Pierre Omidyar

“You can invest in companies, you can help grow companies, you can be a venture capitalist - and be a philanthropist at the same time.”

“A well-functioning microfinance bank can actually be a profitable business as well. So it became a perfect proof point that, through business, you can provide an experience that leads to individual self-empowerment.”

“News organisations that have been around a while have a lot of traditions and ways of doing things that may have served them for many years but perhaps make them less flexible in the digital era. As an entrepreneur, it just makes more sense to start something new.”

“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.”

“If you give people the opportunity to do the right thing, you'll rarely be disappointed.”

“In 1991, I co-founded my first start-up, Ink Development, which made software for an early tablet computer.”

“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.”

“I developed an interest in supporting independent journalists in a way that leverages their work to the greatest extent possible, all in support of the public interest.”

“If you can get over this initial distrust that people have of strangers, you can do remarkable things.”

“In terms of my belief that one individual can make a difference - that belief comes from my parents.”

“As a philanthropist, I try to help people take ownership. Everything I've done is rooted in the notion that every human being is born equally capable. What people lack is equal opportunity.”

“When you have mass surveillance, it's impossible to meet the intent of the First Amendment because reporters can't talk to sources because sources are afraid to talk.”

“I'm a technologist by origin and by training, but I'm focused on philanthropy.”

“I had always been interested in markets - specifically, the theory that in financial markets, goods will trade at a fair value only when everyone has access to the same information.”

“In the early days of eBay, I articulated for the very first time this belief that people are basically good.”

“Technologists come at a problem from the point of view that the system is working a certain way, and if I engage in that system and actually change the rules of the system, I can make it work a different way.”

“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.”

“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.”

“My dad was a physician. As a kid, I remember driving around with him on weekends so he could do his rounds at the hospital and talk to patients. We'd spend time in the car talking about what was going on with them, their stories.”

“Companies in Silicon Valley invest a lot in understanding their users and what drives user engagement.”