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Pierre Omidyar
Founder and Chairman, eBay
Pierre Omidyar: I look at it as a deep and heavy responsibility, in fact, to make sure that that wealth goes to good use, because it's very simple. An enormous amount of wealth has been created in this business, even in my business, and it is unmeasurable. My personal wealth is far beyond what any normal human being will ever need in their lifetime for themselves, for their family, for their descendants for generations. You know, a small, small piece of what I have is enough for that. And so the rest of it, I don't want to see it go to waste. So I have a responsibility to make sure it's put to good use. And you know, I feel I'm benefiting from the market success of a great business that has been built by regular, ordinary people who are logging on every day and doing business with one another. And you know, that's something that I have to give back. I have to do it. I have to make sure that that wealth is put to good use.
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Pierre Omidyar
Founder and Chairman, eBay
If we can help people reconnect with their communities, I think we can work together as a global community and solve the world's problems. You know, it's a bit idealistic, but we're really looking for second order effects in what we're doing. In other words, if we can just get people to just reconnect with their community. Just realize that you're an individual, but you have a responsibility to be part of your community, and that responsibility is not just a burden, but it also comes with benefits that are real tangible benefits that you'll see, being a part of that community. Then just think, if everyone thought like that, you could actually tackle local community problems, homelessness, health care. I mean, just serious problems, and you could tackle global problems as well, because we now have -- again we have a global communications medium, and communities are being built, not just in the real world but in the virtual world as well. So I'm very hopeful that the reconnection with community that I -- actually, frankly, I first became passionate about it because of eBay -- because I saw it happen on eBay, I am very hopeful that that reconnection is going to dramatically improve the world.
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Suzan-Lori Parks
Pulitzer Prize for Drama
My father was born and raised in Chicago. Very, very, very, very, very poor family. My mom from Texas, not well-to-do certainly, her mother was a teacher. Her grandfather had a bunch of black businesses and did things in Odessa like build sidewalks and things like that, but they weren't rich. But they understood the importance of education. They met in college at Southern University, which at that time was a segregated college -- or university I suppose -- in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. So it was a segregated school. So, to say they were academic, you know, I meet people who are from academic families, and it kind of wasn't like that. It was just that I think my parents recognized the importance of working hard and enjoyed school. You know what I mean? So they weren't sort of these academics. They were more like hard-working people who enjoyed school and wanted us to enjoy school.
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