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Pierre Omidyar
Founder and Chairman, eBay
Pierre Omidyar: I was actually interested in gadgets, little electronic gadgets. Whether it was calculators -- actually I remember early on going out shopping for a calculator -- and this was when calculators were like $100, you know, I mean -- and with my dad, I think. And so I was always fascinated by these little gadgets and I always managed to break them for one reason or another, of course, as kids do, and then I would take them apart and try to fix them, which I was never able to.
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Pierre Omidyar
Founder and Chairman, eBay
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.
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Pierre Omidyar
Founder and Chairman, eBay
I was just pursuing what I enjoyed doing. I mean, I was pursuing my passion. And the whole -- you know, the ability to create software that could have a benefit or an impact on people that used it was what was driving me. And so I was driven by, you know, mass market software and the whole notion of just being able to do neat things. And like most software people, it is very much a passion more than anything else. And so, like people have said, it is not really work, you know, if you are having fun, it's not work so that was the case with me.
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Larry Page
Founding CEO, Google Inc.
Larry Page: I just sort of kept having ideas. We had a lot of magazines lying around our house. It was kind of messy. So you kind of read stuff all the time, and I would read Popular Science and things like that. I just got interested in stuff, I guess, technology and how devices work. My brother taught me how to take things apart, and I took apart everything in the house. So I just became interested in it, for whatever reason, and so I had lots of ideas about what things could be built and how to build them and all these kinds of things. I built like an electric go-cart at a pretty early age.
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Larry Page
Founding CEO, Google Inc.
Larry Page: I read all the computer magazines and things like that, and I was sort of interested in how these things really work -- anything having to do with the mechanics behind things, either the mechanics or the electronics. I wanted to be able to build things. Actually, in college I built an inkjet printer out of Legos, because I wanted to be able to print really big images. I figured you could print really big posters really cheaply using inkjet cartridges. So I reverse-engineered the cartridge, and I built all the electronics and mechanics to drive it. Just sort of fun projects. I like to be able to do those kinds of things.
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Suzan-Lori Parks
Pulitzer Prize for Drama
I don't know how to pronounce their name. There are these French people, the D'Aulaires. D-apostrophe-a-u-l-a-i-r-e-s, something like that. "D'Aulaires," you're supposed to say. Greek myths, illustrated. The book used to be -- I think it still is -- about this big, and I have it in hard cover, still do have it in hard cover, and it's Greek myths. My mom and dad got me that book in probably the third grade, and I would sit there poring over these myths. I love tales and myths and legends, that kind of thing. I still do, love that kind of stuff, those stories, stories about gods and goddesses and all kinds of stuff. I loved that. Those were my favorite books growing up.
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Suzan-Lori Parks
Pulitzer Prize for Drama
We had to take an English class, and I remember, among the books we read, Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse, which I still don't really get. But I got it, like in this way. I was like, "Oh, this is beautiful!" It was beautiful. A woman, and the lighthouse, and "Will we go to the lighthouse? Will we not go? Will the weather be good?" Whatever. I don't know what they're talking about, but it was gorgeous, and I remember when I read that book, I said, "Oh, yeah! I remember who I am!" It reminded me. It helped me "re-member," literally, put my members back on each other. It's as if somebody had given me my hands back, or my eyes back, or my ears back, or my heart back. You remember yourself, and you go, "I remember who I am. I'm the kid who loves myths, and makes up songs about things, and who loves writing." So there I was. I danced out of there, and I've been dancing out ever since.
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