Skoll, Jeffrey (1965-…), a Canadian businessman, served as the first president of the auction website eBay. Skoll held the job from 1996 through 1998. During his two years as president, eBay grew from a small auction site to a multimillion-dollar publicly owned corporation. After selling his eBay stock and becoming a billionaire, Skoll became known as a philanthropist, a person who donates large sums of money to charitable causes.
Skoll has championed the use of for-profit business methods to improve society. His Skoll Foundation supports businesses designed to help solve social problems. Skoll also started Participant Productions, a for-profit media company that produces and distributes movies that promote positive social change. In addition, Skoll helped start the eBay Foundation, which supports not-for-profit organizations working in local communities.
Skoll was born in Montreal, Quebec, on Jan 16, 1965. He graduated from the University of Toronto in 1987 with a degree in electrical engineering. After two brief, unsuccessful business ventures, he entered the Stanford Graduate School of Business in California, earning an M.B.A. degree in 1995. Skoll then worked on Internet projects at Knight-Ridder, a media company. In 1996, eBay’s founder, the American businessman Pierre Omidyar, hired Skoll as the company’s first full-time employee.
