26 Facts About Jeffrey Skoll

Jeffrey Skoll was the first president of eBay, eventually using the wealth this gave him to become a philanthropist, particularly through the Skoll Foundation, and his media company Participant Media.

Jeffrey Skoll founded an investment firm, Capricorn Investment Group, soon after and currently serves as its chairman.

Jeff Jeffrey Skoll was born to a Jewish family in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

Jeffrey Skoll's mother was a teacher and his father was a chemical company owner who sold industrial chemicals.

When Jeffrey 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.

Jeffrey Skoll graduated with a BASc with honours in 1987 from the University of Toronto's electrical engineering program.

Jeffrey Skoll paid his way through college by pumping gas in North York, Ontario.

Jeffrey Skoll left Canada in 1993 to earn a Master of Business Administration degree at Stanford Business School, graduating in 1995.

In 1996 Jeffrey Skoll met eBay's founder Pierre Omidyar, who hired him as the company's first president and first full-time employee.

Jeffrey Skoll 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 2004, Jeffrey Skoll founded the company Participant to create films that increase public awareness of critical social issues and give audiences opportunities to get involved through education and social action campaigns.

Jeffrey Skoll has served as Executive Producer or Producer on nearly 100 Participant films, including Spotlight, Roma, and American Factory, and as of 2019 Participant has won 18 Oscars and received 73 Academy Award nominations.

Jeffrey Skoll is a recipient of the Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy, and a Giving Pledge signatory.

Jeffrey Skoll has given the eponymous Skoll Foundation approximately $1 billion of eBay stock since its formation in 1999.

In 2009, Jeffrey Skoll donated $100 million to create the Jeffrey Skoll Global Threats Fund to confront threats including climate change, water security, pandemics, nuclear proliferation, and Middle East conflict.

Jeffrey Skoll wanted the film be scientifically sound and encourage funding of medical experts; In 2020, following the COVID-19 pandemic media coverage noted it was "shocking in its accuracy".

In January 2020, Jeffrey Skoll donated $20 million, and an additional $100 million in April, to the Jeffrey Skoll Foundation to combat the COVID-19 pandemic.

Jeffrey Skoll is active in "collaborative philanthropy" and has joined with other philanthropists and foundations to pool resources that then flow to non-profits focused on addressing specific issues at scale.

In 2017, Jeffrey Skoll, joined with others to create Co-Impact, a philanthropic funding collaborative seeded with $500 million, whose "specific aim is to fund organizations that are addressing health, education and economic opportunity in low-to-middle income countries".

Jeffrey Skoll has funded the creation of academic centers at two universities.

In 2003, Jeffrey Skoll funded the creation of the Jeffrey Skoll Center for Social Entrepreneurship at Oxford University's Said Business School.

In 2019, Jeffrey Skoll funded the creation of the Jeffrey Skoll Center for Social Impact Entertainment at the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television.

In 2005, Jeffrey Skoll financed The Gandhi Project in partnership with Relief International which created a dubbed version in Arabic of the film Gandhi.

Jeffrey Skoll was one of the earliest proponents of socially responsible investing, called "impact investing", through which he invests in for-profit companies whose mission is to deliver both social impact and financial returns.

In 2001, Jeffrey Skoll created Capricorn Investment Group "on the premise of socially responsible investing" and the firm now oversees more than $5 billion in client assets and another $3.5 billion in partnership with other organizations.

In January 2019, it was announced Jeffrey Skoll had filed for divorce from Swedlove.