Omidyar himself during the 2008 "Bubble" tv episode of "Download, The True Story of the Internet" on The Science Channel hosted by John Heilemann, stated that he hired Meg Whitman as CEO because he is not a business person and did not do any resarch to begin with, before he began writing the code to develop Ebay. He started with no business plan,and at first the site has very slim pickings of things to auction. In 1998 they hired Whitman because they he realized he need an "A List" business person on their team in order to define the company, direct it, and get it to be taken seriously. Whitman led Ebay to its IPO.

I am not a greedy person at all, and though I enjoy being a founder myself as I currently am one, I have both an MBA and am a founder. So I represent both sides and the best of both worlds. Whitman my not be the founder, but her efforts and that Harvard MBA has led her to the tune of of starting salary of $175k per year with an annual bonus of $100k. in 2008 this had grown a salary of $11 million per year,and today she still owns 3.9 million shares of Ebay stock. Not too shabby I'd say.

Meg Whitman's Ebay Employment Letter http://www.allbusiness.com/human-resources/workforce-managem...