Omidyar And Ebay

Pierre M. Omidyar (Persian: پیر امیدیار, born June 21, 1967) is a French-born Iranian-American entrepreneur and philanthropist/economist, and the founder/chairman of the eBay auction site. Omidyar and his wife Pam are well-known philanthropists who founded Omidyar Network in 2004 in order to expand their efforts beyond non-profits to include for-profits and public policy. Omidyar Network is a philanthropic investment firm committed to creating and fostering opportunity for people around the world.
According to Forbes magazine, as of March 2008, he is the 120th richest person in the world.




Born in Paris, France to Iranian parents, Omidyar moved to the US at the age of six. Growing up in Washington, D.C., he developed an interest in computing while at St. Andrew's Episcopal School in Bethesda, Maryland. He graduated from St. Andrew's in 1984, and in 1988, he graduated with a degree in computer science from Tufts University. Shortly after, Omidyar went to work for Claris, an Apple Computer subsidiary, where he helped write MacDraw. In 1991 he co-founded Ink Development, a pen-based computing startup that was later rebranded as an e-commerce company and renamed eShop.

eBay and later career

Omidyar was 28 when he sat down over a long holiday weekend to write the original computer code for what eventually became an Internet superbrand — the auction site eBay. The frequently repeated story that eBay was founded to help Omidyar's fiancée trade PEZ candy dispensers was fabricated by a public relations manager in 1997 to interest the media. This was revealed in Adam Cohen's 2002 book and confirmed by eBay.


The site was launched on Labor Day, Monday, September 4, 1995, under the more prosaic title of "Auction Web"; it was hosted on a site Omidyar had created for information on the ebola virus. Auction Web was later renamed "eBay", after Echo Bay, Omidyar's consulting firm, when "echobay.com" was unavailable. The service was free at first, but started charging in order to cover Internet service provider costs.

Jeffrey Skoll joined the company in 1996. In March 1998, Meg Whitman was brought in as President and CEO and continued to run the company till Jan 2008 when she announced her retirement. In September 1998, eBay launched a successful public offering, making both Omidyar and Skoll billionaires. As of July 2008, Omidyar's 178 million eBay shares were worth around $4.45 billion. With eBay's stock plummeting in recent months, Omidyar's eBay shares are now worth closer to $2.65 billion.

Omidyar Network

Omidyar Network is a philanthropic investment firm dedicated to harnessing the power of markets to create opportunity for people to improve their lives. Established in 2004 by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar and his wife Pam, the organization invests in and helps scale innovative organizations to catalyze economic, social, and political change. To date, Omidyar Network has committed more than $270 million to for-profit companies and nonprofit organizations that foster economic advancement and encourage individual participation across multiple investment areas, including microfinance, property rights, government transparency, and social media.

Prior to founding eBay, Pierre co-founded Ink Development Corp., later renamed eShop and acquired by Microsoft. After graduating from Tufts with a B.S. in computer science, he joined Claris, a subsidiary of Apple Computer, as a consumer software engineer. Today, Pierre serves as a trustee of Tufts University, Punahou School and Santa Fe Institute, a director of Meetup, and chairman of eBay Inc.

Mr. Omidyar is also a private owner of Montage Resort & Spa in Laguna Beach, California.

BILL GATES- King Of computer

Bill Gates was born on October 28, 1955 in a family having rich business, political and community service background. His great-grandfather was a state legislator and a mayor, his grandfather was vice president of national bank and his father was a lawyer.

