Award-Winning Philanthropists Explain the Roots of Their Giving

New York Times – July 7, 2017

By Paul Sullivan

Long before Jeffrey Skoll helped Pierre Omidyar build eBay into a company that made them both billionaires, he wanted to tell stories. He said a yearlong backpacking trip to Pakistan and India after he graduated from college opened his eyes to a world he didn’t know.

Coming out of Stanford University’s business school in 1995, he was hired by Mr. Omidyar as the auction site’s first employee. He wrote the business plan the company followed, and when eBay went public in 1998 he was wealthy beyond belief. His estimated net worth is $5.6 billion, according to Wealth-X, a financial research firm.

“This is where the philanthropy part starts for me,” Mr. Skoll said in an interview. “I was tasked with finding a way to share the success of the company with the people who helped make it what it was. I decided to start a company foundation.” Read more.