Mary Lou Song is a Korean-American entrepreneur and was eBay's third employee. She joined the company, formerly AuctionWeb, in 1996 after being recruited by its founder Pierre Omidyar and Jeffrey Skoll.[1]
Song graduated from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism with a B.S. in Journalism and from Stanford University with a M.A. in Media Studies.[2]
In his book "The Perfect Store: Inside eBay," Adam Cohen recounts the conversation between Song and Skoll, who she met at a Stanford Business School party. At the time, Song was working for a public relations firm, but agreed to have lunch with Skoll and Omidyar.[3] Song agreed to come on-board and was tasked with "bringing mainstream media attention" to the site.[4] Additionally, she managed the company's public relations and community and product management teams.[5] During the early days at eBay, Song is also credited with building the platform's community, tools and strategy to grow from 15,000 members to 20 million.[6]
Song joined Friendster, a social networking company, after a six year stint at eBay. She was brought on as the Director of Community Development with the responsibility of managing its user base.[7] [8]
Labeled as a story sharing platform, Tokoni was founded in 2007 by Song and her husband, Alex Kazim. The company closed its doors in 2010.[9]