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Pierre Omidyar
Founder and Chairman, eBay
Pierre Omidyar: I was the pretty consistent bull and the cheerleader on eBay actually. I just felt -- once I realized the human connection that people were making with one another over the service -- I just knew that there's just nothing that can happen that can make it go away. And even after a massive outage like that, you really anger your community, they are depending on -- a lot of them are dependent on us at that time for their livelihood and still do today -- so it's really a hardship. Even after that, they come back and they say, "Okay, well, we know you're doing your best. We're with you." And so I've always had, you know -- I've always had kind of this unshakable faith that it's going to endure.
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Pierre Omidyar
Founder and Chairman, eBay
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.
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Pierre Omidyar
Founder and Chairman, eBay
When you look at the accomplishments of accomplished people and you say, "Boy, that must have been really hard," you know, when you look at something that looks hard, that was probably easy. And conversely, when you look at something that looks easy, that was probably hard. And so you're never going to know which is which until you actually go and do it. So just go and do it, try it, learn from it. You'll fail at some things, that's a learning experience that you need so that you can take that on to the next experience. And don't let people who you may respect and who you believe know what they're talking about, don't let them tell you it can't be done, because often they will tell you it can't be done, and it's just because they don't have the courage to try.
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Rosa Parks
Pioneer of Civil Rights
Rosa Parks: Back in Montgomery during my growing up there, it was completely legally enforced racial segregation, and of course, I struggled against it for a long time. I felt that it was not right to be deprived of freedom when we were living in the Home of the Brave and Land of the Free. Of course, when I refused to stand up, on the orders of the bus driver, for a white passenger to take the seat, and I was not sitting in the front of the bus, as so many people have said, and neither was my feet hurting, as many people have said. But I made up my mind that I would not give in any longer to legally-imposed racial segregation and of course my arrest brought about the protests for more than a year. And in doing so, Dr. Martin Luther King became prominent because he was the leader of our protests along with many other people. And I'm very glad that this experience I had then brought about a movement that triggered across the United States and in other places.
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Suzan-Lori Parks
Pulitzer Prize for Drama
I went to one show, and I heard someone say, "Alisa Solomon is here," something like that, and I looked up. I knew she was the very much esteemed critic from the Village Voice, and then, as luck would have it, we were both on the same train. It was an empty train car, late at night. I can look strange late at night in an empty train car. Little did I know, she's a third-degree black belt in karate. I didn't know this. So she's at the other end of the car, and I'm like, "Oh man, here's my chance." Desperation. I'd go walking up to her. Little did I know, she's getting ready to Hai ya! Luckily, she didn't hit me, and allowed me to say, "Excuse me. You're Alisa Solomon. I'm a desperate playwright. Where do I send my work?" She rattled off some places. She was very kind, very kind, and we're still friends today.
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Suzan-Lori Parks
Pulitzer Prize for Drama
Suzan-Lori Parks: Don't be afraid to go up to someone who's maybe further along in their career than you are and ask them for their advice. The kind of advice -- I mean, for example, I did not go up to her and say, "Hi. I'm a playwright. Could you read my play?" I didn't, because I knew better. I just said, "Off the top of your head, do you have any advice?" That kind of thing. So approach these people with respect for their time, but do approach them, definitely, because we all will say, "Oh, do such and such," or whatever.
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