March 31, 2005
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THURSDAY WHATEVERMeg Whitman
Know who that is? Not exactly a household name but the company she runs sure is. Who hasn’t tried to find something for the best price by visiting eBay? And then there’s the contingent who sell everything including the kitchen sink there. And for once, it’s a young (48) woman who is the boss of a megabillion dollar enterprise. How do you get to be her? Well, you’re the youngest child of a Wall Street dad and a stay-at-home mom from Long Island, N.Y. You race through high school in three years. Then you go to Princeton and major in economics and on to the Harvard Business School at age 21 where you work your butt off. MBA in hand, you grab a job at Proctor & Gamble where you work with such future icons as Scott Balmer of Microsoft and Scott Cook who founded Intuit. Then you meet your husband, a neurosurgeon (what else?), and move to San Francisco, where you begin to
climb through such companies as Disney, Stride Rite, FTD, and Hasbro. And now you’re in view of a CEO position at a 30-person tech startup called eBay and its co-founders, Pierre and Pam Omidyar. (Read about them, their philosophy of life, and eBay history here.) In 1998, they picked her to run things and they’ve all never looked back. Very responsive to customers, one of her decisions to make buying things easier for them was to up and pay $1.5 billion to buy PayPal in 2002. Well, she’s now a multibillionaire and one of the richest women CEO’s in the world and she just turned down a call from Disney to step up to a $30 billion industry from where she is. She likes it there at eBay thank you very much. So we’ll leave her there, enjoying all that money and power and such, and either we’ll go back to our humdrum lives or (if we’re young enough) we’ll start planning to follow her trail. Pack those bags and move to Long Island if you haven’t hit high school yet. Time’s a-wastin’.
Deep Thought: “They were a proud people. In fact, some said they were too proud. If you asked them whey they were so proud, they’d just laugh and say, “We’re not even going to answer that.”
Today I am grateful for: Chairs
Guess the Movie: “You told me Gramp’s been sick, Mother, and I know about the oil burner. Okay, I’ll pawn the mink. He’ll give me a couple hundred for it. Mother, I know I don’t have any talent, and I know I all I have is a body, and I am doing my bust exercise. Goodbye, Mother. I’ll wire you the money first thing in the morning. Goodbye.” Answer: Valley of the Dolls, 1967.
Winner: merrow_mistral.
Terri Schiavo Is Dead…and What Remains
by David Corn
Terri Schiavo is dead. Whatever happens in death–resting in peace, meeting one’s maker, or nothing–has now happened for her. I hope her family members–on both sides–can find their peace. I hope her husband is not hounded or hunted by extremists. I hope her blood relatives can move on. But I don’t think we should forget how certain scoundrels crassly exploited this family conflict. No doubt, some of the supporters of Schiavo’s parents were moved by sincere concerns and principles. But the motives of the politicians and crusaders who rushed in can be called into question. I did a roundup of the hypocrisy a few days ago. (Click here), and Tom DeLay, of course, was included. But I did not bash him for playing God, which is what he did yesterday. Responding to the news report that DeLay and his family withheld life-sustaining care from his father when he was in a coma, DeLay said, “My father was on life support and dying. Schiavo is living and wants to live.” (Rest of article here.)
End of Day: Oops, forgot to sign out last night.
+ = Normal annual mammogram.
- = Cat killed bird.
Comments (13)
And I say good for Meg!
That’s pretty amazing. Just the sort of person to make you feel like a complete underachiever.
As to DeLay. Oy.
Meg does get it done…
ebay is an amazing thing, and it shows the power of seeing things from a different angle. As for Tom DeLay, well, he is simply evil, corrupt, and uninterested in anything but power. But lets put the pressure on good but misguided people. I’m urging everyone to email Sen. Tom Harkin to say that this is NOT a disability issue. Brain Death (a persistently flat EEG) is not a disability, it is death. A feeding tube is “extraordinary medical care” not an IV. And I was talking to a Catholic Priest today who asked the question: “can you actually give communion to someone who has no self-awareness? Communion requires active consent. Isn’t pretending that this woman was alive the real sin?”
What a great entry. I’ve always wondered who was behind ebay & now I know! How cool that it’s a strong woman. And smart, too, to turn down Disney. Who would want all the headaches that come with the Mouse Ears anyways? I really like ebay– except when I get outbid for something.
There was an awesome op-ed piece in Wednesday’s Chicago Tribune by a man named David Martin entitled, “An update to David’s living will”. If you can, try to read it. My favorite quote from this article: “…That the American Medical Association take action against any member of Congress or the executive branch who purports to have an expert opinion on my medical state…” ( the piece is a supposed ‘update’ to the author’s living will.)
my guess for the movie is “on Golden Pond”. What’s hard for me to believe as brain death is a person whose eyes blink in response to a pat on the head and in the fleeting smile on her face. May she rest in peace.
No, it’s not On Golden Pond, darnit. Think much earlier and pills.
the only pills movie I remember is The Valley of the Dolls, that Jacqueline Susann book turned into a movie.
That’s the one! Yay!
That’s a great story. I do, however, resent that Ebay takes nearly 10% of an item’s selling price for itself, though. It never used to.
Don’t even get me started with Tom Delay and the rest of the Republican hypocrites. Cultire of life is one of those Orwellian terms that doesn’t really mean anything. Grrrrr.
Score! I’m already in LI – that must mean my child is guaranteed to be a genius…
Hey congrats on the good mammo results!
Woot! woot for Meg. She’s a great role model for all of our daughters AND sons. I understand there will be repercussions from the media/political controversies over Terri. The ‘Religious Right’ (wrong) wants to change all of our laws-doesn’t sound constitutional to me. And what’s with their wanting a biased court of judges–bizarre! I will be calling my Rep. Senator to give my thoughts.