Pros
SOME of the people are great. And with such a large user base, small ideas can show sizeable results. I think I stay for these two reasons.
Cons
It is a fairly young group of people, the majority of whom came to eBay straight from business school with no significant prior management experience. They seem to underestimate the complexity of projects and when they blow up two extremes seem to result: a) infighting and finger pointing or b) they back down and the projects die on the vine. Overall, solid planning and communication are sorely lacking at eBay. This can be seen in John Donahoe's strategies that are aspirational in nature rather than actionable. (i.e. 1) Re-ignite the core, 2) Grow adjacencies, 3) Plant seeds. That basically translates to: 1) tend to the base business, 2) tend to recently started businesses, 3) invest in new businesses. What! Work on the current business, and invest in some new stuff? That's not very prescriptive!)