Pierre Omidyar

Vocation

Lifestyle

French businessman and entrepreneur, founder of E-Bay. Born in France, he and his family moved to Maryland in the US so that his father could take up residency at Johns Hopkins University Medical Center. In 1988, Omidyar graduated from Tufts University in Massachusetts fulfilling his long-time avid interest in computers with a degree in computer science. He landed a job at Claris, owned by Apple Corporation. Not content to be an emplioyee, he and friends started their own company in 1991, Ink Development Corporation, later known as eShop Inc. and sold to Microsoft in 1996. He began dating Pamela Wesley whom he later married. On one date, while she was talking about her hobby of trading Pez dispensers, a light went on in his head. He realized that hobbyist traders could benefit from his interest in the Internet and mobile communications. In late 1995, he launching a personal trading service on his own personal website called Auction Web.The service took off and he began making more money than ever. Within two years, eBay was born. A year later, in 1998, eBay went public and he was personally worth $3 billion. He hired Meg Whitman as CEO in 1998. Omidyar and his wife donate huge amounts of money and vowed to give away all but one percent of their fortune for 20 years.He is particularly interested in international microfinance initiatives. In 2005 he announced his bestowal of $100 million to the Omidyhar-Tufts University Microfinance Fund. Link to Wikipedia biography