Quotes by Meg Whitman

Many companies operate from more of a command-and-control environment — they decide what's going to happen at headquarters and have the organization execute. That doesn't work here because it's the community of users who really have control.

So we enable, not direct. We think of our customers as people, not wallets. And that has implications for how we run the company. We partner with our customers and let them take the company where they think it's best utilized.

The fact that used cars is our largest category is a good example. We would not have sat in a conference room and said, "Hey, how about used cars?" So what can be learned that is extensible to other companies is [to ask] what are your customers doing with your products that maybe you didn't anticipate that they would do? How do you think of your customers as your research and development lab, as opposed to having an R&D lab at headquarters?

Here is the interesting thing that I wonder about. You look at the tremendous success of Facebook. To my mind there is not a lot of commerce going on in these social networking sites. eBay is a community anchored in commerce. It is a commerce site that built a community around it. What has not been proven is if the reverse can happen and people will go to community sites to do commerce.

Many companies operate from more of a command-and-control environment — they decide what's going to happen at headquarters and have the organization execute. That doesn't work here because it's the community of users who really have control.

So we enable, not direct. We think of our customers as people, not wallets. And that has implications for how we run the company. We partner with our customers and let them take the company where they think it's best utilized.