Pierre Omidyar – Biography, Net, Wife, Children, Foundation and Other Facts

Pierre Omidyar is an economist and entrepreneur magnate who is famous for his role in the creation of the Internet auction site, eBay. He is also the current president of the company and a member of the board of ePeople. Before creating the commercial site, Omidyar collaborated with companies such as Apple Inc. and contributed to the development of Macintosh technology. Unlike most successful businessmen, he never considered the career path that led to his fortune. In the beginning, eBay was only a side hobby and then it became a success. Read on to find out how it happened and what it is today.

Who is Pierre Omidyar?

Pierre Omidyar was born Parviz Morad Omidyar on June 21, 1967, in Paris, France, he is of Iranian descent. His mother is Elahe Mir-Djalali Omidyar, an academic with a doctorate in linguistics from the Sorbonne. The identity of his father is unknown. However, it is known that his father was a member of the medical staff – currently a doctor at Aliso Viejo in California – who attended Johns Hopkins Medical Center in Baltimore for his residency, which is why the family left Paris.

For his education, Omidyar attended St. Andrew Epicopal School, in Potomac, Maryland, and while at school he was fascinated with computers and he skipped physical education classes to use the school computers. Skipping his class is also known to have paid off when his principal caught him and instead of being punished, he was asked to create some programming code for the school library. . This coding was to allow the school to print school library cards and he was paid $6 an hour.

He attended Tufts University, Medford where he graduated with a degree in computer science in 1988. While at Tufts, Pierre also studied at the University of California. After graduating, he started working at Claris, an Apple subsidiary, where he created programming codes, one of which upgraded MacDraw to MacDraw II. In 1991, Pierre and his friends developed a web start-up called e-Shop. The product was so good that it caught the eye of Microsoft who later bought it and renamed it e-Commerce. It was revealed that Microsoft bought e-Shop for less than $50 million and Pierre only made $1 million.

Success with e-Bay

e-Bay was not born out of working with friends or all businesses, but out of a complaint from a girlfriend. In 1994, while Pierre Omidyar was working at General Magic, a developer relations engineer, he created a small auction site on his personal website to help his girlfriend-turned-wife Pamela Wesley meet collectors of similar-minded dispensers to Pez. This small auction site started to grow rapidly as a lot of people started asking for and selling items on the site. At this time, it does not take any responsibility for the authenticity or warranty of the auction items, it only provides the platform.

With the site’s growing number of users, Omidyar alongside his programmer friend, Jeff Skoll, moved e-Bay to a more expensive shopping site and began collecting small commissions on his sold items. The auction site, e-Bay, served people’s need to communicate with like-minded people, creating a niche market that later turned into a fortune. As expected, Pierre Omidyar left his job to devote himself to creating the e-Bay community. and with over 150,000 users bidding on 794,000 auctions every day, it became the most visited site by mid-1997.

Pierre Omidyar knew of a better management plan and venture capital was needed to ensure the continued success of the ever-growing business, which enabled him to collect a check for $4.5 million from Benchmark Company, which also obtained a 22% stake in the company. For management, Margaret Whitman was appointed CEO and transformed the platform into a more organized and profitable business. In September 1998, e-Bay went public, making Pierre Omidyar a billionaire at age 30.

Other Efforts – Foundation

Besides e-Bay, Pierre has set up others, one of which is an online news site called Honoululu Civil Beat. In February 2014, he created a media company, First Look Media, and its subsidiary, The Intercept. The organization provides news online. Like most billionaires, Pierre Omidyar is a philanthropist, and in 2004 he created the Omidyar Network, a foundation created with the aim of financing and supporting small businesses. Also in 2010, alongside his wife and the Nduna Foundation, Pierre founded a company aimed at improving the economy of Zimbabwe, named Enterprise Zimbabwe.

Net value

Pierre Omidyar became a billionaire through the expansion and explosive growth of his side husband, e-Bay. In 2015, he was estimated at $8.3 billion, making him the 168th richest in the world and the 58th in the United States. Those numbers have increased, and as of August 2018, he had an estimated net worth of $10.5 billion, making him the 145th richest person in the world.

Other Facts About Pierre Omidyar

Pierre Omidyar is happily married with three children. He is married to longtime friend and biologist Pamela Wesley. Pamela grew up in Hawaii Kai and met Pierre in the United States. However, their wedding date is unknown, as is the name of their children.