The Most Interesting Thing I Learned This Week

The Origin of EBAY

This may be one of those weeks where the most interesting thing I came across is more interesting to some of you than to others, but what we should really focus on here is the fact that I said I was going to have a weekly post, and lo and behold, one week later a post appears. Keep that in mind.

I went to a CEO breakfast this week put on by the Chicago Young Professionals. I thought it would be fun since the person speaking was Rob Solomon, COO of Groupon. If you're not familiar with Groupon, you should check out the link.

During his speech he began talking about how Groupon was formed kind of on accident. Then he related that to other major online sites we're all familiar with that began a bit by chance. One of those was eBay.

As it turns out, Pierre Omidyar, a French-born Iranian created eBay in 1995 in San Jose, CA, as a site for his fiancee to sell her extensive collection of Pez dispenser. Apparently, she thought they might have some value, but wasn't sure how to best capitalize on that value.

That's what the the COO of Groupon told us anyway.

Pretty interesting, huh? I thought so. I thought it was interesting enough that I decided to write about it this week. But as I did some verification on the story, it turns out that's not the truth at all. In fact, that story was completely made up by an eBay PR manager in 1997. Apparently Pez dispensers got all the press buzzing. However, the story is so well known, that most people, even COOs who've spent years living in Silicon Valley, believe it to be true.

The real story is that eBay started out as an auction company by a different name selling airline tickets and other travel related items. Then when it became eBay, the first item ever to be sold was a broken laser pointer that was originally purchased as a cat toy. The item sold for $14.83. Omidyar was stunned that it sold, so he contacted the buyer who responded by saying that he was a collector of broken laser pointers. I'm pretty sure that was the moment Omidyar realized he had struck gold.

To me, this is a great example of truth being stranger than fiction. And it's also a great lesson. When you hear something interesting, don't just assume it's true - especially if you read it on the Internet. There's weirdos out there buying broken laser pointer cat toys who have access to this thing for Pete's sake.