In this success post, we are going to share the story of Pierre Morad Omidyar, who is also known by the name as Pierre Omidyar, the Chairman and founder of the world’s largest website used to buy and sell goods and services (eBay), is one of the most successful online business people across the globe.
Pierre Omidyar was trying to impress his girlfriend and ended up creating a revolutionary online system that allowed people to sell and buy everything they wanted, eBay. The eBay founder is Iranian-American, French Born, and became a billionaire at 31.
Pierre Omidyar Childhood
Pierre Omidyar was born in the year 1967 in Paris while his computer interests started in high school. He actually received a job from the school principal to create an official program that created library catalogue cards.
His pay was 6 dollars per hour. Then, he moved to Tufts University in the US and created the first software that helped programmers deal with memory issues, releasing its shareware. He did not get that much back from that, though.
Pierre Omidyar Early Life and Career
After graduation, Pierre worked for an Apple subsidiary and co-founded a startup together with three friends. He started working on an eShop site that ended up being bought by Microsoft. Moreover, he moved towards working at general Magic and designing sites for extra money. Then one day, his girlfriend, who was collecting Pez dispensers, complained that it was hard to find people that had the same hobby. This was when Pierre coded an auction function online that was linked to his site, allowing his girlfriend, Pamela. To sell and buy on the internet while contacting collectors.
Auction Web opened its door in the year 1995 and was eventually renamed to eBay, initially being a forum to help people buy and sell. There was zero fraud protection on conflict mediation back then. With the first item ever sold being a laser pointer that was broken.
After three months, Pierre Omidyar talked with Jeff Skoll, his friend, in order to add some more features. The site quickly grew in popularity, so a commission fee was added for every item that was sold. By the middle of the year 1996, the site was already hosting almost eight hundred thousand auctions every single day, leading to the official rebrand in the year 1997.
After the rebranding to eBay, a really aggressive and strong marketing campaign started, and the Initial Public Offering was prepared. In the month of September 1998, it happened, and both entrepreneurs became instant billionaires. In the year 2013, it was reported that Pierre Omidyar had his net worth at $9 billion.
Pierre Omidyar Wealth
According to the Forbes list, the amount of Pierre assets in 2019 is around $13 billion. He is one of the 200 richest people across the globe.
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