Who founded the online marketplace eBay?

Pierre Omidyar founded the online marketplace eBay.

Omidyar created the service in California in 1995, initially calling it AuctionWeb. He wrote the original software as a person-to-person auction site and launched it as part of a personal website. The platform quickly attracted buyers and sellers, turning a small experiment into a major online marketplace.

One early sale involved a broken laser pointer, which Omidyar reportedly found surprising because the buyer deliberately collected defective laser pointers. The site’s transaction fees helped fund its growth, and Omidyar eventually left his regular job to concentrate on the business.

The company adopted the name eBay in 1997. A popular story says Omidyar created it so his fiancée could trade Pez dispensers, but that explanation was later identified as a public-relations invention. Marc Andreessen, Jack Ma and Jeff Bezos are prominent technology figures, but none founded eBay.