Words matter. These are the best Pierre Omidyar Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
eBay’s business is based on enabling someone to do business with another person, and to do that, they first have to develop some measure of trust, either in the other person or the system.
In the early days of eBay, I articulated for the very first time this belief that people are basically good.
In 1991, I co-founded my first start-up, Ink Development, which made software for an early tablet computer.
When you have mass surveillance, it’s impossible to meet the intent of the First Amendment because reporters can’t talk to sources because sources are afraid to talk.
What I’m really focused on is connecting people around shared interests, so together they can make good stuff happen. I’m more focused on helping people discover their power as individuals, but through those connections with one another.
If you give people the opportunity to do the right thing, you’ll rarely be disappointed.
My dad was a physician. As a kid, I remember driving around with him on weekends so he could do his rounds at the hospital and talk to patients. We’d spend time in the car talking about what was going on with them, their stories.
Technologists come at a problem from the point of view that the system is working a certain way, and if I engage in that system and actually change the rules of the system, I can make it work a different way.
A well-functioning microfinance bank can actually be a profitable business as well. So it became a perfect proof point that, through business, you can provide an experience that leads to individual self-empowerment.
A lot of people don’t just go ahead and try things.
I do like to fly under the radar. When I walk around town, the only people I want to recognise me and call me by my name are the folks at Starbucks.
If you can get over this initial distrust that people have of strangers, you can do remarkable things.
In order to access private capital, you have to provide competitive return on investment. In order to give competitive returns to investors, you’ve got to operate on a profitable basis and be thinking of yourself as a business.
I had always been interested in markets – specifically, the theory that in financial markets, goods will trade at a fair value only when everyone has access to the same information.
You can invest in companies, you can help grow companies, you can be a venture capitalist – and be a philanthropist at the same time.
I developed an interest in supporting independent journalists in a way that leverages their work to the greatest extent possible, all in support of the public interest.
In the same way that you’re driven in your business to keep innovating – Facebook is a wonderful example of constant innovation – think about doing that in philanthropy.
I had the notion that, OK, so now we have all of this wealth, we could buy not only one expensive car, we could buy all of them. As soon as you realize that you could buy all of them, then none of them are particularly interesting or satisfying.
Ebay’s success as a company depends on the success of the community of sellers.
Everyone is born equally capable but lacks equal opportunity.
