Pierre Omidyar

EBay founder Pierre Omidyar is expanding into other ventures nearly 20 years after founding his online auction company. Outspoken on Twitter, he created First Look Media, a group that aims to present new forms of independent journalism. It's first publication, digital magazine The Intercept, launched in Feb. 2014, featuring work from Edward Snowden-revealing journalist Glenn Greenwald. The site will initially focus on disclosing new information from NSA whistleblower Snowden. Still serving as eBay's chairman, Omidyar also spends time on the Omidyar Network, his philanthropic investment firm. A member of Bill Gates and Warren Buffett's Giving Pledge, Omidyar and his wife, Pam, have been perhaps the biggest private donors to the fight against human trafficking over the last half decade. In the past four years, they've invested $115 million in their Humanity United foundation, which funds 85 antislavery nonprofits as well as on-the-ground projects in five countries, including their first in Nepal. They've pledged to spend another $50 million by 2016. Born in France of Iranian parents, Omidyar moved to the U.S. with his family at age 6. He wrote code for his website, Auction Web, at age 28 and renamed it eBay after his first choice, Echo Bay, was already taken. Omidyar ceded executive control to new hire Meg Whitman in 1998; she was replaced by John Donahoe 10 years later. He continues to gift away large swaths of his eBay shares, including a large 9.6 million share donation to his foundation in Aug. 2013.