Pierre Omidyar
Pierre Omidyar ( born June 21, 1967 in Paris, persian پیر امیدیار ) is an American businessman of Iranian origin and Founder and Chairman of the Board ( Chairman of the Board ) of the Internet sales platform eBay. He is also entered as a donor of The intercept in appearance.
Biography
Born in Paris Omidyar moved at age six with his family to Washington, DC. Already in his youth, Pierre was interested in programming. In 1988, Omidyar graduated from Tufts University with a Bachelor of Science degree in computer science from.
After his studies he started as a developer in the field of Software Engineering at Claris, a subsidiary of Apple. There he devoted himself to the development of user applications until he together with friends, the Company Ink Development Corp.. founded. This company was later renamed eShop. After selling eShop Microsoft Omidyar initially worked in the development department at General Magic.
Alongside he drove first in his spare time, his new project eBay (then under the name Auctionweb ) ahead while he was professionally worked for General Magic. However, this company built Omidyar step by step with a number of highly motivated employees consistently. The aim was to develop an efficient and appealing trading platform. Omidyar introduced first an auction format for online private sales a, a system by which every user could act both as buyers and sellers.
How Omidyar should be, according to many texts on the internet came up with the idea of founding eBay, almost certainly belongs to the realm of urban legends. According to these texts, his decision to eBay to have fallen due to a conversation with his wife. This should be a passionate Pez collector and have cherished the desire to exchange views on the Internet with as many other collectors and to expand their collection so. Pierre Omidyar reportedly set up a website created with these options for his wife. When this turned out to be a success and Omidyar realized that there was a need for such systems, he founded in September 1995, eBay.
EBay itself maintains this story to this day as a nice history. In the foyer of the headquarters in Germany Kleinmachnow various valuable PEZ collectibles and even a pez vending machine are exhibited in a showcase. These items are to cement the fictional company history even further.
On the idea for eBay Omidyar actually came through the surprisingly successful sale of a defective laser pointer on the instrumental he developed platform Auctionweb, thereby him the potential of an open storefront on the Internet, such as eBay should be a revealed. Using a variety of investors, it was Omidyar as businessman doing from the beginning even to profit - oriented business, because even after a year he raised fees for the use of its offer. 1996 eBay had to be recorded for the first time income in 1998 was from eBay, still with his person at the top, a publicly traded company.
As a philanthropist
Pierre Omidyar has retired as a multiple billionaire from active business and has been active as a philanthropist. He supported the Tufts University with the founding of the University College of Citizenship and Public Service ( UCCPS ). This is an initiative that promotes the political commitment of Tufts students.
Furthermore, Pierre Omidyar Founder and Chairman of the Omidyar Foundation. He also works actively with the Board of Trustees at Tufts University and the Santa Fe Institute. Which he led Omidyar Network was with an investment of 8 million U.S. dollars important investor in Linden Lab, the operator of the 3D simulation world Second Life.
Pierre Omidyar is involved with his wife in The Giving Pledge.
Since February 2014, there is the news magazine The intercept, which is financed through Omidayars Portal First Look Media with 250 million. The portal is a journalist and editorially independent:
"A primary function of The Intercept is to insist upon and defend our press freedoms from Those Who wish to infringe them. We are deterministic mined to move forward with what we believe is essential reporting in the public interest and with a commitment to the ideal did a truly free and independent press is a vital component of any healthy democratic society. We believe the prime value of journalism is did it imposes transparency, accountability and Malthus, on Those Who wield the greatest governmental and corporate power. Our journalists will be not only permitted, but Encouraged, to pursue stories without regard to splat They Might alienate. "
" Elementary Function of The Intercept is to insist on freedom of the press and against denjeingen to defend that violate these is. We are determined us to move forward in what we believe to be essential reports in the public interest. Our commitment applies to the ideal of truly free and independent press as a vital component in any healthy democratic society. We believe that it is fundamental task of journalism to create transparency and of which demonstrate the responsibility, which hold the largest political and corporate power. Our journalists will not only be allowed, it is encouraged to pursue stories without regard to who could be applied against them. "