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Staff post about: Pierre Omidyar Become an Author

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The Online Auction King: Pierre Omidyar is Born

“I started eBay as an experiment, as a side hobby basically, while I had my day job,” recalls Pierre Omidyar. An unexpected success, that side hobby has today become the world’s largest personal online trading community. The website hosts nearly four million auctions every day, with almost half a million new items being added for sale every 24 hours. Omidyar’s personal net worth is estimated to be roughly $10 billion.

Going, Going, Gone: eBay Takes Off

In 1991, Omidyar joined forces with three friends to launch his first startup, Ink Development Corp. A pen-based computing company, Ink was later renamed eShop Inc. and Omidyar continued to work as a software engineer for the business for the next three years. In 1994, Omidyar was hired as a developer services engineer for General Magic, a mobile communication platform company. Two years later, eShop was bought out by Microsoft, but that would not be the end of Omidyar’s fascination with online shopping.

Lesson #1: Psych Yourself Up Not Out

“I was raised with the notion that you can do pretty much anything you want,” says Omidyar. “I always kind of just went ahead and tried things.”

Lesson #2: The Path to Success is to Pursue Your Passion

“I was just pursuing what I enjoyed doing. I mean, I was pursuing my passion,” says Omidyar. “It is not really work if you are having fun…that was the case with me.”

Lesson #3: Nice Guys Can Finish First

In creating eBay, Omidyar began with five basic values: “We believe people are basically good; we believe everyone has something to contribute; we believe that an honest, open environment can bring out the best in people; we recognize and respect everyone as a unique individual; we encourage you to treat others the way you want to be treated.”

Lesson #4: Learn to Expect the Unexpected

“Whatever future you’re building, don’t try to program everything,” says Omidyar. “Five Year Plans never worked for the Soviet Union – in fact, if anything, central planning contributed to its fall. Chances are, central planning won’t work any better for any of us.”

Lesson #5: Every Business Needs its Cheering Bull

“You'll fail at some things – that’s a learning experience that you need so that you can take that on to the next experience,” says Omidyar. “What you learn from those challenges and those failures are what will get you past the next ones…I was the pretty consistent bull and the cheerleader on eBay actually.”

The Gateway to Success: How Omidyar Became an Overnight Billionaire

“When you look at the accomplishments of accomplished people and you say, ‘Boy, that must have been really hard,’…that was probably hard,” says Omidyar. “And conversely, when you look at something that looks easy, that was probably hard. And so you’re never going to know which is which until you actually go out and do it.” Whether Omidyar’s accomplishments look easy or not, they are undoubtedly significant, having not only revolutionized the way people do business, but making a multi-billion dollar fortune along the way. How did he do it?

Pierre Omidyar Quotes

Pierre Omidyar Quotes

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