Web-based Businesses Create Some Movers and Shakers
July 6th, 2010
If you pay any attention to the news, you’ll have heard of Meg Whitman, former CEO of eBay, and maybe if you really pay attention, you might have heard of Overstock SEO Patrick Byrne making news lately. I find it interesting that some of the biggest website businesses are turning out some real movers and shakers in the political realm. These companies, eBay and Overstock are two of the biggest online businesses. Online companies are carrying a lot of clout these days, they are an integral part of the economy, and will only become more so in the years to come.
Meg Whitman, former CEO of eBay is currently running for governor of California. She is described as a conservative Republican. John McCain thinks she could be the next Ronald Reagan.
When Whitman joined eBay in March 1998, it had 30 employees and revenues of approximately $4 million. She was able to grow the company to approximately 15,000 employees and $8 billion in annual revenue by 2008 – pretty impressive!
Good business sense often translates well to good political sense. If you have run a business, then you know how to manage people and a budget – at least if you’ve run a successful business. I am really interested to see what Whitman does in the coming years. It would be great to have some really solid candidates – people who worked in the real world, as opposed to jumping into politics without gaining experience and business sense first.
Another interesting figure born out of the web based business world is Patrick Byrne. He is currently the CEO of Overstock.com, a very popular online retailer. He joined Overstock when it was known as D2-Discounts Direct. He was asked to invest in this company and thought that online closeouts might really do well, so he sunk 7 million bucks into it and changed the name to Overstock. Overstock now generates over $800 million a year. Byrne has been named to BusinessWeek’s list of the 25 most influential people in e-Business in the past and is now known for his efforts in combating naked short selling, a practice which Byrne says has often been used in violation of securities law to hurt the price of his as well as other companies’ stock.
Byrne has also recently become a Fox News contributor on Fox’s Business programming. Below is a video clip of him detailing what is happening in Greece’s financial melt down, and how it could happen to us if we don’t stop all this spending.
I love finding these great success stories – web based business have become big, they are part and parcel of our nation’s economy. They are producing some of the movers and shakers, not only in business, but politics too.
