Word: omidyar
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Whitman was persuaded of eBay's worth by its founder, Pierre Omidyar, a business novice who desperately needed her smarts. Her skepticism fell away forever when she attended a focus group of eBay users shortly after she joined. "Their passion for eBay [good and bad] was like nothing I'd ever seen in 20 years of business," says Whitman. "I'm reminded of it on a daily basis...
...Barksdale is spending $100 million to teach more kids to read in his native Mississippi, which ranks near the bottom in state rankings of literacy. Jim Clark, legendary founder of Silicon Graphics, Netscape and Healtheon, has pledged $150 million for a biomedical-research facility at Stanford. Pierre Omidyar, founder of eBay, has vowed to give almost all his $4.2 billion fortune to the Omidyar Foundation, which will help build the capacity of nonprofit organizations to become self-sustaining. Ted Turner, CNN founder and Time Warner vice chairman, promotes his brand of globalism through a $1.1 billion endowment for his United...
...Omidyar says he tried to imbue eBay with a "founding culture" based on the moral principles he absorbed in childhood. "My mother always taught me to treat other people the way I want to be treated and to have respect for other people," he says. "Those are just good basic values to have in a crowded world." As it happened, there were also good business reasons to carry the Golden Rule into cyberspace. Unlike traditional e-tailers, who can control the consumer's experience, eBay is almost completely dependent on how users interact. "We really have to encourage our customers...
...Omidyar seems to realize that given his anticorporate values, it's more than a little ironic that he's one of the richest human beings on the planet. And clearly he's uncomfortable with his wealth. "What one person needs, and what one family needs and all of their future generations need is a tiny, tiny fraction of this total number," he says of his net worth. "That means we have an awesome responsibility to see that the wealth is put to good use." In addition to eBay's foundation, Omidyar and his wife are developing one of their...
...look at eBay, the online-auction business that is part swap meet, part town square. Senior writer Adam Cohen not only toured the company in San Jose, Calif., but also flew to Paris (ah, the sacrifices journalists make!) to have coffee with the company's elusive founder, Pierre Omidyar...