Valleywag
Meg Whitman isn't losing any sleep over eBay's role in prepping Virginia Tech gunman Cho Seung-Hui for his rampage that left 33 dead. Asked what was her worst moment at eBay, Meg confides to confides to Portfolio: "The site outage in 1999," adding that she had to sleep on a cot "for multiple nights." Whitman goes on to give eBay kudos for being "incredibly vigilant around trust and safety and keeping the .01% [of customers who aren't 'basically good'] in line," a boast made all the more ridiculous by the company's recent defense of its sale of combustion-enhancing fertilizer to troubled teen Ryan Schallenberger. (The gist of eBay's defense: Ammonium nitrate isn't just used to blow up high schools and federal buildings.) Seeking Alpha has a complete transcript of the interview, in which you'll find these nuggets Portfolio's editors skipped:
- Jeffrey Dahmer drove Whitman out of the "murderabilia' business: " I had gotten emails from customers not only about Dahmer's refrigerator but autopsy photos - the whole category of items around murders — so-called 'murderabilia.' And we heard from victim's families. The team talked about it and decided we don't want to go there."
- Bored eBay users emailed Whitman because they were lonely: " I can get anywhere from 50 to thousands of emails a day. And because we are the locus of their economic life and also in some ways their social life, there is lots of commentary on almost anything that we do."
- Whitman may have camped out with the technology team during the 1999 outage, but she all but admits she did so as a media stunt: "There was nothing I could do other than be a cheerleader and a coach to the technology team.... We had CNN parked outside the building wanting an update on the status every 60 minutes.... Every hour I had to go out, looking more tired each time.So it was in some ways just leadership by being there."
- Whitman is now spending her time cleaning out her house. She started with the garage.
(Photograph by Art Streiber)
Comments
I always thought that weapons-grade plutonium and other state secrets were just a power seller thing.
The real bullshit was that the fertilizer was shill bidded on.
Why should she feel any more guilty than whoever would have sold the kid the diesel?
And there are other readily available chemicals that can be used to make similar explosions.
hold on sec there, VW. are you saying that it's in any way eBay's fault that Cho went on a killing spree? or that some kids bought some fertilizer? as far as i can see, there are two things wrong with this implication:
1) eBay is a marketplace. they only provide the means for people to buy and sell stuff. they can't possibly keep an eye on everything that gets bought and sold. in any case, it shouldn't be their responsibility to do so.
2) do you expect any seller of any legal item to interrogate the buyer as to his intentions after the sale? what are we, the thought police?
get real. any item can be used for an illegal purpose. perhaps we should outlaw everything.
i weep for the death of personal responsibility.
Wow. She is a Republican, isn't she?
Not selling murderabilia - not because it's bad, but because it could be bad for eBay.
Hauling herself in front of CNN hour after hour to help push a non-story. Poor baby. Because the CEO is going to get the E10K running again.
Next thing you know, she'll be helping McCain rationalize his simultaneous opposition and oh-so necessary evil of waterboarding. Perhaps she can also help us understand how the corporations who deign to give us a living owe us nothing when they lay us off, despite the massive overtime hours most salaried employees in the valley contribute before their jobs get farmed out.
@CaliforniaCajun: Yeah, she gave up her position at ebay for a while to help out with the Mitt Romney campaign.
No, I'm not trolling you. You people really need to grow out of that.
Everyone I've known who ever worked for eBay, then left, always looked better after they leave. They seem relaxed, happy, rested, the bags under their eyes are gone.
Meg is no exception. Nice pictures, there, Meg.
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