Big Changes at eBay

Just saw confirmation that Meg Whitman, CEO and President of eBay will be stepping down after 10 years behind the wheel. This is a huge transition and worth noting because of Meg’s track record in taking eBay from about $5M in revenue per year to $7B in revenue for 2007. Meg has been one of the highest profile CEO’s in recent years, especially for succeeding in a typically male dominated profession.

Taking over for Meg will be John Donahoe, formerly President of eBay Marketplaces. He will face a laundry list of challenges as eBay has slowed in growth, and has seen an increase in dissatisfaction among users. I guess a best wishes comment here would be in order.

I am putting this out there not only because it is a big deal, but also because I had seen whispers about this online. Does this mean Yahoo! is really about to lay-off a few thousand employees to streamline it’s own operations? Does that mean Yahoo and eBay are secretly bidding to absorb ChannelAdvisor? Hmm, it will be interesting to watch as there have been several notable rumors posted recently.

January 23rd, 2008