Pierre Omidyar Interview (page: 2 / 8) Founder and Chairman, eBay	Print Interview

Were there any subjects you were particularly interested in? Any books that influenced or were important to you?

Pierre Omidyar: I've been asked before, "Who are your heroes?" and these types of questions. I always find it hard to identify a single person or a single book or this sort of thing. I've always been forward looking. I was raised with the notion that you can do pretty much anything you want. You're able to accomplish anything you set out to accomplish. I was given a sense of confidence and I never really felt the need to -- or I've never had the benefit, I should probably say -- of being inspired by outside heroes.

But early on you were interested in gadgets, including computers. How did this manifest itself?

Pierre Omidyar: I've always been into the gadgets and I guess when I first saw a computer -- I'm trying to think if it was third -- it might have been third grade. It was pretty early on actually and it was an early TRS-80, you know, Radio Shack. Kind of the original Radio Shack TRS-80 computer, 4K of memory. I think this one had the 4K or the 8K expansion module, which was like as big as a desk, you know, and learned how to program Basic on it. And I used to actually cut gym and sneak into the computer room -- which wasn't really a room, it was a closet where they kept the computer between classes -- and played on the computer.
[ Video ] Low High    [ Audio ] Quicktime	[ Key to Success ] Passion

Did you pass gym?

Pierre Omidyar: Good question. I don't know if I failed gym or not. I don't think I failed.

It sounds like even then you were kind of entrepreneurial.

Pierre Omidyar: I always kind of just went ahead and tried things and one of the things I learned later -- you know, more kind of professionally -- is that a lot of people don't just go ahead and try things. They'll have an idea and they'll say -- they'll convince themselves or other people will convince them that it can't be done. You know, one or the other. Actually I think that the first is even more dangerous and more serious. It's convincing yourself that it can't be done. And I never learned that for some reason, so I just kind of had this naive approach to -- well, gee, you know, why not. I'll just go ahead and do it.
[ Video ] Low High    [ Audio ] Quicktime	[ Key to Success ] Courage

We've read that early in high school that you wrote a program to print catalogue cards at six bucks an hour. Was that your start?

Pierre Omidyar: That was my professional debut. Six bucks an hour. And it's funny too, thinking about it, because it was using computer technology to print out library cards for the card catalogue. And so all it was, was a program to just format. You know, somebody would type in the information and it would format it the way the librarian wanted, so they could put the cards into the card catalogue. So this is incredibly basic computer technology. This is no database there. No search engine, nothing like that. But yeah, six dollars an hour. And also, at that time I also worked on the software to help schedule classes, which was key. This was in high school at tenth or 11th grade, I think, when I was working on that, and I resisted the temptation to put in some code in there to make sure I never had classes on Friday, because I wouldn't have been able to get away with it, but I thought about it.
[ Video ] Low High    [ Audio ] Quicktime	[ Key to Success ] Preparation

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