Bill strongly believes in hard work. He believes that if you are intelligent and know how to apply your intelligence, you can achieve anything. From childhood Bill was ambitious, intelligent and competitive. These qualities helped him to attain top position in the profession he chose. In school, he had an excellent record in mathematics and science. Still he was getting very bored in school and his parents knew it, so they always tried to feed him with more information to keep him busy. Bill’s parents came to know their son's intelligence and decided to enroll him in a private school, known for its intense academic environment. It was a very important decision in Bill Gate's life where he was first introduced to a computer. Bill Gates and his friends were very much interested in computer and formed "Programmers Group" in late 1968. Being in this group, they found a new way to apply their computer skill in university of Washington. In the next year, they got their first opportunity in Information Sciences Inc. in which they were selected as programmers. ISI (Information Sciences Inc.) agreed to give them royalties whenever it made money from any of the group’s program. As a result of the business deal signed with Information Sciences Inc., the group also became a legal business.

Bill Gates and his close friend Allen started new company of their own, Traf-O-Data. They developed a small computer to measure traffic flow. From this project they earned around $20,000. The era of Traf-O-Data came to an end when Gates left the college. In 1973, he left home for Harvard University. He didn’t know what to do, so he enrolled his name for pre-law. He took the standard freshman courses with the exception of signing up for one of Harvard's toughest mathematics courses. He did well over there, but he couldn’t find it interesting too. He spent many long nights in front of the school's computer and the next day asleep in class. After leaving school, he almost lost himself from the world of computers. Gates and his friend Paul Allen remained in close contact even though they were away from school. They would often discuss new ideas for future projects and the possibility of starting a business one fine day. At the end of Bill's first year, Allen came close to him so that they could follow some of their ideas. That summer they got job in Honeywell. Allen kept on pushing Bill for opening a new software company.

Within a year, Bill Gates dropped out from Harvard. Then he formed Microsoft. Microsoft's vision is "A computer on every desk and Microsoft software on every computer". Bill is a visionary person and works very hard to achieve his vision. His belief in high intelligence and hard work has put him where he is today. He does not believe in mere luck or God’s grace, but just hard work and competitiveness. Bill’s Microsoft is good competition for other software companies and he will continue to stomp out the competition until he dies. He likes to play the game of Risk and the game of world domination. His beliefs are so powerful, which have helped him increase his wealth and his monopoly in the industry.


Bill Gates is not a greedy person. In fact, he is quite giving person when it comes to computers, internet and any kind of funding. Some years back, he visited Chicago's Einstein Elementary School and announced grants benefiting Chicago's schools and museums where he donated a total of $110,000, a bunch of computers, and provided internet connectivity to number of schools. Secondly, Bill Gates donated 38 million dollars for the building of a computer institute at Stanford University. Gates plans to give away 95% of all his earnings when he is old and gray.

MARY KAY-successful business woman

After a successful career in direct sales, retired in mid-1963, -- for a month. During that month, she decided to write a book to help women survive in the male-dominated business world. Sitting at her kitchen table, she made two lists: one contained the good things she had seen in companies for which she had worked; the other featured the things she thought could be improved. Reviewing the lists, she realized that she had inadvertently created a marketing plan for a successful company of her own. With her life savings of $5,000 and the help of her 20-year-old son, Richard Rogers, she launched Mary Kay Cosmetics on Friday, September 13, 1963.

Mary Kay's goal was to provide women with an unlimited opportunity for personal and financial success. She used the Golden Rule as her guiding philosophy and encouraged employees and sales force members to prioritize their lives according to a simple but empowering motto: God first, family second, career third. Because of her steadfast commitment to her goals and principles, and her tremendous determination, dedication and hard work, Mary Kay Inc. has grown from a small direct sales company to the largest direct seller of skin care products in the U.S. and the best-selling brand of facial skin care and color cosmetics in the United States. The Company now has more than 500,000 Independent Beauty Consultants in 29 markets worldwide. Mary Kay Inc. was featured three times as one of The 100 Best Companies to Work for in America.

A dynamic speaker, motivator and entrepreneur, Mary Kay has been recognized for her achievements through numerous awards and honors including: Circle of Honor Award from the Direct Selling Education Foundation; First Annual National Sales Hall of Fame Award from the Sales and Marketing Executives of New York; Texas Business Hall of Fame Award; Texas Women's Hall of Fame Award; and the prestigious Horatio Alger Award.

