Pierre Omidyar: biography, family, achievements and interesting facts

Pierre Morad Omidyar is an American programmer, successful entrepreneur, founder of the world's largest auction site eBay and just a famous billionaire. Since 2004, together with his wife, he founded a philanthropic investment fund, which has the name "Omidyar Network". In 1998, after selling a significant portion of the shares on eBay (IPO - the initial public offering / placement), he instantly became a billionaire.

The generation of high technology: the state of the founder of the eBay auction

Pierre Morad Omidyar is one of the few "IT specialists" who in time developed a business model based on high technologies and in a few years achieved unprecedented success.

Mark Zuckerberg (owner and founder of the world-famous social networking site "Facebook"), Michael Dell (founder of Dell Comp.Corp), Jeff Bezos (Amazon.com owner) and many others, including Pierre Omidyar - all these people are representatives of the society "High technology", which have in their assets billions, and even tens of billions of dollars. In cooperation with Jeff Scoll, whose fortune totaled $ 6 billion, Omidyar founded eBay, which from the first days became profitable. In the first few years, revenue growth was increasing at a rate of 90-95% per year. This project made its founders major billionaires in a short period of time (3 years), by the way, during this period they did not make significant financial investments. In America, these people are called "self made", which means "made yourself" in Russian, that is, who has made his fortune.

At the moment, Pierre Omidyar is on the list of "Top 200 richest people on the planet", having $ 9.2 billion in assets.

Pierre Omidyar: biography, familiarity with programming

The hero of our article was born on June 21 in 1967 in Paris, France (by nationality an Iranian - in his youth his parents emigrated to France). Ros and was brought up in the family of a doctor-therapist. In 1973, together with his family moved to the United States (Maryland). It was because of his father that the family had to move, as he received a new medical degree from the Johns Hopkins University.

From the Persian language the surname "Omidyar" is translated as "one who is loved by hope". Being in the ninth grade, the guy began to be interested in information technology and programming. At that time, Omidyar spent all his free time at the computer. His parents were in a panic from such a routine of the day, they cautiously hinted to his son that he at least sometimes resting from the monitor. But the young man did not play games for days on end, but engaged in self-education.

How Pierre earned his first money

The first program he wrote was a school online library. This suggests that already at the age of 14, he made discoveries in the development of unique programs. Pierre school paid a lot of money for that time - about $ 6 for each hour of work on the software product. At that time, Pierre Omidyar understood how to make good money. He found his calling. The guy with even greater zeal began to study programming, combining a hobby with making money.

After graduating from high school, Pierre entered the University of Tuft in Medford (Massachusetts) at the Faculty of Computer Science and Information Technology. The boy studied diligently. In 1988 he graduated with honors from an educational institution and received a bachelor's degree.

Life after graduation

Immediately after receiving the diploma, Pierre Omidyar started looking for a job. The guy was well versed in many areas of programming, so he did not have to search for a vacant place for long: he was accepted by the developer of user applications for Claris, which at that time was a branch of a large Apple corporation. The work was interesting and exciting, Pierre found exactly what he dreamed of. Within the company he wrote his first professional software product MacDraw. Soon Omidyar realizes that he gets more pleasure from the "creation" of his own programs than from the development of client applications that are made according to the template. This was the first hint that Pierre does not want to work for someone for a fixed salary.

Work in Ink Development Corporation

In 1991, the hero of our article and several of his like-minded friends organized their own company called Ink Development Corporation, which developed interface applications. At the same time, Pierre created a program that was supposed to create a revolution in the entire computer environment. It was an application to control a computer with a conventional ballpoint pen. However, he did not get success with this development. As a result, the business of the beginning manager Pierre Omidyar and the company did not take place, and the guys dispersed.

In 1994, Omidyar was sent an invitation to a major "news" company, General Magic, engaged in the development of mobile communications. Here he was promoted to a service development engineer. Later the company was renamed into eShop, and things went uphill. After a while, the empire of Bill Gates bought shares of eShop, however Pierre Omidyar already here did not work.

Pierre Omidyar: biography and family

Living in San Francisco, a successful programmer met his future wife Pamela Wesley, who at that time was a graduate student at the University of Golden Gate. The couple began a romantic relationship, and soon they created a family. Today, Pierre and Pamela raise three children.

One day Pamela told Pierre that she was collecting boxes from candies. At that time it was popular. The girl complained to her boyfriend that she can not purchase a new collection kit because she does not know who can sell or exchange something else for her old boxes. Then the fanatical programmer and just a guy in love set out to help Pamela. He did not think for a long time and developed a special software for his personal website, through which it would be possible to organize the purchase and sale of various things in the online mode. It was a revolutionary idea, because Pierre created not just an online store or bulletin board, but an entire auction! A few weeks later, people began to visit the site and display their lots. Initially it was a non-commercial project. But soon the Internet provider Pierre Omidyar presented him with an additional bill for the fact that the site AuctionWeb.com (later renamed to eBay.com) occupies a significant part of the traffic, so the young businessman began to charge users a certain amount of money. Every day thousands of new users came to the site. A simple idea became the embodiment of a whole project, which in the future brought incredible success. A year later, Pierre gave his lover a rare example of a candy machine, which he found in the museum of the state of Denver.

Interesting facts about sales at eBay.com

In 1998, the founder of the auction, Pierre Omidyar, recorded a $ 10 million deal on eBay.com (which at that time became the largest in the US). Three years later the co-founders of the company headed by Omidyar became big millionaires, and the eBay.com auction became the largest and most expensive in the whole world. The success and popularity of this trading floor is explained by the fact that you can sell and buy any product there. Naturally, the lots go through the filtration and correspond to the limitations of the legitimate-moral plan. It was on eBay.com once was put up for sale a whole city by decision of the municipal government. There is also a case where an American wanted to sell his soul for $ 5000. Some madmen even made bets, but the site's administration blocked the lot on time, explaining that it was impossible to prove the availability of the goods.

The billionaire of Omidyar is currently

To date, Pierre Omidyar is a dollar billionaire and a world-famous philanthropist. About his personal life, almost nothing is known - an entrepreneur does not like to communicate with the press and talk about his wife and children. Currently, Pierre owns only a portion of the shares from eBay. He is not involved in the development of the company, because there are hired workers for this. Becoming a billionaire, Omidyar promised to give more than half of his fortune to donations. The same oath was earlier given by Bill Gates and Warren Buffett.