By LAURA A. LOCKE | SAN FRANCISCO
Posted Sunday, June 29, 2003; 14.08BST
Most e-commerce start-ups died long before they got old. But eBay skipped adolescence entirely — heading straight to profitability — thanks largely to Meg Whitman, a seasoned corporate executive who in 1998 began overseeing the online curiosity that rapidly morphed into the world's most successful e-commerce company. Valued at $32 billion, eBay generates $59 million a day, $684 per second.
Today, mom-and-pop shops do business alongside the likes of IBM, Kodak and Sears Roebuck — and many stake their livelihood on the digital marketplace. "I think there's a minimum of 150,000 businesses that might not exist without eBay," Whitman marvels. Reflecting on eBay's sensational ascent, it's hard to fathom the considerable prodding it took to get Whitman, then 41, on board. Then at Hasbro Inc., she bristled at a headhunter's notion of uprooting her Boston-based family for "this obscure, no-name Internet company" out in California. And even after she joined, there were difficult times: the falling Internet sector brought the company's stock down to a low of $30 a share. And last October, an embarrassing Congressional report revealed that Whitman had received sweetheart IPO deals from Goldman Sachs, though Whitman was never formally charged with any impropriety.
But Whitman persevered, and eBay has radically altered the way people everywhere buy and sell stuff, transforming her into one of the most powerful career women on the planet. Shying away from accolades, she quickly credits the eBay community, to whom she's fiercely loyal. Sometimes she even answers e-mail queries from customers personally. "I don't feel like I preside over anything because it is truly the community of users who have built this company," she says. The Princeton economics major with a Harvard M.B.A. speaks in measured sentences, but her easygoing nature and sense of humor are evident, even when revealing a foible: after kicking the habit for nine months, she admits she's hooked again. "Unfortunately, I'm back on caffeine," she laughs. But it's her competitors who need the jolt.
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