Jeffrey Skoll (born January 16, 1965) is a Canadian born businessman who lives in Los Angeles, California. He was the second employee and first president of internet auction firm eBay, and used the wealth this gave him to become a philanthropist and to found the independent movie production company Participant Productions.
Jeff Skoll was born in Montreal, Quebec, his mother a teacher and his father a chemical company owner who sold industrial chemicals. The family settled in Toronto in the late seventies.
When Jeff Skoll was fourteen his father was diagnosed with cancer which prompted him to discuss with his son how much he regretted not having had the time to do everything he had planned in life. A keen reader, Skoll was influenced by authors such as Aldous Huxley and Ayn Rand and intended to become an author writing motivational books and books on tackling the world's problems.
He graduated with a BASc with honours in 1987 from the University of Toronto's electrical engineering program. While an undergraduate student, he co-edited the engineering students' satirical newspaper The Toike Oike. He paid his way through college by pumping gas in North York, Ontario. After graduating he backpacked around the world for several months before returning and founding two businesses in Toronto: Skoll Engineering, an information technology consulting firm and Micros on the Move Ltd., a computer rental firm. Those businesses did poorly so he decided to improve his business skills with further study.
He left Canada in 1993 to study a Masters of Business Administration at Stanford Business School, graduating in 1995. After Stanford he went to work at Knight-Ridder where he was working on internet projects for the publishing company.
In 1996 Skoll met eBay's founder Pierre Omidyar who hired him as the company's first president and first full-time employee. While eBay was already profitable at the time Skoll joined, he wrote the business plan that eBay followed from its emergence as a start-up to a great success. He remained President until the arrival of Meg Whitman in January 1998 when he became Vice President, Strategic Planning and Analysis until back problems necessitated his departure from full-time employment at the company. In 1998, he championed the creation of the eBay Foundation which was allocated pre-IPO stock now worth $32 million. Once eBay's second largest stockholder (behind only Omidyar) he subsequently cashed out a portion of the company, yielding him around $2 billion .
Skoll is also the CEO of Participant Productions, a Los Angeles based media company he created to fund feature films and documentaries that promote social values while still being commercially viable. Its first three films were Syriana, Good Night, and Good Luck, and North Country along with the documentary Murderball. These films accounted for 11 Oscar nominations in 2006. Subsequent films included An Inconvenient Truth, American Gun, Fast Food Nation, and The World According to Sesame Street. An Inconvenient Truth won two Oscars in 2007 and has been credited with extending the public debate over climate change. Further films for 2007 include Charlie Wilson's War with Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts, The Kite Runner directed by Marc Forster, An Indifferent World about Darfur with Don Cheadle, The Chicago 10 based on the 1968 Democratic convention protests, Angels in the Dust about an AIDS orphanage in South Africa, Darfur Now about the genocide in Darfur with Don Cheadle and "A Man from Plains," a film about Jimmy Carter directed by Academy Award winning director Jonathan Demme, in 2008 The Visitor by Thomas McCarthy with Richard Jenkins and Hiam Abbass.
Skoll is a noted philanthropist and has been honoured several times for his generosity. He gave the eponymous Skoll Foundation $250 million of eBay stock. The Foundation supports "social entrepreneurship." Skoll chairs the Foundation and today makes grants in excess of $30M per year. The Skoll Foundation's assets rank it as the largest foundation for Social Entrepreneurship in the world.
Skoll's largest charitable donation was a $7.5 million contribution to endow the first Canadian dual degree program for gifted students where they obtain a Bachelors degree in Engineering and an MBA in a special program of six years and eight months at the University of Toronto. He has also funded the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship, at Said Business School, Oxford University, which undertakes research in social entrepreneurship, co-ordinates the Skoll World Forum and provides scholarships for the Oxford MBA program to five young social entrepreneurs.
Skoll is on the board of directors of the eBay Foundation and the Community Foundation Silicon Valley, the Advisory board of the Stanford Graduate School of Business and several other community organizations.
Skoll's recent honors and awards include Time Magazine's 100 People of the Year (2006), Wired Magazine's Rave Award (2006), the National Leadership Award for Commonwealth Club Silicon Valley (2004) and the Outstanding Philanthropist Award from the International Association of Fundraising Professionals (2003). In 2003, Skoll was the commencement speaker and was awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from the University of Toronto.
In addition, Skoll has financed The Gandhi Project in partnership with Relief International which created a dubbed version in Arabic of the film Gandhi. They used Palestinian voice actors and artists to make the film particularly relevant to Palestinians. With Skoll's support, it is being screened throughout Palestine to promote non-violence, self-reliance, economic development, and empowerment.
Skoll has paid a deposit on a Tesla Roadster from Tesla Motors. It is a battery electric sportscar with a 250 mile range. Owns the 3rd Tesla off the line P2/VINF003. He is also an investor in the company.
