PIERRE M. OMIDYAR

 

Pierre Omidyar launched eBay on Labor Day 1995 as an experiment in how a level playing field would affect the efficiency of a marketplace. Today, more than one million people rely on eBay as their primary or secondary source of income, and more than 200 million people trust strangers with every transaction, finding common ground where none seemed to exist before.

After eBay became a public company in 1998, Pierre and his wife, Pam, co-founded the Omidyar Foundation to fund nonprofits. Yet they found that their vision required a broader, more flexible toolset than the foundation could offer. At the same time, eBay's tremendous social impact as a for-profit company was demonstrating that business could also be an effective tool for making the world a better place. In response, they broadened their scope in 2004 and formed a new entity, Omidyar Network, to make investments as well as grants. To date, Omidyar Network has engaged in a number of areas that leverage market-based, collaborative approaches in order to unleash human potential on a global scale.

As an extension of Omidyar Network's activities in microfinance, in 2005, Pierre and Pam Omidyar gave $100 million to Tufts to create the Omidyar-Tufts Microfinance Fund. Their endowment gift, the single largest in the history of Tufts, is aimed at accelerating growth in the microfinance sector and is being invested solely in microfinance initiatives. Pierre and Pam also provided seed funding to establish the University College of Citizenship and Public Service, now the Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service, for the purpose of educating all members of the Tufts community in the values and skills of active citizenship.

Prior to founding eBay, Pierre co-founded Ink Development Corp., later renamed eShop and acquired by Microsoft. After graduating from Tufts with a B.S. in computer science, he joined Claris, a subsidiary of Apple Computer, as a consumer software engineer. Today, Pierre serves as a trustee of Santa Fe Institute and Punahou School, a director of Meetup, chairman of eBay Inc., and founding partner of Omidyar Network. He was elected to the Tufts University Board of Trustees in 2000.

Last updated: December 2008