In 1980, Mary Kay's husband Mel died of cancer. After watching him suffer, she became committed to the fight to find a cure for this disease. Having been involved in fundraising for more than 20 years, in 1996 she established the Mary Kay Ash Charitable Foundation, a non-profit public foundation that provides funding for research of leading cancers affecting women. Mary Kay has twice served as honorary chairman of the Texas Breast Screening Project and was instrumental in helping pass legislation in Texas for insurance coverage of mammograms. She is also active in raising funds for cancer research programs through the Komen Foundation, the American Cancer Society and the Mary Kay Ash Center for Cancer Immunotherapy Research at St. Paul Medical Center in Dallas, which was dedicated in 1993. On the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the Company and as a tribute to her efforts in breast cancer awareness and fund raising, the employees of Mary Kay Inc. presented to Mary Kay the Mary Kay/St. Paul Medical Center Mobile Cancer Screening Unit in July 1993. A cancer research wing at St. Paul Medical Center previously dedicated to Mary Kay Ash was expanded in 1995 and in 1998 the hospital dedicated the Mary Kay Ash Cancer Research Institute.

Mary Kay Ash's book, "You Can Have It All", was launched in August 1995 and achieved "best-seller" status within days of its introduction. Mary Kay's two other books include her autobiography, which has sold more than 1 million copies, and "Mary Kay on People Management", which is also a best-seller.

Mary Kay became chairman emeritus of Mary Kay Inc. in 1987. Today, she provides inspiration for her Independent Beauty Consultants worldwide. Her goal remains that of helping women everywhere achieve their full potential.

History of levi

Jacob Davis was a tailor who frequently purchased bolts of cloth made from hemp from Levi Strauss & Co.'s wholesale house. After one of Davis' customers kept purchasing cloth to reinforce torn pants, he had an idea to use copper rivets to reinforce the points of strain, such as on the pocket corners and at the base of the button fly. Davis did not have the required money to purchase a patent, so he wrote to Levi suggesting that they both go into business together. After Levi accepted Jacob's offer, on May 20, 1873, the two men received patent #139,121 from the United States Patent and Trademark Office. The patented rivet was later incorporated into the company's jean design and advertisements. Contrary to an advertising campaign suggesting that Levi Strauss sold his first jeans to gold miners during the California Gold Rush (which peaked in 1849), the manufacturing of denim overalls only began in the 1870s.

Modern jeans began to appear in the 1920s. In the 1950s and 1960s, Levi's jeans became popular among a wide range of youth subcultures, including greasers, mods, rockers, hippies and skinheads. Levi's popular shrink-to-fit 501s were sold in a unique sizing arrangement; the indicated size was related to the size of the jeans prior to shrinking, and the shrinkage was substantial. The company still produces these unshrunk, uniquely sized jeans, and they still sell very well.

[edit] 1990s and later

By the 1990s, the brand was facing competition from other brands and cheaper products from overseas, and began accelerating the pace of its US factory closures and its use of offshore subcontracting agreements. In 1991, Levi Strauss faced a scandal involving six subsidiary factories on the Northern Mariana Islands, a US commonwealth, where some 3% of Levi's jeans sold annually with the Made in the USA label were shown to have been made by Chinese laborers under what the United States Department of Labor called "slavelike" conditions.

Cited for sub-minimal wages, seven-day work weeks with 12-hour shifts, poor living conditions and other indignities, Tan Holdings Corporation, Levi Strauss' Marianas subcontractor, paid what were then the largest fines in US labor history, distributing more than $9 million in restitution to some 1,200 employees.^[6][7][8] Levi Strauss claimed no knowledge of the offenses, then severed ties to the Tan family and instituted labor reforms and inspection practices in its offshore facilities.

