On: Meg Whitman to be named new HP CEO

[vicparekh]

I completely agree. Meg wasted her time at eBay. eBay is a company and therefore we are not privy to a lot of the internal politics. Their acquisition of Skype made no sense.

When she ran for governor, the method by which she handled the fact that she had hired an illegal immigrant proved to me that she was seriously unfit to be anything but a Senior Manager.

[gamache → vicparekh]

> Their acquisition of Skype made no sense.

For what it's worth: eBay paid $2.6B for Skype in 2005, sold 65% of it for $2B in 2009, and then made an additional $2.5B selling its remaining stake to Microsoft in 2010. So it turned out to net almost $2B over five years. I'm not an accountant, but I could live with those numbers.

(disclosure: eBay owns the company that bought the company where I work)

[arach → gamache]

Skype retained its value and even became more valuable, but that doesn't mean it made strategic sense for a marketplace / e-commerce company.

[headbiznatch → arach]

It made strategic sense if they were hoping to make a couple billion dollars on their investment.

[saraid216 → headbiznatch]

That's not strategy. That's a get-rich-quick scheme.

[headbiznatch → saraid216]

Getting rich quick is a valid strategical choice. It may not be your thing, but this kind of categorization is personal.