In the video, Omidyar talks about how retailers shouldn't be rewarded "by virtue of their stature outside the online community." And yet isn't that exactly what eBay has done for Buy.com? Donahoe is set to address eBay sellers in a keynote Friday morning at its annual eBay Live conference. How will he explain the Buy.com deal? It will surely take the very best corporate doublespeak — the sort that only a former management consultant can come up with.

VeriSign chairman Jim Bidzos
An employee's advice to senior management:

Don't drag out the divestiture process in an effort to get a few extra bucks. And if you're going to kill the whole thing, be honest with employees about opportunities.

AMD chairman and CEO Hector Ruiz
An employee's advice to senior management:

AMD needs to go back to basics. What business is AMD in, who do you need onboard to lead the company in that business, who do you need that can create demand for the product, and what do the customers want? Ignore the "how" and focus on the "who." Stop treating employees like costs and more like assets. Threatening cubical hoteling and pushing the "do more with less" story is oppressive, not inspiring. The most marketable talent will leave first.

EMC CEO and chairman Joe Tucci
An employee's advice to senior management:

Senior management needs to respect its employees, listen to feedback and not bury its head in the sand as it relates to issues of sexism and lack of diversity. The culture continues to be predominantly young white men and this is largely because people hire who they know. "Breaking the glass ceiling" requires a lot of sacrifice! They will cite a few examples of high profile women, but these are the exception, not the rule. Work/life balance is not a priority in this company. Most of the highest ranking professional women in this organization are unmarried or do not have children. They need to recognize the need for more flexible work options that promote the importance of family. And most importantly, there need to be consequences for illegal and unethical behavior, regardless of who commits it! People cannot be protected from this. There are too many blind eyes turned when sexual harassment, illegal business practices, or other unethical acts occur.

Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang

An employee's advice to senior management:

Be more open to the workforce opinions. Be more humble. Be less political. Listen more, do more, and quickly.

eBay CEO John Donahoe
An employee's advice to senior management:

Streamline the process so people can focus more on getting their work done. Share more of the details of the vision for eBay and the competition of eBay.

Symantec CEO John Thompson
An employee's advice to senior management:

Open your eyes to how the actually successful companies are doing it. Use your talent pool and clear the way to innovate internally. Shift the focus from salesmanship to inherent quality. Build products that sell themselves rather than needing an aggresive sales cycle to move.

Hewlett-Packard chairman, president and CEO Mark Hurd
An employee's advice to senior management:

Stop screwing the employees. Stop reducing benefits every week. Stop saying you plan to invest in research and development when you are actually reducing everything except your bonuses. Start treating people as people. Get some moral fiber.

EDS chairman, president and CEO Ron Rittenmeyer
An employee's advice to senior management:

As I said above, either learn to trust the junior leadership you put into place or replace them. Set goals and then GET OUT OF THE WAY and allow the leadership the flexibility to execute to them. If they don't perform, release them. The micromanagement culture has to stop.

IBM chairman, president and CEO Sam Palmisano
An employee's advice to senior management:

One thing is missing though, an acceptance of the fact that there are "superstars" in the world, and that these superstars perform several orders of magnitude better than regular employees. What is missing within IBM is the ability to seek out, and nourish these superstars. Over time superstars will leave IBM because they will get much more recognition in other organizations. This has an impact on IBM's ability to deliver some things.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer
An employee's advice to senior management:

There is a severe lack of leadership in the company. With so many things going on it takes executives too long to commit to business decisions and too long to pick up on competitive responses to disruptive technologies.Microsoft promotes based on 2 facets - technical knowledge and political saavy. What Microsoft does not promote based on is leadership ability, managerial ability or business saavy.

(Photo of Ballmer by AP/Sarbach)

This time, to improve results, eBay will integrate PayPal data — "data about what people actually purchased and bought," Donahoe said — into its search algorithm. How timely, since eBay has only owned PayPal for more than five years now.

Something needs to change. Check out the top result for a search on the term "Wii." Somehow I don't think eBay's earning a lot of revenue on listed items like this one.

Candidate: Jeff Jordan
Resume: Former Disney exec.
Credentials: Came in with Whitman. Ran PayPal and eBay's North American operations.
Why it won't happen: Jordan got the ax 18 months ago, after blame settled on his shoulders for an eBay slowdown three years ago. Now he runs OpenTable.

Candidate: Bill Cobb
Resume: Former PepsiCo exec.
Credentials: When Cobb got the gig of president of eBay North America, Whitman made it known he'd eventually compete for her job.
Why it won't happen: Not too long ago, Cobb lowered listing fees, flooding the eBay market with cheap goods. This slowed the auction giant's growth and lead some analysts to call for the company to embrace the role of "value" stock. That's not what eBay's board or shareholders want. Also, Cobb already reports to Donahoe.

Candidate: Rajiv Dhutta
Resume: Head of worldwide sales for semiconductor firm KLA-Tencor.
Credentials: Former CFO and head of strategy now runs the PayPal division.
Why it won't happen: He also used to run Skype after championing its acquisition. So that's that.

(Photo by liewcf)

Whitman's reign can be roughly divided into two parts: 1998-2005, and 2005-2008. Her first seven years were lucky indeed. eBay was one of the few companies to weather the bust well. Its purchase of PayPal in 2002 turbocharged its growth, allowing it to extract fees from sellers not only when they sold their goods, but also when they collected the money.

But since then — a period which coincides with Donahoe's tenure at the company — eBay has struggled. Google's inexpensive search adsincreasingly provided a new kind of competition; while Whitman fumbled around trying to respond to that threat, Jeff Bezos lured away some of her top merchants to a revitalized Amazon.com. In most of Asia, eBay still has little market share. And buying Skype, as many predicted from the start, proved a costly distraction.

A revision to Whitman's Law: CEOs should only stay seven years, max. With all the troubles Donahoe has either inherited from Whitman, or made from himself, he'll be lucky to stay half that long.

Ever since the Skype acquisition officially went sour, Whitman has faced increased pressure to step down from her post. Analysts have begun to push for eBay marketplaces exec John Donahoe's ascension.

It's got to be unsettling, Meg. Maybe some comfort food would help? We know a great place just across the street.

(Photo by jurvetson)