The activist group Fuerza Unida (United Force) was formed following the January 1990 closure of a plant in San Antonio, Texas, in which 1,150 seamstresses (primarily Latinas) — some of whom had worked for Levi Strauss for decades — saw their jobs exported to Costa Rica.^[9] During the mid and late 1990s, Fuerza Unida picketed the Levi Strauss headquarters in San Francisco and staged hunger strikes and sit-ins in protest of the company's labor policies.^[10][11][12]

The company took on multi-billion dollar debt in February 1996 to help finance a series of leveraged stock buyouts among family members. Shares in Levi Strauss stock are not publicly traded; the firm is today owned almost entirely by indirect descendants and relatives of Levi Strauss, whose four nephews inherited the San Francisco dry goods firm after their uncle's death in 1902.^[13] Levi's bonds are traded publicly, as are shares of the company's Japan affiliate, Levi Strauss Japan K.K.

In June 1996, the company offered to pay its workers an unusual dividend of up to $750 million in six years' time, having halted an employee stock plan at the time of the internal family buyout. However, the company failed to make cash flow targets, and no worker dividends were paid.^[14] In 2002, Levi Strauss began a close business collaboration with Wal-Mart, producing a special line of "Signature" jeans and other clothes for exclusive sale in Wal-Mart stores until 2006.^[15] Levi Strauss Signature jeans can now be purchased at several stores in the US, Canada and Japan.^[5].

According to the New York Times, Levi Strauss leads the apparel industry in trademark infringement cases, filing nearly 100 lawsuits against competitors since 2001. Most cases center on the alleged imitation of Levi's back pocket double arc stitching pattern (U.S. trademark #1,139,254]).^[16] Levi's has sued Guess?, Esprit Holdings, Zegna, Zumiez and Lucky Brand Jeans, among other companies.^[17]

By 2007, Levi Strauss was again said to be profitable after declining sales in nine of the previous ten years.^[18] Its total annual sales, of just over $4 billion, were $3 billion less than during its peak performance in the mid 1990s.^[19] After more than two decades of family ownership, rumors of a possible public stock offering were floated in the media in July 2007.

About Levi Strauss & Co. (LS&CO)

Levi Strauss & Co. (LS&CO) is a privately held clothing company known worldwide for its Levi's brand of denim jeans. It was founded in 1853 when Levi Strauss came from Bavaria, Germany to San Francisco, California to open a west coast branch of his brothers' New York dry goods business. Although the company began producing denim overalls in the 1870s, modern jeans were not produced until the 1920s. The company briefly experimented (in the 1970s) with employee ownership and a public stock listing, but remains owned and controlled by descendants and relatives of Levi Strauss' four nephews.

Organization

Levi Strauss & Co. is a worldwide corporation organized into three geographic divisions: Levi Strauss Americas (LSA), based in the San Francisco headquarters; Levi Strauss Europe, Middle East and Africa (LSEMA), based in Brussels; and Asia Pacific Division (APD), based in Singapore.The company employs a staff of approximately 10,500 people worldwide, and owns and develops a few brands. Levi's®, the main brand, was founded in 1873 in San Francisco, specializing in riveted denim jeans and different lines of casual and street fashion.^[1]

From the early 1960s through the mid 1970s, Levi Strauss experienced explosive growth in its business as the more casual look of the 60s and 70s ushered in the "blue jeans craze" and served as a catalyst for the brand. Levi's®, under the leadership of Jay Walter Haas Sr., Peter Haas Sr., Paul Glasco and George P. Simpkins Sr., expanded the firm's clothing line by adding new fashions and models, including stoned washed jeans through the acquisition of Great Western Garment Co.,(GWG), a Canadian clothing manufacturer, acquired by Levi's®. GWG was responsible for the introduction of the modern "stone washing" technique, still in use by Levi Strauss.

