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.”
eBay Hacked, Cracked & Hijacked, But Denies All
February 19 2007
- “came just weeks after North American CEO Bill Cobb announced new fraud fighting measures and policy changes to the site”
- Comments
Stirring Up the Cubicles at eBay
Brad Stone, February 21 2007
- “Mr. Donahoe, 46, is a deputy to eBay’s chief executive, Meg Whitman, 50, and, many people in the industry say, her likely successor when she ultimately steps down.”
- ““All our businesses need to do well, but John’s success and the success of Marketplaces is absolutely essential to the company,” said Ms. Whitman, who met Mr. Donahoe when they were consultants working in the San Francisco office of Bain & Company in the early 1980s.”
- “eBay stock has dropped by half from an early 2005 high”
Is Vladuz the Good Guy?
February 26 2007
- “Now two weeks into the latest bombardment of Vladuz related listings, management is looking like an impotent cowboy with a black hat”
- Comments
The Vladuz Style of eBay Auction Hacking Continues!
March 18 2007
eBay Getting into Micro-Finance through Purchase of MicroPlace
Ina Steiner, March 30 2007
- “eBay has purchased an organization called MicroPlace”
- “eBay’s Chief Marketing Officer Gary Briggs” “A third point to bring up is MicroPlace, which a group that we purchased that is making microfinance loans available to the developing world in particular, and we think – particularly as it relates to PayPal”
Antitrust Lawsuit Filed against eBay over PayPal, Payments Policies
Ina Steiner, April 6 2007
- “Michael Malone filed an antitrust class-action lawsuit against eBay this week under the Sherman Act, alleging eBay “utilizes its nationwide monopoly of the on-line auction market to monopolize the available forms of payment that sellers can use on eBay.” eBay controls which payment methods sellers may advertise in their listings”
eBay’s Payment Policies Spark Two Antitrust Lawsuits
Ina Steiner, May 4 2007
- “Two antitrust lawsuits were filed against eBay in April 2007 and have been assigned to the same judge because they are related, according to court filings. The plaintiffs in both parties have complained of eBay’s practices with regard to its online payment service PayPal. The same judge had presided over a PayPal-related class-action lawsuit that was filed in 2002.”
- “The Justice Department gave the green light to eBay’s acquisition of PayPal in 2002, despite the fact that PayPal itself had complained to the government about eBay’s practices after the auction marketplace had acquired the BillPoint payment service. ”
- “Both antitrust lawsuits are assigned to Judge Fogel in the US District Court, Northern District of California.”
- “The Court finds that Malone v. eBay Inc., Case No. 07-01882-JF and Farmer, et al. v. Ebay, Inc., Case No. C-07-02209 are related actions and such cases are hereby consolidated into Malone v. eBay Inc., Case No. 07-01882-JF, and are referred to herein as the Consolidated Action.”
Meg Whitman at TiEcon
TiEcon, May 17 2007
- [Meg Whitman] “We also think about very disruptive ideas that could disrupt our core business, or we could disrupt other major segments of the economy. And many times those very disruptive innovations will come from outside eBay”
- [Meg Whitman] “We have no sales force.”
- [Meg Whitman] “Failure is okay.”
EBay reshapes itself as an easier, cooler place
June 15 2007
- ““Our user experience has always been fantastic, but it didn’t keep up, in my view, as well as it should have,” CEO Meg Whitman said in an interview Friday on the sidelines of the “eBay Live”user celebration in Boston. You will see more changes to eBay’s buyer experience in the next 12 months than you probably have seen in the past three or four years.”"
- “Other moves make eBay more like typical e-commerce sites, such as last year’s birth of eBay Express”
- “eBay’s 2005 purchase of Skype, an Internet calling service, for $4.1 billion”
- “”reignite the core,” in the words of Bill Cobb”
EBay Moves to Recharge Its Auctions
Bob Tedeschi, June 18 2007
- “In 1998, eBay’s chief executive, Meg Whitman, changed the background color of the site’s home page from gray to white. Rather than simply switching colors overnight, though, Ms. Whitman directed eBay’s engineers to bleach the gray over the course of 30 days. At the end of the month, the company asked users if they noticed anything different. No one did.”
- “700,000 sellers who rely on eBay for their livelihoods”
- ““We have to make sure our old users stay with us, but we’re going to be more bold around product changes than we’ve been in the past,” Ms. Whitman said in an interview last week in Boston at eBay Live, an annual conference for the site’s sellers. “I think people expect more from eBay.””
- “Analysts said sellers were moving to other places on the Web in search of buyers who had grown weary of an overwhelming array of product choices on eBay.”
- [Meg Whitman] “We’re optimistic that the changes will translate to accelerated growth and help us change the trajectory of our two largest markets, U.S. and Germany”
Reaping profit in study, sweat
Robert Gavin and Sacha Pfeiffer, June 26 2007
- “Maximizing the financial return to investors can mean slashing jobs, closing plants, and moving production overseas. While Bain Capital helped expand companies that created jobs, the firm also engaged in some of the business’s harsher practices.”
- “Companies like Bain Capital typically cash out of their investments in three to five years, and ”usually have less of a stake in the community, in terms of employment, service on nonprofit boards, your physical and environmental impact,” {Ross} Gittell says. ”The objective is: make money for investors. It’s not to maximize jobs.””
- “Through Ampad, Bain bought several other office supply makers, borrowing heavily each time. By 1999, Ampad’s debt reached nearly $400 million, up from $11 million in 1993, according to government filings.”
- “Bain Capital didn’t escape Ampad’s eventual bankruptcy unscathed. It held about one-third of Ampad’s shares, which became worthless. But while as many as 185 workers near Buffalo lost jobs in a 1999 plant closing, Bain Capital and its investors ultimately made more than $100 million on the deal.”
EBay Chief Spurs Growth on PayPal, Beats Google Unit (Update2)
Danny King, July 6 2007
- “PayPal, bought by EBay for $1.5 billion in 2002″
- “”PayPal is a huge home run,” Whitman, EBay’s chief executive officer”
- “Shares of EBay rose $1.12, or 3.5 percent, to $33.39″
EBay Profit is Up 50%; Listings Off
Brad Stone, July 19 2007
- “Ms. Whitman said that her efforts to improve the user’s experience should address these problems. “In the next six months,”she said, “you will see more changes to eBay than you have in the last two or three years, whether that is an improved search experience or fun things that make the site better, like Bid Assistant, which allows you to bid on more than one item without worrying that you will end up buying five iPods by mistake.”"
- “EBay started Kijiji overseas in 2005. “We’ve had a great relationship with Craigslist, and we have learned a lot from them,” Ms. Whitman said. “We felt this market was large and diverse enough to support many players. We don’t think of new offerings as competitive, we think of them as better and more choices for consumers. We think there is an opportunity to stake out a slightly different buyer.”"
Blasphemy at eBay
Adam Lashinsky, July 23 2007
- “Last month, eBay temporarily stopped buying keyword advertising on Google, the Web’s largest search engine. EBay said the suspension did not have had significant effect on its bottom line. “We learned a great deal from that test, “Ms. Whitman said. “It actually had no impact on the financials of the quarter, and we learned a lot about where we want to spend money and where we think we can save money on Internet marketing.”"
- Comments
Mitt’s equity army
David S. Bernstein, August 10 2007
- “One such example is Meg Whitman, CEO of eBay — and one of the Romney campaign’s national finance chairs. Whitman worked with Romney at Bain & Company before going to work for Disney and then Keds. In 1995, when Bain Capital bought florist chain FTD, Romney installed Whitman as CEO. She left after just 18 months, with stocks, salary, and bonuses worth well more than a million dollars —even though, as she has conceded in interviews, she did not come close to successfully putting the company on the right track.”
- “Bain Capital’s record shows the same treatment for many companies: slashing jobs, benefits, research-and-development budgets, and other items to show quick profitability before selling or taking the company’s stock public.”
Romney’s Old Ties To Firm Pay Off
John Solomon and Matthew Mosk, August 14 2007
- “Another fundraiser is eBay chief executive Meg Whitman, who worked as a vice president at Bain before getting top jobs at Stride Rite shoes and the FTD florist service, which Bain targeted for investment.”
The Ruination of eBay
crazeenydriver, September 22 2007
ebaY Major Hack Attack! User’s Data Posted On Ebay T&S
Cappynonymous, September 25 2007
Intimidating eBay Lawyer snoyce@ebay.com ME Page Hacked By Vladuz
Doc, September 28 2007 (?)
- “Now In An Apparent Show Of Power That He Can Pick And Hack Anyone’s eBay Account He Chooses, Vladuz Posts Mr Noyce’s Personal Details On His ME Page!”
- “This Really Makes Rob Chestnut’s Trust And Safety Department Look Like A Bunch Of Keystone Cops! But It Has Been Rumored Rob Is On Sabbatical, And Will Not Be Returning To eBay!”
Web 2.0 Summit: Meg Whitman, eBay
Bobbie Johnson, October 18 2007
- [Meg Whitman] “”If we were a retailer – which we’re not – we’d be the fifth or sixth largest in the world. But as your core business begins to slow down, you go right back to where you started, which is customers. how do you reinvent your core business to meet the needs of customers. We’re actually in a reinvention of some of the core flows, . We have made more changes to the site in the last three or six months than we have in the last three years.”"
- [Meg Whitman] “”We have about 1.6m people worldwide who make their living selling on eBay. There are always people who made their business. The casual sellers represent about 50% of the gross merchandise volume and about 95% of the sellers. We look at the number of users we have, which has slowed but it’s still going up.”"
- [Meg Whitman] “”We began to see PayPal becoming the effective way to pay on eBay. It’s now 85-90% of payments.”"
- [Meg Whitman] “”We know that we were only here because of a disruptive innovation.”"
- [Meg Whitman] “”The vast majority of people – less than 1/100th of one percent cause problems.”"
- [Meg Whitman] “”Etsy.com? “It’s a cute little company, I like what they’ve done. We need to do everything we can to invite those sellers onto eBay – we just launched eBay Neighbourhoods”"
EBAY Launches MicroPlace.com
ONLY EBAY, October 24 2007
- “After acquiring the company in June 2006, EBAY have launched MicroPlace”
- “Meg Whitman was talking about entering the social lending business as far back as this speach in June 2006.”
Whois Vladuz eBay’s Hacker
liamssoft, October 25 2007
- “Sources in the hacking community say that he claims to be listening in on some meetings held by eBay chief executive Meg Whitman.”
- “2004, someone calling themselves Vladuz was selling a set of PHP files designed to create phishing sites that would collect eBay data”
- “observers think the hacks Vladuz has pulled off reveal a much deeper problem at the auction giant”
eBay jumps into microfinancing
Yi-Wyn Yet, October 26 2007
- “The site, which had been in development when eBay (EBAY) acquired MicroPlace in June 2006″
- “EBay’s interest in microfinance was established by company founder Pierre Omidyar.”
- “eBay executive Matt Bannick, who spearheaded the purchase of MicroPlace, left the company in March to run Omidyar Network”
eBay Launches Microfinance Loan Site
October 29 2007
- “EBay’s newly launched MicroPlace lets users make loans through PayPal”
The Dangerous Wealth of the Ivy League
Business Week, November 29 2007
- “It’s only fitting that Whitman College, Princeton’s new student residence, is named for eBay (EBAY) CEO Meg Whitman, because it’s a billionaire’s mansion in the form of a dorm. After Whitman (Class of ’77) pledged $30 million, administrators tore up their budget and gave architect Demetri Porphyrios virtual carte blanche. Each student room has triple-glazed mahogany casement windows made of leaded glass. The dining hall boasts a 35-foot ceiling gabled in oak and a “state of the art servery.” By the time the 10-building complex in the Collegiate Gothic style opened in August, it had cost Princeton $136 million, or $272,000 for each of the 500 undergraduates who will live there. ”
EBAY: Time For CEO Meg Whitman to Go?
Henry Blodget, December 6 2007
- “We will not be the first to suggest that Meg may have gotten a bit more credit than she deserved for that”
- “I go out there and meet with Meg and it’s all I can do to avoid shorting it as I walk out the door.”
Should eBay CEO Meg Whitman Step Down?
Ina Steiner, December 6 2007
- “Whitman did some things badly. Giving users inadequate customer service was one. And denial of fraud was another.”
- Comments
Yes, Amazon SHOULD Buy eBay
Henry Blodget, December 17 2007
- “eBay’s mismanagement and lack of attention to its user interface have finally caught up to it, punishing its market value.”
- “until eBay’s CEO situation is resolved, the concept is probably moot. (There is no way the companies will merge with Meg still at the helm, as her immediate departure thereafter would leave no interpretation possible other than that she had been unceremoniously dumped).”
The Depth of eBay’s Problems 1: Disappointed Buyers
Saul Hansell, December 17 2007
- “The outpouring of rage at eBay was of the sort we don’t see here for anything other than cellphone companies. The company is clearly getting hit by both buyers and sellers.”
- “As a former middle manager at eBay, I can attest to the company’s ghastly approach to customer support…. If it’s a matter of managing expectations, then eBay should rename their customer support something more appropriate like, “Endless obstacle course of red tape and runaround where you rarely if ever get to talk to a human.” — Ann Cummins”
The Depth of eBay’s Problems 2: Angry Sellers
Saul Hansell, December 17 2007
- ““EBay’s relations with sellers over the last few years have deteriorated and are, at best, poor right now,” Mr. Wingo said. ”
- “Given the depth of the anger against the company”
eBay Users Vent Rage To NYT
Henry Blodget, December 17 2007
- “eBay, meanwhile, now seems to have alienated not only Wall Street but the folks who create all of its business value.”
- “Meanwhile, as frustrated eBay shareholders, we reiterate our suggestion that it’s time for Meg Whitman to go.”
Face Time With Meg Whitman
Charles Fishman, December 19 2007
- “Husband, Griffith Harsh, a neurosurgeon at Stanford; two sons, ages 13 and 16″
- [Meg Whitman] “(laughing) I took calculus, chemistry, and physics my first year. I survived. But I didn’t enjoy it. Of course, chemistry, calculus, and physics have nothing to do with being a doctor, but if you’re 17 years old, you think, This is what being a doctor is going to be about. After that, I had to find something else to do. I began selling advertising for a magazine that was published by Princeton undergrads. It was more fun than physics.”
- [Meg Whitman] “I bought Beanie Babies when one of my sons was very much into Beanie Babies. And I sold children’s books that we didn’t need anymore. It was great. Here was a book that you didn’t need, and you might get $6 or $8 for it. Next, we bought Pokémon cards. Then we sold Pokémon cards. Sort of the round-trip on Pokémon cards. And the latest thing I’ve been buying on the site has been a lot of fly-fishing equipment.”
- “How does the slowdown in the U.S. economy affect eBay?” [Meg Whitman] “Our hypothesis is that in a slowdown, eBay actually benefits. And that’s because buyers still want the things that they want. Consumer electronics, computers, whatever. Yet people will become more value-oriented. At the same time, I think that we will actually see an increase in sellers. You may get gifts that you don’t necessarily want, things you don’t use anymore — things that you can sell on eBay and raise some cash.”
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