BUSINESSWEEK ONLINE : SEPTEMBER 27, 1999 ISSUE
COVER STORY -- E.BIZ -- THE E.BIZ 25 Margaret C. Whitman MARGARET C. WHITMAN EBAY INC. Position: President and CEO Contribution: She put eBay--and Web auctions--on the map by piloting eBay's successful IPO last September. It has racked up a whopping 5.6 million users. Ambition: To make eBay an international phenom where all sorts of things are auctioned--including big-ticket items such as collectible autos. EBay Inc. (EBAY) founder Pierre Omidyar was the genius who thought of putting auctions online. But it took the management savvy of CEO Margaret C. Whitman to turn his quirky idea into an Internet giant capable of handling millions of buyers and sellers--not to mention ferocious competition from the likes of Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) In just 16 months, eBay has grown from 750,000 customers to 5.6 million. More than that, Whitman has helped legitimize the notion of negotiated pricing--making it one of the most powerful economic forces on the Internet. The concept is being applied by others to every kind of selling, from airplane tickets to industrial gear. Now, Whitman is busy adding big-ticket items such as antique cars to eBay's more traditional fare of Beanie Babies and bric-a-brac. She just launched international auctions in Britain and Germany--and expects to enter five other countries by early next year. Next, she plans on setting up regional auctions in 50 U.S. metropolitan areas so people can sell large items that can't easily be mailed. Through it all, Whitman vows to never lose site of the fans that made eBay a monster hit. ''One of the things I'm most focused on is managing something that's growing from a small town to a larger community,'' says Whitman. One initiative: Voice of the Customer Day. Each month, eBay brings 10 to 20 customers into its offices, some of whom spend 5 to 10 hours a day on eBay. New employees meet them. And so does Whitman. Now if she can just get the masses to be such eBay fanatics, the company could start to look like eWorld. By Heather Green _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ BACK TO TOP					RELATED ITEMS The e.biz 25: Masters of the Web Universe COVER IMAGE: The e.biz 25 Commentary: The Great Equalizer? Not by a Long Shot TABLE: Who's Lagging in the Net Age [empire builders] Jeffrey P. Bezos AMAZON.COM INC. Stephen M. Case AMERICA ONLINE INC. Timothy A. Koogle YAHOO! INC. [the innovators] Louis H. Borders WEBVAN GROUP INC. Jay S. Walker PRICELINE.COM Margaret C. Whitman EBAY INC. Glen Meakem FREE MARKETS ONLINE INC. James H. Clark MYCFO INC. Christos M. Cotsakos E*TRADE GROUP INC. [bankrollers] Masayoshi Son SOFTBANK CORP., JAPAN Robert C. Kagle BENCHMARK CAPITAL Lawton W. Fitt GOLDMAN SACHS & CO. L. John Doerr KLEINER PERKINS CAUFIELD & BYERS   Bernard Arnault LVMH MOET HENNESSY LOUIS VUITTON   [the visionaries] Mary G. Meeker MORGAN STANLEY DEAN WITTER John Hagel III MCKINSEY & CO. William Joy SUN MICROSYSTEMS [the architects] Louis V. Gerstner Jr. IBM CORP. Pehong Chen BROADVISION INC. David C. Peterschmidt INKTOMI INC. Kevin J. O'Connor DOUBLECLICK Ellen M. Hancock EXODUS COMMUNICATIONS [the pace setters] David S. Pottruck CHARLES SCHWAB CORP. John T. Chambers CISCO SYSTEMS Michael S. Dell DELL COMPUTER INTERACT E-Mail to Business Week Online

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