Meg Whitman vs Jeff Bezos: The Hollywood Sequel

by: NoMoreEbay

There's really no comparison to people like Jeff Bezos, Gates, Zuckerberg, Omidyer to name a few. Those folks are pioneers who founded companies that changed the world.

People like Whitman, Donahoe and Wenig are former Bain number crunchers who move from company to company with only two goals; pleasing their employers the board and greed.

by: toolguy

@NoMoreEbay

Meg Whitman took eBay from 15 employees to over 10,000

She deserves a lot of credit for building eBay into a household name it is!

by: iheartjacksparrow

@toolguy - I thought you hated Meg. Now you're praising her?

by: toolguy

@iheartjacksparrow

I have NEVER hated Meg Whitman in fact I admire her!

At eBay live 1 I got to spend 5 minutes talking to her one on one, then she signed her eBay card #27 for me. I've been tempted to list it on eBay but I doubt it would sell for what I would want. $50

by: ignatz

Day late, dollar short.

by: Disgusted

Whitman built it up and tore it down.

by: Moonwishes

Can't stand Meg. She destroyed eBay and is the reason I left when I did. I suffered enough with her, I never had to deal with the next few. She was a liar from the word go. I still remember when they decided to put stores in Search. 6 weeks later after the 6 most income producing weeks I have ever had online, she pulled us out of search and sellers didn't like it. DUH! Every store seller I knew was running out of places to stuff the money they were making. My store continued downhill from that point on. The constant changes that had to be made by certain dates, took two years of my time to 'fix' things that didn't need to be fixed and were not helpful to sales.

I couldn't stand Meg. Once she saw the money potential in eBay that is all she cared about and it didn't matter if it meant stealing in whatever way from the sellers. When you hear of the paychecks and golden parachutes these CEOs are earning, it is obviously that they could have skipped a couple of the fee increases and if they hadn't chased away so many  good sellers, then they could have saved even more fees. Instead Meg and her family will be living for the next hundred years on the moola she made at eBay. Same with Donut Hole and Wenig. They have no need to work and what they did during their time at eBay was killing off a company that used to be fun to sell on.

by: CanBrit

So, Omidyar was the only genius???? I can't believe that. He developed the company, the idea and ran with it. He is a superb intellect and is ability to craft magnificence is well known. Was he online with Meg coming on board?

You can't have a company this old with quite a few CEO's after the founder and say that they all destroyed over an 11 year period. I agree once the lawyers took hold, it started sinking, albeit slowly. Only Wenig could achieve the downgrade he caused.

So you've all been around. I've only been on eBay since 2006. For those of you prior to that year....what was it like?

by: iheartjacksparrow

CanBrit asks: "For those of you prior to [2006]....what was it like?"

From 2000, when I started, until the end of 2006, it was fantastic. I was a major eBay cheerleader. I told everyone I knew, even casually, how great eBay was. I only did auctions, and was making huge amounts of profit. It was great! I was selling probably 95% of the items I listed. I loved eBay!

Then, right after the holiday season of 2006, it all changed. I wasn't getting many bids, and my sales dropped to maybe 25% of what I was listing (and that's probably an optimistic guess). I started to experience "rolling blackouts," though they didn't have a name back then. I assume my listings were being hidden as well, as I was still listing the same kinds of items as before, but very few things were selling. The holiday season of 2007 was really bleak, and then came the announcement about all the changes starting on February 1, 2008, so my selling days ended on January 31st.  

by: purpleiris

"Wall Street analysts were wowed by Whitman and skeptical of Bezos."

Of course, anything that speaks to fast cash is going to sound a lot more interesting to a bunch of investors whose only interest is fast cash than innovative ideas with growth and longevity in mind.

by: TomH

So, Omidyar was the only genius????

Well, the genius didn't even do auctions correctly. Most real auctions do not have a rigid time ending set. They end when there are not more bids. Yahoo set up auctions more realistically and extended the time a few minutes until there were no more bids. But, they were too late to the game as eBay was firmly established by then.

by: CanBrit

@TomH

Given Omidyar was the creator, I do give him credit, regardless of how he chose to end the auctions. eCommerce is nothing like a regular auction house and doesn't need to become like one. If people are following an item, if they miss it, oh well, that's how the game goes.

@iheartjacksparrow
Are you saying you stopped selling on eBay January 31, 2008? Wow.
Now, when I first started, I was only doing a little bit of that and a little bit of this. If I sold something, I bought something. That was until I had two Goodwill $1 items turn into thousands in profits and I started buying things to sell. Honestly, I left in 2014 and came back again in 2016. The irritations in 2014 had to do with the community forum and being cyber attacked, but I was making extremely good money for starting off with nothing.

I decided to come back because I wasn't particularly enamored by RubyLane. Small minds, big company. Also I wanted to sell more than vintage. From 2016 to 2017 I had an extremely good run. Actually made more money than when I was an IT executive. Permanent disability did have a bit to do with it too. From 2018 to now it has been a roller coaster ride with a demented CEO. I don't know what's next except my own website in the next year.

by: calthomas

I started on the internet in 1998 and I think sometime around 2000 I started doing Ebay. I lived in a 440 sq.foot apartment and was able to buy a 5000 sq foot house on five acres. Not going to do that today on Ebay or Amazon.

by: TomH

@CanBrit
''Given Omidyar was the creator, I do give him credit, regardless of how he chose to end the auctions. eCommerce is nothing like a regular auction house and doesn't need to become like one. If people are following an item, if they miss it, oh well, that's how the game goes.''

I respectively disagree. Yeah Omidyar started it. But in the starting years it was mostly all auction. His lack of programming insight at the time, or decision that he did make, left thousands on the table that neither eBay nor the sellers collected.