Pierre Omidyar, The Founder Of Ebay, Revolutionized The Whole E-commerce System

“I never had it in mind that I would start a company one day and it would really be successful. I have just been motivated by working on interesting technology.” — Pierre Omidyar

Pierre Omidyar is widely credited with inventing e-commerce with his online auction website eBay. When the company went public in September 1998, he became insanely wealthy, according to him.

He had earned $7.8 billion when he was featured on Forbes’ 1999 World’s Billionaires list the following July. The eBay founder believes that when you don’t know what to expect, you should be prepared for the unexpected.\

Let’s take a look at how he got to the top.

PIERRE OMIDYAR’s CHILDHOOD

Pierre Morad Omidyar was born in Paris on June 21, 1967, to Iranian parents who had emigrated to France for higher studies.

His mother, Elahé Mir-Djalali Omidyar, holds a doctorate in linguistics from the Sorbonne. His father, Cyrus Omidyar, is a surgeon who completed his medical studies and training in France.

When Omidyar was a child, his father immigrated to the United States with his family and worked as a urologist at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland.