Who Created Ebay?

In 1995, Pierre Omidyar created a site called AuctionWeb. Two years later, the name would be changed to eBay, and Omidyar would become a billionaire.

Pierre Omidyar

Omidyar was born June 21st, 1967, in France to Iranian immigrants. His family moved to Washington, D.C., when he was 6.

Early Career

After graduating from Tufts University with a degree in computer science in 1988, Omidyar worked for the Apple subsidiary Claris and then co-founded Ink Development, which in 1993 was renamed eShop.

AuctionWeb

Omidyar designed and developed AuctionWeb personally; it went live on Sept. 4, 1995, as part of a larger site.

EBay

In 1997, AuctionWeb had already begun to hire a full-time staff and received $5 million in funding from Benchmark Capital; the same year, the company changed its name from AuctionWeb to eBay.

Early Employees

The first eBay employee was Chris Agarpao, who was hired by Omidyar in 1996. The same year, Jeffrey Skoll became the first president. In March 1998, Meg Whitman became the first CEO.

References

• Internet-Story
• The Perfect Store: Inside eBay; Adam Cohen; 2002