America’s Most Successful Immigrants

Jeffrey Skoll

Jeffrey Skoll was born in Canada and came to the United States to go to Stanford. He graduated from their business school and wrote the business plan for eBay, which was a startup at the time. Skill was the second largest shareholder in the company, behind the founder, and sold his holdings for about $2 billion.

He created a production company called Participant Media. This company has created movies such as North Country, Good Night and Good Luck, Syriana, and Murderball. Other notable movies include An Inconvenient Truth, Fast Food Nation, and Lincoln. Is all he does is make movies?

Philanthropy

Skoll doesn’t just make movies, but he is also a philanthropist. His foundation, the Skoll Foundation, supports “social entrepreneurship” and he has given this company $1 billion of his eBay money in addition to the $80 million in grants it gets each year.

Skoll has won numerous awards over the years, which include: The Producers Guild of America Visionary Award, the National Leadership Award for Commonwealth Club Silicon Valley, and the Outstanding Philanthropist Award from the International Associated of Fundraising Professionals. Skoll is also an investor in Tesla motors and owns a variety of their cars.