| Even if you aren't a fan of Meg Whitman's management, you still have to admire eBay. It is a company that brought together people to buy and sell from across the country, then across the world. Any way you slice it, the big idea of an online auction, started by Pierre Omidyar was an idea that helped accelerate the digital economy. Millions of small businesses, and all that we've been hearing Meg Whitman promote.
Thing is, Meg Whitman wasn't the one who came up with that idea. She helped foster the idea from a small operation into an international collussus, and on the way certainly did a better job than CEO flame-outs like Carly Fiorina, but the ideas that she was building were never her own.
So, why not ask Pierre Omidyar what he thinks of Meg Whitman? Certainly there are few people that know her better than he. And they have each other to thank for their respective fortunes. So, would Omidyar vote for Meg Whitman? In a word, No.
"Now I have not endorsed her because we have some differences on some of the political issues," Omidyar, who is now based in Hawaii, told Bloomberg TV in an interview that will air Wednesday on "InBusiness with Margaret Brennan." "I was disappointed in her not-correct decision, in my view, to support Proposition 8 in California. I was disappointed in her alignment with former Governor Pete Wilson on immigration issues, who I think took some very extreme views years ago about denying benefits to illegal immigrants. And so because of those types of issues, I think we are a little bit apart, and I can't quite support her because of that." (LA Times)
Omidyar does well to call attention to Whitman's new-found love affair with Wilson, the godfather of Proposition 187, the measure that stripped away benefits from immigrants that he rode to re-election in 1994. Wilson is also the chair of Steve Cooley's campaign for Attorney General. Through these two, Wilson is attempting to extend his influence, with all the concurrent hard feelings that brings.
Whitman is wrong on immigration. And she is wrong on Prop 8. She's just wrong for California. |
