Who Should Be the Next CEO of eBay? Rick Watson Quoted in Silicon Valley Business Journal

In early October 2019, I was quoted in the Silicon Valley Business Journal, in an article written by Allison Levitsky. The major topic of the article is that after Devin Wenig was forced to step down from eBay’s Board, what was happening there and who do I think might be a good fit for the next go-around?

The biggest thing you need to know about eBay at this stage is that they are approaching Yahoo level of trouble. They are not quite there yet, however. GMV is slightly declining, not majorly declining, and the company still throws off an enormous amount of free cash flow.

I think the main think you need to understand, and I’ve written about this on LinkedIn, is that people have known for almost a year that eBay wants to spin off its tickets business, like Stubhub. If Devin is leaving, it’s not because the new Board wants to do this, and Devin doesn’t. What would Devin care about spinning off these businesses?

Something more serious is happening, and I’m expecting that there could be major restructuring happening to eBay. The organizational structure has always been one of the wackiest in Silicon Valley with its “three-headed monster” structure of Product, Technology and Business — each pointing at each other for ownership. I doubt the restructuring would be related to this directly, but it would be nice if it were solved at the same time. What I really expect is that the Board expects eBay to greatly cut down R&D expenses (read: layoffs) to be in line with their cash projection expectations and the fact that they are not growing as fast as before.

The article is behind a paywall, but you can either pay for it or subscribe here:

https://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2019/10/02/next-ebay-ceo-devin-wenig-replacement.html