One On One with Pierre Omidyar

My preview of Woz’s book, I, Woz, got me thinking about entrepreneurs who embody the “purity” of the process of creating great products. Another outstanding example of this is Pierre Omidyar, the founder of eBay. On September 5, 2000, I did a “fireside chat” with Pierre at a Garage event in London. Here is a video of this interview:

Download omidyar.mov

Here is an MP3 recording if you want to only listen to the interview:

Download Omidyar.mp3

Here is a great written synopsis of the interview.

Like Woz’s book, the interview provides many insights into innovation, invention, and entrepreneurship. I hope that you enjoy watching this as much as I enjoyed conducting the interview. It’s testimony to the fact that everything does’t have to about the money.

Speaking of eBay, I'll be speaking at eBay Live on Tuesday if any of you are going to be there. My topic is the “Art of Evangelism.”

Comments

[online auction]

Very inspiring - though everyone agrees that today’s start-up businesses have more challenges to overcome then just 2 or 3 year ago. There are millions of new entrants with great sites and ideas, but very few successes.

[Yoni Avital]

Omidyar's sucess story is inspiring and very truthful, thanks for the video!

We all agree that nowadays it is more difficult but possible, so maybe you two can work on the next book "the Art of the Combat" :)

[hansenb]

Guy,
Thanks for the video. Fascinating and inspiring. A lot of useful advice that is applicable in many areas of business and life.
Brandon

[jammy]

downloaded the mp3...good revelations

[Candy Minx]

That was a fascinating interview. I ended up watching the entire thing and found his anecdotes charming. I didn't know anything about eBay or how it started so that was pretty informative for me. Of course, it is also timely since a couple days ago I put an item for sale on eBay for the very first time. It is the painting with your portrait I did called "Kawasaki Krump." I should let you know...I cracked the 100,000 mark today. You are in big trouble. My rank is now 98,638.
Hey while you're talking at eBay Live, why don'tcha plug my painting :)

Cheers,
Candy Minx

[montysbox]

I found this such a good refresher of the fundamentals that I put together a quick summary of the key take-aways on my blog:

http://montysbox.typepad.com/excuse_me_while_i_digress/2006/06/summary_of_guy_.html

Considering the video is long, some folks may not be able to view it all at one time or go back to it quickly for reference. Hope this helps.

[John Nguyen]

Aww. If I knew you were going to be there I would have registered for the event when eBay sent me an advertisement. I thought it was going to be like all the other events, talking about listings, keywords, and features etc. BTW, Mr. K do you happen to remember what Mr. Omidyar said about what a venture capitalist did for his company. The video was cut off in the middle(Guess the tape ran out).

[Ken Boasso]

Guy: Dumb luck! I'm going to be in Vegas on Tuesday, too, but paneling at the Software Business Transformation Summit, *not* listening to your talk at eBay Live! Any chance we'll be able to get copies of your speaker's notes and / or an audio / video file of the talk? Would love to hear it!

[Grant Hutchins]

Thanks for the video! It's nice to hear a story like that from back in 2000. A lot of things have changed since then, but I think that Omidyar's advice is timeless and evidence as to why eBay has stayed successful after the dotcom bust.