EBAY: Time For CEO Meg Whitman to Go? – Silicon Alley Insider

Decent piece from Henry Blodget regarding Meg and Ebay.  As an ex Ebayer, I empathize with Meg’s decisions and disagree wtih some of Blodget’s arguments.  Personally, I think the bigger issue with Ebay has been one of human capital, which is at the root of some of the company’s strategic challenges.  Specifically:

1. Lack of balance between technologists and marketers.  Ebay is a marketing driven company and innovates like a marketing driven company (ie: risk averse, predictable, incremental).  There should be more balance both in the senior exec staff and down the org structure to make room for disruptive innovation by creative technologists.  Instead, we have seen some of Ebay’s brightest engineers leave for other opportunities.

2. Lack of bench strength.  I’ll admit, I wasn’t privy to any of these discussions, but I distinctly recall Meg stating that her tenure at Ebay should be winding down by the 2004-2005 time frame.  Unfortunately, her executive bench has been depleted in recent years (Jeff Jordan, Michael Dearing, Matt Bannick, Gil Penchina, Alex Kazim, etc etc) leaving her with no option but to stay.  On top of that, she brought in John Donahoe, who is a smart guy, but has no experience running a great technology company. 

3. Lack of portfolio management talent.  Lots of people bash Ebay for not moving away from its core and doing a poor job of integrating some of its acquisitions.  I would have liked to see someone really revamp Ebay’s corporate strategy and provide a clear vision of what Ebay will become as a multi-faceted portfolio of internet properties.  I’d like to see great things come out of Skype and StumbleUpon which are both terrific products that will hopefully come to thrive under the Ebay umbrella.