# 2920
Pierre Omidyar is the founder and chairman of EBay, the largest and most successful auction site on the internet, and has amassed a personal fortune of several billion dollars. He and his family lives in Hawaii, although they have residences in several other parts of the world as well.
Omidyar is a well known philanthropist, supporting a number of local causes in Hawaii, and is the founder of the Omidyar Network - a philanthropic investment firm `dedicated to harnessing the power of markets to create opportunity for people to improve their lives’.
Today, in a feature in the Honolulu Advertiser, Pierre Omidyar gives a rare interview to the press, where he talks about his move back to Hawaii, his philanthropic endeavors, and his concerns over how Hawaii would fare during a pandemic.
Of course, Omidyar is no stranger to the pandemic issue.
In 2007 he was one of 11 contributors to the HHS’s Pandemic Leadership Blog. You can still read of all of the blog entries (including 5 of mine), along with hundreds of reader’s comments on the HHS Archive.
Posted by
Pierre Omidyar
Founder and Chairman, eBay; Cofounder and Founding Partner, Omidyar Network
Omidyar wrote the following 3 blog entries:
Why care, why prepare?
Painting the risk
Thank you for the conversation
While nearly two years have passed since that blogging event, the concern over an eventual pandemic has not gone away. In today’s interview, Omidyar talks frankly about the pandemic threat and the impact it could have on Hawaii.
Posted on: Sunday, March 22, 2009
A 'wonderful rediscovery' in isles
Billionaire's quiet return to raise kids a boon for sustainability effortsBy
Rick Daysog
Advertiser Staff WriterHawai'i's richest man, a 41-year-old Internet entrepreneur worth nearly $4 billion, enjoys his anonymity.
Pierre Omidyar slipped into Hawai'i in 2006 with his wife and three kids and virtually no publicity. Since then, the founder and chairman of eBay Inc. has kept mostly to his Kahala home while in the Islands.
"You may have noticed that I do like to fly under the radar," Omidyar said in a rare interview. "When I walk around town, the only people I want to recognize me and call me by my name are the folks at Starbucks and Jamba Juice."
Sporting a faded polo shirt and khakis, Omidyar discussed with The Advertiser his decision to drastically downsize from a 45,000-square-foot mansion in a Las Vegas suburb to a 5,800-square-foot home close to the ocean. He spoke of his fondness for the cultural and ethnic diversity of Hawai'i and his desire to raise his biracial kids in a place that he says is a model for the future of the world.
While he's clearly enamored with the Island culture, he is also aware of the danger of living in the middle of an ocean. Omidyar worries that a pandemic could cut Hawai'i's lifelines and leave it with an 11-day supply of food.
To that end, he has made pivotal donations to local nonprofits dedicated to building sustainable local food supplies.
At the same time, he has stockpiled several months of food for his personal use at storage facilities on O'ahu, several former employees said.
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