Mr. Simpkins is credited with the company's record paced expansion of its manufacturing capacity from fewer than 16 plants to more than 63 plants nationwide from 1964 through 1974. Perhaps most impressive, however, was that Levi's®' expansion under Simpkins was accomplished without a single unionized employee as a result of Levi's®' and the Hass families' strong stance on human rights and Simpkins' use of "pay for performance" manufacturing at the sewing machine operator level up. As a result, Levi's' plants were perhaps the highest performing, best organized and cleanest textile facilities of their time. Levi's® even piped in massive amounts of air conditioning into its press plants, which were known in the industry to be notoriously hot, for the comfort of Levi's® workers.

2004 saw a sharp decline of GWG in the face of global outsourcing, so the company was closed and the Edmonton manufacturing plant shut down.^[2] Dockers was launched in 1986.^[3] Sold largely through department store chains, helped the company grow through the mid-1990s, as denim sales began to fade. Levi Strauss attempted to sell the brand in 2004 to relieve part of the company's $2 billion outstanding debt.^[4]

Launched in 2003, Levi Strauss Signature features jeanswear and casualwear.^[5] In November 2007, Levi's released a mobile phone in co-operation with ModeLabs. Many of the phone's cosmetic attributes are customisable at the point of purchase.

Levi Strauss

Levi Strauss, born Löb Strauss (February 26, 1829 – September 26, 1902) was a German-Jewish immigrant to the United States^[1] who founded the first company to manufacture blue jeans. His firm, Levi Strauss & Company, began in 1853 in San Francisco, California.

Levi Strauss was born in Bavaria, Germany to Hirsch Strauss and his wife Rebecca (Haas) Strauss. His parents named him Löb, but when he entered Ellis Island they couldn't understand his name, therefore, they changed it to Levi after he came to the United States.^[3]

At the age of 18, Strauss sailed for the United States to join his brothers Jonas, Daniel, and Louis, who had begun a dry goods business in New York City. His mother and two sisters came with him. By 1850, Strauss was already calling himself Levi.

In 1853, Strauss became an American citizen.^[4] He moved to San Francisco, where many of the California Gold Rush miners lived out of Conestoga wagons.

Strauss opened his dry goods wholesale business as Levi Strauss & Co. He often led his pack-horse, heavily laden with merchandise, to the mining camps in the Gold Rush country.^{[citation needed]} He learned that prospectors and miners complained about their cotton trousers and pockets tearing too easily. A tailor named Jacob Davis decided to make rugged overalls to sell to the miners.^{[citation needed]} Fashioned from brown sailcloth made from hemp, his trousers had ore storage pockets that were nearly impossible to split.^{[citation needed]} Davis wanted to register a patent, but lacked money. Strauss agreed to help him and they went into partnership.

On May 20, 1873, Strauss and Davis received United States patent #139121 for using copper rivets to strengthen the pockets of denim work pants. Levi Strauss & Co. began manufacturing the famous Levi's brand of jeans, using fabric from the Amoskeag Manufacturing Company in Manchester, New Hampshire.

Strauss died in 1902 at the age of 73. Levi's fortune was estimated to be around 6 million dollars(more or less). ^[5] He was buried in Colma, California. Strauss had never married and left his thriving business to his nephews Jacob, Louis, Abraham, and Sigmund Stern. They rebuilt the company after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.

A Levi Strauss museum is maintained in Buttenheim, Germany, located in the 1687 house where Strauss was born. There is also a Levi Strauss museum in San Francisco.

Using stories to inspire

Think about this for a minute, because it may happen more often than you think. How many times have you pushed yourself harder after hearing the story of someone else's success, or changed your opinion after reading a convincing article in a magazine or newspaper?

There's no doubt that stories can change the way we think, act, and feel. Leaders, especially, can use the power of a good story to influence and motivate their teams to new heights. Stories can inspire everything from understanding to action. They can create legends that an entire workplace culture can build upon, and they have the power to break down barriers and turn a bad situation into a good one. Stories can capture our imaginations and make things real in a way that cold, hard facts can't.