Jeffrey Stuart Skoll OC (born January 16, 1965)[1] is a Canadian engineer, billionaire internet entrepreneur and film producer.

Once eBay's second largest stockholder, behind Omidyar, he subsequently cashed out a portion of his company holdings, netting him about $2 billion.

[2][3] With an estimated net worth of $4 billion (as of December 2016), Skoll was ranked by Forbes as the seventh wealthiest Canadian and 134th in the United States.

His subsequent films have included An Inconvenient Truth (2006), Fast Food Nation (2006), The World According to Sesame Street (2006), Waiting for "Superman" (2010), Lincoln (2012), and his latest, Spotlight (2015) won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 2016.

When 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.

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

[16] A year later, Skoll financed and played a key role in the creation of the environmental documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, which grew out of a slideshow developed by former U.S. Vice President Al Gore on the climate crisis.

"[18] Fortune wrote the next year that Skoll's films are not typical Hollywood fare, "they tackle weighty subjects such as eco-Armageddon, petro-terrorism, education reform, and women's rights.

In short they tend to reflect Skoll's progressive, and ultimately optimistic, worldview that shining a light on the world's problems will inspire people to band together to bring about change on a large scale.

[23] According to The Hollywood Reporter, in 2014 Skoll funded the creation of the Skoll Center for Social Impact Entertainment at the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television, saying at the time: "I founded Participant Media in the belief that a story well told has the power to ignite positive social change.

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".

[34][36] The funds were used to assist with testing, contact tracing, and provide respiratory devices and other medical equipment to countries that couldn't afford it.

[33] 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.

[40] Called the "Davos for the nonprofit set" by Forbes,[41] Skoll World Forum participants have included leading thinkers from South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu to former U.S. Vice President Al Gore.

[46] According to Forbes, a "significant portion" of Capricorn's assets "has been put to work backing mostly private companies that are in some way aiming to help the environment and combat climate change".