NEG Meg The Series 2008

Welcome to the www.NegMeg.com NEG Meg The Series episode archive.

“a monkey could drive this train”

Margaret “Meg” Whitman comment on eBay,
while she was eBay CEO and President.

Margaret Cushing “Meg” Whitman
Born August 4 1956

• “President and Chief Executive Officer of eBay from March 1998 to March 2008.”

Should eBay’s Meg Whitman resign?
Kim Peterson, January 3 2008

• “is it time for Whitman to step down? If you’re an eBay shareholder, you might think so. The stock was abysmal in 2006 and continued to disappointment in 2007, staying mostly in the $30-$35 range”
• “EBay has some serious problems, including an increasingly angry user base.”
• Comments

EBay chief bids to regain momentum
Jonathan Richards, January 3 2008

• “however, an increasingly vocal chorus of detractors say that the Skype fiasco has raised doubts over Ms Whitman’s judgment”
• “Deutsche Bank reinterating their “sell” call on eBay”
• Comments

ebay Meg Whitman Resigns- She Took the Money and Ran
cappnonymous, January 4 2008

• Comments

PayPal Freezes New Hampshire Recount Funds
Paul Joseph Watson, January 16 2008

• “The Granny Warriors had raised the necessary $55,600 deposit for the recount but at the last minute before it was transferred to the New Hampshire Secretary of State, Paypal blocked access to the funds.
  No explanation has been forthcoming from Paypal as to why the corporation froze the account.”

Ebay’s Meg Whitman to Step Down After a Decade as CEO
Erick Schonfeld, January 21 2008

• “During the last two years, eBay has lost about half its value. Not a great note to leave on.”
• Comments

eBay falls on weak forecast, CEO Meg Whitman steps down
Michael Fowikes, January 23 2008

• “eBay users over the past few years have definitely had a love/hate relationship with Whitman, and it will be interesting to see just how well liked her successor finds himself.”
• “Don’t be surprised to see fees coming down once Donahoe takes control.”
• Comments

House cleaning at eBay: Meg Whitman and Bill Cobb to pursue other interests
Jaunary 23 2008

• “Whitman’s downfall was presumably brought about by several failed acquisitions, the one of Skype being the most spectacular one, and weak earnings. On the business side of things, eBay has struggled with seller attrition and stagnating listings volume, mostly because of steadily increasing fees.”
• Comments

EBay’s Meg Whitman Out; John Donahoe Named CEO & Prez
Betsy Schiffman, January 23 2008

• “”John Donahoe’s a phenomenal executive, just like Meg Whitman was,” says Stifel Nicolaus & Co. analyst Scott Devitt.”
• “The news comes after a tumultuous year for eBay, whose core auction business experienced two quarters of sequential declines in listings.”
• Comments

Longtime Ebay chief steps down
Richard Waters, January 23 2008

• “However, her last two years have been clouded by high-profile slip-ups, including the purchase of internet telephone service Skype, which has failed to boost Ebay’s wider e-commerce business, a botched move into China, as well as an accelerating slowdown in Ebay’s central auction business.”

Meg Whitman Steps Down And Things Look Bad at eBay
January 24 2008

• “I think that eBay is getting a reputation as being a haven for those who wish to commit fraud.”

What Kind of Leadership Does eBay Need?
Michael Maccoby, January 25 2008

• “eBay has stalled. Rivals are taking market share, eBay is not attracting new users, and it has not been fully successful in combating widespread fraud. Now Whitman is moving to the board and handing the top management job to John Donahoe, former managing director of Bain consulting, who for the last three years has been president of eBay’s marketing division”

eBay On Its Way to $10?$
Andrew Horowitz, January 28 2008

• “CEO Meg Whitman will also step down, making room for new ideas that may help to stop the ongoing share decline. If you were one of the unlucky ones who bought the stock in January 2004, you could be sitting on a whopping 54% loss”
• ““Consumers are clearly being more conservative,” Whitman said in a joint interview with Donahoe on cable TV channel CNBC. “I anticipate we will see an increase in casual sellers who are supplementing their income. “eBay at least partly benefited during the economic downturn of 2001-2002, allowing people who had lost their jobs to start businesses on eBay, Whitman told Reuters. Some 1.3 million people now derive at least part of their livelihood on eBay.”"

The World’s Billionaires
Luisa Kroll, March 5 2008

• “#897 Margaret Whitman”
• “Sold Ebay shares for the first time since 2003 last year.”

