Jeffrey Skoll Quotes

Social entrepreneurs come from all levels of society and from communities in nearly every country of the world. They all share the same underlying drive and passion to see their ideas through. Many of them have had a huge effect on the world, yet most people have not even heard of them - a trend we hope to change!

A little bit of good can turn into a whole lot of good when fueled by the commitment of a social entrepreneur.

Not everyone can be Gandhi, but each of us has the power to make sure our own lives count - and it's those millions of lives that will ultimately build a better world.

My views tend to be centrist. I'm not a big fan of George W., but my politics tend to be more Republican than not.

I was living in a house with five guys, eating their leftovers when they weren't watching. I went from that to having $1-billion-plus on paper.

I wanted to be a writer, to write these stories that would make people see the world in a different way. But I ended up going to business school because I thought I could ultimately get to where I wanted to go faster that way.

Business skills, when well applied, can do more than just make money. They can potentially make money and do some real good, which is immensely satisfying. To do that, it's important to think outside the box, take risks, and be an entrepreneur.

As a teenager I read a lot of books. Books with lots of scary trends, things like nuclear weapons and overpopulation and global diseases, and I thought, 'Wouldn't it be great to write stories that showed people these problems and that we could do something about them.'

As a philanthropist, I give away a lot of money every year. Yet I thought there was a higher leverage to come in and create movies and TV shows that were actually able to do some good in the world.

The pace at eBay was frantic and urgent. We knew that if we didn't move fast, somebody would come into the market and quash us. Participant doesn't make a lot of sense from a financial investment perspective, so it's unlikely that other people will be approaching the business in the same way. So you see less urgency; you see a thoroughness and willingness to spend extra time to get things right. Which I think is really important.

The goal here is to build a brand around social relevance in media (with his Participant Productions company).

When I was 14, my dad came home one day and told us he had cancer. It was looking pretty bad. And I remember him saying how afraid he was that he hadn't gotten to do the things he wanted to do during his life. He had surgery and survived. And he's still alive today, thank God. But it made a big impact on me.

Participant (Productions) is the only production company in town that has a double bottom line: social good plus financial returns. It's too early to tell how our returns are going to look - though all signs are promising - but social good is what we're really after.