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Purpose and benefits

From an idea sparked by a casual conversation, Pierre Omidyar built one of the world’s most successful Internet companies, eBay. Started in 1995,with millions of items up for auction and 600,000 new ones added every day, e-Bay is a collector’s paradise. Profitable almost from the beginning, Omidyar’s handling of his idea has been masterful. He got the right people in—including Jeff Skoll and Meg Whitman—to manage the company through rapid expansion, to IPO and beyond. But Omidyar was always on hand to make sure the business stayed true to his original vision. By 2001, eBay had nearly 30 million registered users and was still turning a handsome profit.