John McCain & Meg Whitman on H-1B Visas
Mahalo.com, March 25 2008

• “An Exclusive Interview with Republican Presidential Candidate John McCain and eBay CEO Meg Whitman on the topic of H1-B Visas. Currently, a maximum of only 65,000 H-1B Visas are granted every year. Today in Santa Ana, we asked whether this limit should be raised. “

Life After eBay: An Interview With Meg Whtiman
Kevin Maney, Amy Wallace, April 22 2008

• [Meg Whitman] “There is quite a personal relationship between the CEO and the users at a company like eBay. You have to remember, many of our users make their living on eBay. They have connected with people who share the same interests. When you talk to some of our top users, they will tell you that their relationship with eBay is more than a business relationship. You could argue we were the first social network. But eBay is community anchored in commerce. It’s not just community for community’s sake.”
• [Meg Whitman] “The site outage in June of 1999. I was not a technologist, so I had just really begun to learn the underlying technology that powered eBay. And so when the site crashed – it was down for 22 hours, then it came back up for eight, then down for eight. The darkest hour was when the engineer said to me, “I’m not sure we can bring this back up.” Because we had corrupted the entire backend data base. That was not perfect. (Laughs.) And there was nothing I could do other than be a cheerleader and a coach to the technology team.”

My eBay Job, Do 1.3 million people really earn a living on the site?
Daniel Gross, May 22 2008

• “Certain numbers have an iconic status in America’s business culture. One of them is the number of people who derive income selling goods on eBay: 1.3 million. The figure has been cited by eBay executives such as former CEO Meg Whitman, speaking on 60 Minutes in March”
• “The notion that 630,000 Americans—a number roughly equal to the population of North Dakota–are making something approaching a living wage selling on eBay is a little rich.”

Former eBay CEO Meg Whitman Still Politicking
Ina Steiner, May 28 2008

• Comments

eBay Live and Let Die
Rick Aristotle Munarriz, June 19 2008

• “Mainstream media is hoisting the battering ram, too. When BusinessWeek rolls with an “Auctions on eBay: A Dying Breed” headline, you have to think that maybe the company has upset one power seller too many.”
• “eBay will have to deal eventually with the irate mob that has better things to do than show up and vent in the cavernous McCormick hall this week. Maybe it’s the silence that should worry the company; at least a vocally displeased seller is better than an apathetic one.”
• “Longtime Fool contributor Rick Munarriz is a satisfied eBay user with 173 positive feedbacks to show for it.”
• Comments

Meg Whitman v. Meg Whitman
bhglitter, July 7 2008

• “In two interviews given on the same day, senior McCain economic adviser Meg Whitman contradicts herself in terms of tax cuts needing to be offset by spending cuts. In the first interview, on ABC’s Good Morning America, Whitman defends McCain’s vote against the Bush tax cuts by saying they weren’t accompanied by spending cuts. But in another interview with Steve Forbes on CNBC, Whitman said that McCain’s own tax cuts are not “contigent on controlling spending.” “
• Comments

McCain Touts eBay’s Whitman as Treasury Secretary During Debate
Ina Steiner, October 7 2008

• “1.3 million people in America make their living on eBay.” (For those of you who might be joining this post from outside the eBay world, that’s known as “eBay math.”"
• “Whitman served on the Board of Directors at Goldman Sachs when Paulson headed the firm. When Meg was forced to step down from the Board due to a conflict-of-interest scandal involving “spinning,” Paulson praised her (2002)”
• Comments

Charlie Rose – Meg Whitman
October 20 2008

• “A conversation about leadershp at the Harvard Business School centennial celebration”

Meg Whitman loses bid for governor domain names
November 12 2008

• “Meg Whitman never traded under her name in relation to any goods and services”

eBay was great to work for until around 2004
December 2 2008

• “When eBay missed Wall Street goals for the first time, regular employees did not get a bonus, but the CEO (Meg Whitman at the time) received a one million dollar bonus.”
• “Management has lost sight of what really matters – eBay users.”

Why eBay’s star CEO isn’t famous enough for politics
Owen Thomas, December 10 2008

• “Whitman’s legal team has spent tens of thousands of dollars trying to get them back. But an arbitrator at the World Intellectual Property Organization, which rules on such matters, has denied her complaint.”
• “Whitman, the ruling argues, hasn’t established herself as a brand in the marketplace”
• “why is Whitman so concerned about reclaiming these domains, when she’s not even offically running for governor? “What can I say?” said Gomez. “We’re retired. We’re bored.”"

Meg Whitman
Owen Thomas, December 12 2008

• “As a practical matter, Whitman’s support of Proposition 8 may backfire in fundraising and in the general election. Several current and former eBay executives, including founder Pierre Omidyar, lent their name to a newspaper advertisement opposing Proposition 8. Will they support Whitman’s campaign now?”
• “Whitman’s quixotic legal campaign to reclaim a set of domain names she failed to register before talk of her gubernatorial prospects became public. The sight of a tech billionaire harassing the small businessman who registered them are provoking giggles among California’s Republicans.”

Tech Loser #10 Meg Whitman
Rachel King, December 15 2008

• LOSS: $504 million
• eBay’s shares are down from $35 a year ago to just $14 now.

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