ANAT GIVON / AP

FROM THE TIME ARCHIVE The Attic of e From yesteryear's treasures to yesterday's garbage, there's a place and a price for everything. What are you collecting? [12/27/1999]

I can't imagine a more important qualification for running a company like eBay.

It isn't just a dynamic, sprawling business—the place where I go to buy china in my pattern. It is a totally new marketplace. Over the past 100 years, the stock market has created a lot of wealth for a lot of people. eBay is essentially doing the same thing. The men (at the time they were all men) who ran the stock market in its early days had to write the rules as they went along. It was messy and must have been thrilling. There is no guidebook for what Meg has to do at eBay—run a virtual business that hundreds of thousands of people rely on for their livelihoods—but she has managed to steer that ship expertly, without taking herself too seriously or losing sight of what's best in the long run for her company. I knew when I first met her that she was sharp and capable. The success of eBay shows that she has a vision for a new kind of company. And she has set the standard for a new kind of CEO.

Krawcheck is chief financial officer and head of strategy at Citigroup

Oct. 11, 2004	May 22, 2000	March 26, 2001
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