t try to predict and set every your action in order to achieve some goal in the future. Look at USSR – they even did not manage to fulfil their five-year plans. Moreover 

Failures are good

 In 1999 eBay faced epic fails. The whole eBay, the whole system stopped working almost for a day and was out of order again for the entire working day. Even CNN covered our failure in the news: “Now we can see the beginning of the collapse of the company”. But I think these problems still were advantageous for us. I am happy we had this failure just in the beginning. 

Meg Whitman the general manager of eBay who was only one year in the duty, was facing the problems with infrastructure reached such a critical point. And she started the change of the structure. We solved the problems not really fast. It took almost a year. But now we feel this rules working: what doesn’t kill you, make you stronger. Now I can say, it’s true. 

And while you solve problems you learn thing which will help avoid them in the future.

Don’t always rely on people who know better

Even if you respect them, even if you think they are real experts, don’t always trust them. You will hear often, that when you plan to do something impossible, they will say that it cannot be done. But they only say this as these people are too afraid to act.

Not everything is so complicated as you see it from the first view

If we look back to the achievements of successful people, we think: “That was not easy for him”. But remember, everything might just look complicated but be very easy in reality. Although it happens in a different way. You will never know which principle will work for you if you don’t start to do something. So just go and do what you are dreaming about. Try to Learn from your mistakes. Yes, you will fail but they will become your experience. And this experience will help you go ahead.

Always leave a place for a surprise

Always leave a place for a surprise while building a business. And it will be your success when a surprise will work for you in a fully unpredicted way

Your company is your transformer

 You can often hear about eBay: «It’s a totally new company every quarter!» It’s a real internet business. Everything changes so fast, that every 3 years here can be multiplied by 10 in any other industry.

Don’t look for destructive innovations

 I did not want any destructions. In our company, we conduct research and improve new models coming to us on the bottom-up model. We try to enlarge opportunities for every single man. We listen to the needs of society and implement them in our program. I hope not only our company will follow this principle. It doesn’t matter that the companies which are already for a long in the business will have to leave the field.

Philanthropy is also a business idea

I am a man with a technical mind. I studied at a technical faculty. But always I was focused on helping people. Even when I chose a technical activity for myself, I always tried to used technologies in order to make the world a better place. 

What eBay changed

 Google, Facebook, Twitter and we are creating systems that change the world but we do not change the system of the world by itself. We only create our own system which influences other systems of the world. I think this is the reason many have interest in media. And of course, we all want to be a part of the world.