Interesting article overall, but one clueless sentence amused me:

"Meg Whitman grew rich by developing an online marketplace, eBay, where people could buy and sell without ever meeting."

I recommend the book Paypal Wars. It was written by one of the "Paypal mafia." The book goes into quite a bit of detail about the early Paypal-eBay story, with an epilogue covering events until 2006. The reality is exactly the opposite of what the article claims.

Under Pierre Omidyar, eBay was a nimble start-up, and by the time Whitman came in, had established such a lead that the network effect was sufficient for them to retain their monopoly in the online auctions space no matter what. Whitman brought a culture of suits, endless meetings and powerpoint presentations into the company and quickly transformed it into a beast that moved at a fraction of its former speed. The new eBay took years to effectively integrate the payment system BillPoint which they purchased; if they had moved quicker, Paypal couldn't have survived, since they depended very heavily on eBay at the time.

The corporate culture-shock that the Paypal employees experienced upon being acquired by eBay, and their consequent mass exodus is now famous. If there is one positive thing that came out of the Whitman years at eBay, it is the fact that the Paypal people dispersed and went on to do great things and truly change the world :-)

Ironically, it was only around the time Whitman finally departed last year that it became clear that eBay was ripe for disruption. It amuses me that most of the business world, knowing none of the back-story, will think of the Whitman years at eBay as a glorious success.

Nicely done!

The first thing I notice is that unlike 90%+ of real-time browser-based games (flash or javascript), it doesn't stupidly burn 100% CPU for no reason at all. It takes close to 0%!

This is so utterly irrelevant. Once again, with an ominous title and tons of upvotes, I am baited into checking out what turns out to be nothing more than a pundit war. Thanks, guys!

I've been a critical care nurse for years. The hardest I've ever worked was on a 24 year old man, that tried to commit suicide by shooting himself in the head. His brain wasn't working so well, but the rest of his body was intact. And, the family was amazingly selfless and decided to donate his organs.

We couldn't get the study to prove his brain death until morning, and he was bleeding like a sieve. In 15 years of being a ER/ICU nurse, I've never given one single person more blood products. There was a team of 5 or 6 of us giving him massive transfusions, all to keep this young man's organs alive the rest of the night.

In this ICU, we also took care of patients that had just received kidney transplants. They are some of the most patient, long-suffering and most grateful people you'll ever meet. Why? Because for the previous three to five years, these people's lives have been consumed by having to go to dialysis three times a week for four hours a session. They can't live any other way, and a transplant gives them a new lease on life.

We were able to get the study to prove brain death the following morning, and the organ donation team harvested his organs.

Two weeks later, our ICU received a letter from the organ bank, giving us a brief update on each of the _24 people_ that received organs from this young man. It was one of the most rewarding experiences I've ever had as a nurse.

All that to say, when organ donation happens, it's a truly beautiful thing, and one of those things that renews my hope in humanity. I've had the donor box checked on my driver's license for years. I'd encourage people to do the same.

This will become important to know as Whitman is running for Governor of California in 2010.

I just (voluntarily) left a comfortable job at a behemoth corporation to start my own company with a friend from college. I thought I was being brave, but apparently I'm just succumbing to a fad?

I don't think it's that starting a business is "cool"; I mean, I guess it is, in some sense, although paying for your own health care isn't very cool. For me, this quote was apt:

"People’s attitudes to security and risk also changed. If a job in a big organisation can so easily disappear, it seems less attractive. Better to create your own."

It's not just about job security. After spending two years in a large corporation, I firmly believe that these shops provide less security, less on-the-job learning, less valuable experience, less opportunities to improve society, and in many cases less pay than ambitious young people can achieve otherwise. IMO, working at a large corporation, now more than ever, is an excellent way for you to hide, duck for cover, and defensively draw a paycheck. And mediocre people who take this posture are very clever indeed about ensuring they won't be laid off.

But if you actually want to do something meaningful with your life and happily spend your days working on a project you believe in, big corporations will rarely satisfy your needs.

Although I had a relatively good experience in my two years at my behemoth corporation (my last day is today, incidentally), the best thing I learned is how I'd rather not repeat the experience. I also look back on the two years and think that my most memorable moments (even technical achievements) happened outside of work.

With the means of production well within my grasp as a software engineer, and with big corporations going into a holding pattern and nixing interesting projects just to "keep the lights on", it seems like a no-brainer. For me, entrepreneurship isn't cool -- it's the only rational option.

I was waiting for him to address the last.fm post about them handing user information over to the RIAA. He really should've taken it a step further beyond merely disclosing your sources, to validating them as well. I feel this was kind of a vague shot at addressing the last.fm debacle. I do think it's noble of him to pull out of companies for the sake of TC's credibility, but there are other changes that should be made as well.