By the time Pierre Omidyar was 31, he was, in his own words, not just regular rich but "ridiculous rich." With enough money to make an impact in pretty much any sphere he chooses, the eBay billionaire last week made a splash in an area that is increasingly attracting the attention of tech titans: news.

Journalist Glenn Greenwald announced on Tuesday that he was leaving The Guardian, where he has broken a series of stories on the National Security Agency, based on documents from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. His new, as yet unnamed, venture will be a general news service backed by Omidyar. It will be the most hotly awaited news startup in years.

Omidyar's move comes just three months after Jeff Bezos, Amazon's founder, bought The Washington Post. Omidyar, too, had looked at the paper, he wrote in a blog post. "That process got me thinking about what kind of social impact could be created if a similar investment was made in something entirely new, built from the ground up. Something that I would be personally involved in outside of my other efforts as a philanthropist," he wrote.