Pierre Omidyar

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Lore & Background

Pierre Omidyar was born on June 21, 1967, in Paris, to Iranian parents who had immigrated to France for higher education. His mother, Elahé Mir-Djalali Omidyar, earned her doctorate in linguistics at the Sorbonne and is the daughter of General Mahmud Mir-Djalali, a former Vice Chairman of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Imperial Iran. His father, Cyrus Omidyar, completed medical education in France and is a surgeon. The family immigrated to the United States when Omidyar was a child; his father worked as a urologist at Johns Hopkins University. Omidyar attended Punahou School in Honolulu for two years and graduated in 1984 from St. Andrew's Episcopal School in Potomac, Maryland, then entered Tufts University where he majored in computer science and graduated in 1988. After Tufts, Omidyar worked for Claris, an Apple Computer subsidiary, helping upgrade MacDraw to MacDraw II. In 1991, he co-founded Ink Development, a pen-based computing startup later rebranded as eShop Inc. Microsoft acquired eShop on June 11, 1996, for less than $50 million, and Omidyar earned $1 million from the deal. In 1995, at 28, he began writing code for an online person-to-person auction site. On Labor Day, Monday, September 4, 1995, he launched Auction Web. The first item sold was a broken laser pointer. The business exploded; by 1997, the site hosted nearly 800,000 auctions daily. Omidyar changed the name to eBay after learning echobay.com was taken. The story that eBay was founded to help his fiancée trade Pez dispensers was fabricated by a PR manager in 1997, as revealed in Adam Cohen's 2002 book The Perfect Store and confirmed by eBay. Jeffrey Skoll joined in 1996. In March 1998, Meg Whitman was elected president and CEO. In September 1998, eBay launched a successful public offering, making Omidyar and Skoll billionaires. In 2002, eBay bought PayPal; in 2015, they spun PayPal off. Omidyar still owns 6% of its worth. In 2020, Omidyar stepped down from the board but retained the title of director emeritus. He and his wife founded Omidyar Network in 2004. In 2010, he launched Honolulu Civil Beat. In 2013, prompted by the Edward Snowden leaks, he announced First Look Media, which on February 10, 2014, launched The Intercept. Omidyar has been an executive producer for the films Merchants of Doubt (2014) and Spotlight (2015).

Reader's Guide

Pierre Omidyar's significance lies in his role as a pioneer of online commerce, having created eBay, one of the first and most successful person-to-person auction platforms. He launched Auction Web on Labor Day, September 4, 1995, and the first item sold was a broken laser pointer—the buyer was deliberately collecting broken laser pointers. The site grew from 250,000 auctions in 1996 to 800,000 daily auctions by mid-1997. Omidyar incorporated the enterprise, and his small fee on each sale financed expansion. Revenue soon outstripped his salary at General Magic, and nine months later he dedicated full attention to the new enterprise. The name 'eBay' came from his second choice, Echo Bay, which was taken; he dropped 'cho' to get ebay.com. Beyond business, Omidyar has used his wealth to fund philanthropic and journalistic endeavors. The Omidyar Network, established in 2004, has committed more than $992 million to for-profit companies and nonprofit organizations. In 2010, he joined Bill Gates and Warren Buffett as a signatory of The Giving Pledge, declaring his intention to give away most of his wealth. In 2019, he donated approximately $500 million to charitable causes. He launched Honolulu Civil Beat in 2010, which was named Best News Website in Hawaii for 2010, 2011, and 2012. In 2013, he created First Look Media, which launched The Intercept on February 10, 2014. Omidyar has bankrolled groups like the anti-monopoly think tank Open Markets Institute and the digital rights group Public Knowledge Project, criticizing big tech as overly powerful and destructive to democracy. His Omidyar Network distributed papers laying out antitrust cases against Facebook and Google, and in February 2021 hosted a series on whistleblowing, providing financial support to Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen.

Did You Know?

• The first item sold on eBay was a broken laser pointer; the buyer was deliberately collecting broken laser pointers.
• The story that eBay was founded to help Omidyar's fiancée trade Pez dispensers was fabricated by a public relations manager in 1997.
• Omidyar earned $1 million from Microsoft's acquisition of eShop in 1996 for less than $50 million.
• Omidyar is the grandson of General Mahmud Mir-Djalali, a former Vice Chairman of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Imperial Iran.
• In 2019, Omidyar donated approximately $500 million to charitable causes.