The Story of eBay

In 1995, a 28-year-old computer programmer named Pierre Omidyar changed the face of Internet commerce when he launched eBay (www.ebay.com) as a hobby. He wrote the code over Labor Day weekend and launched the site as an experiment. The first item ever sold on eBay was Omidyar's broken laser pointer, which a bidder purchased for $13.83. Thinking the bidder must have been mistaken, Omidyar contacted the winner and asked if he understood that the laser pointer was broken. The buyer replied, “Yes, I'm a collector of broken laser pointers.”

Within a few weeks, people began flocking to eBay. The company became profitable in less than a year and grew so fast that Omidyar had to look for people to help him manage things. Jeff Skoll, an MBA, was hired as eBay’s first president and full-time employee in 1996. In March 1998, Meg Whitman became president and CEO, and continues to run the company today.

In September 1998, eBay was listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange under the symbol EBAY. Their stock was only $0.75 per share in the initial public offering (IPO), but Pierre Omidyar and Jeff Skoll became almost instant billionaires only three years after eBay was launched.