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When you don't know what to expect, prepare for the unexpected.

Pierre Omidyar

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Pierre Omidyar
Age: 57
Born: 1967
Born: June 21
Computer Scientist
Economist
Entrepreneur
Manager
Philanthropist
Programmer
Paris
France
Pierre Morad Omidyar
Pierre M. Omidyar
Prepare
Unexpected
Expect

More quotes by Pierre Omidyar

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When you look at the accomplishments of accomplished people and you say, “Boy, that must have been really 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.
Pierre Omidyar
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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.
Pierre Omidyar
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To truly prepare for the unexpected, you've got to position yourself to keep a couple of options open so when the door of opportunity opens, you're close enough to squeeze through.
Pierre Omidyar
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People were doing business with one another through the Internet already, through bulletin boards. But on the Web, we could make it interactive, we could create an auction, we could create a real marketplace. And that's really what triggered my imagination, if you will, and that's what I did.
Pierre Omidyar
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In 1991, I co-founded my first start-up, Ink Development, which made software for an early tablet computer.
Pierre Omidyar
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I never had it in mind that I would start a company one day and it would really be successful. I have just been motivated by working on interesting technology
Pierre Omidyar
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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... What you learn from those challenges and those failures are what will get you past the next ones... I was the pretty consistent bull and the cheerleader on eBay actually.
Pierre Omidyar
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Long-term sustainable change happens if people discover their own power.
Pierre Omidyar
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In the same way that you're driven in your business to keep innovating - Facebook is a wonderful example of constant innovation - think about doing that in philanthropy.
Pierre Omidyar
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We ought to be looking at business as a force for good.
Pierre Omidyar
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By building a simple system, with just a few guiding principles, eBay was open to organic growth.
Pierre Omidyar
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We believe that business can be a tool for social good.
Pierre Omidyar
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I started eBay as an experiment, as a side hobby basically, while I had my day job.
Pierre Omidyar
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eBay's business is based on enabling someone to do business with another person, and to do that, they first have to develop some measure of trust, either in the other person or the system.
Pierre Omidyar
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You have to really believe in what you're doing, be passionate enough about it so that you will put in the hours and hard work that it takes to actually succeed there, and then you'll be successful.
Pierre Omidyar
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When I started eBay, it was a hobby, an experiment to see if people could use the Internet to be empowered through access to an efficient market. I actually wasn't thinking about it in terms of a social impact. It was really about helping people connect around a sphere of interest so they could do business.
Pierre Omidyar
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We believe people are basically good. We believe everyone has something to contribute. We encourage you to treat others the way that you want to be treated.
Pierre Omidyar
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You’re able to accomplish anything you set out to accomplish.
Pierre Omidyar
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In February of 1996, about six months after I created eBay, I started receiving a spate of complaints. Everyone was complaining about each other. I felt very much like I was a parent who had to adjudicate the brothers beating each other up.
Pierre Omidyar
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I was raised with the notion that you can do pretty much do anything you want. I always kind of just went ahead and tried things.
Pierre Omidyar