You’ll Fail At Some Things - Pierre Omidyar

Pierre Omidyar
Company: eBay
Net Worth: $7.7 Billion

“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 millions of auctions every day, with more new items being added for sale every day. Omidyar’s personal net worth is estimated to be roughly $7.7 billion.

“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?

Advice For Entrepreneurs:

“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. 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.”