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Pierre Omidyar [1967-0] French

Rank: 102
Businessman, Chairman of eBay

Pierre Morad Omidyar is a French-born 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.

Car, Dad, Trust

Quote	Tags	Rank
Everyone is born equally capable but lacks equal opportunity.		101
My dad was a physician. As a kid, I remember driving around with him on weekends so he could do his rounds at the hospital and talk to patients. We'd spend time in the car talking about what was going on with them, their stories.	Car, Dad	102
In February of 1996, about six months after I created eBay, I started receiving a spate of complaints. Everyone was complaining about each other. I felt very much like I was a parent who had to adjudicate the brothers beating each other up.		103
I had always been interested in markets - specifically, the theory that in financial markets, goods will trade at a fair value only when everyone has access to the same information.		104
News organisations that have been around a while have a lot of traditions and ways of doing things that may have served them for many years but perhaps make them less flexible in the digital era. As an entrepreneur, it just makes more sense to start something new.		105
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.	Trust	106
If you give people the opportunity to do the right thing, you'll rarely be disappointed.		107
As a philanthropist, I try to help people take ownership. Everything I've done is rooted in the notion that every human being is born equally capable. What people lack is equal opportunity.		108
I'm a technologist by origin and by training, but I'm focused on philanthropy.		109
When I started eBay, it was a hobby, an experiment to see if people could use the Internet to be empowered through access to an efficient market. I actually wasn't thinking about it in terms of a social impact.		110
You can invest in companies, you can help grow companies, you can be a venture capitalist - and be a philanthropist at the same time.		111
Long-term sustainable change happens if people discover their own power.		112
Advertisers don't want to put their ads next to the investigative story; it's extremely difficult to do that. And very few people today actually read those serious news stories on the Web now.		113
I had the notion that, OK, so now we have all of this wealth, we could buy not only one expensive car, we could buy all of them. As soon as you realize that you could buy all of them, then none of them are particularly interesting or satisfying.	Car	114
If you can get over this initial distrust that people have of strangers, you can do remarkable things.		115
Microfinance initiatives are very high-touch models. The loan officer meets with local groups of borrowers every week, they share tips and techniques. There's a lot of training and learning that goes on, which adds to the cost of the model.		116
In 1991, I co-founded my first start-up, Ink Development, which made software for an early tablet computer.		117
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.		118
A lot of people don't just go ahead and try things.		119
When you have mass surveillance, it's impossible to meet the intent of the First Amendment because reporters can't talk to sources because sources are afraid to talk.		120
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.		121
What I'm really focused on is connecting people around shared interests, so together they can make good stuff happen. I'm more focused on helping people discover their power as individuals, but through those connections with one another.		122
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.		123
In terms of my belief that one individual can make a difference - that belief comes from my parents.		124
Ebay's success as a company depends on the success of the community of sellers.		125
Companies in Silicon Valley invest a lot in understanding their users and what drives user engagement.		126
Technologists come at a problem from the point of view that the system is working a certain way, and if I engage in that system and actually change the rules of the system, I can make it work a different way.		201
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.		202
My parents made me believe I could do anything I wanted to do. They were really into empowering me.		203
A well-functioning microfinance bank can actually be a profitable business as well. So it became a perfect proof point that, through business, you can provide an experience that leads to individual self-empowerment.		204
In order to access private capital, you have to provide competitive return on investment. In order to give competitive returns to investors, you've got to operate on a profitable basis and be thinking of yourself as a business.		205
In the early days of eBay, I articulated for the very first time this belief that people are basically good.		206
I have always been of the opinion that the right kind of journalism is a critical part of our democracy.		207

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