Meg Whitman: Is California Really Considering Electing A Governor Who Purchased Skype for Over $2.5 Billion

California faces a financial crisis of epic proportions. The State now seems likely to elect a governor who make the worst acquisition in financial history, making the Arnold Schwarzenegger election look rational.

California is in a world of hurt. The State has too many employees, pays so much in pension that it is a welfare state, and MediCal (and Medicare) fraud is rampant. etc. As a result, the State is $53 billion in debt and almost 50% of the general fund is required annually to service debt. In a world that certainly faces sovereign defaults and workouts over the next two years, Californians are going to need to "get real" for the first time since the Trail of Tears.

Meg Whitman is giving all the politically expedient lines to the media. She has the Republican model down and eliquently speaks of cutting taxes and reducing unemployment. When interviewed by David Faber of CNBC, she very gingerly danced around issues of how you can cut taxes and reduce the deficit (she changed the topic to the "Factory tax"). Ultimately, however, California faces a situation where it is going to desperately need to sell of its own assets or distribute them to creditors and Whitman is unwilling to go there.

Whitman's record as a business leader is somewhat mediocre. She did work go to Harvard Business School and work at Procter & Gamble and Bain & Company and blah-blah-blah. In 1998, Pierre Omidyar who had come up with the brilliant idea for EBay convinced her to come run the company. Everybody knows the rest of the story: Ebay review grew from $400 million to $8 billion in the next ten years that Whitman ran the company.

The stars were so aligned for EBay that its growth may have been the result of something other than great management. It might just have been keeping the boat on course. In any event, nothing that Whitman did at EBay indicates that she can guide California through the tremendous crisis it now faces.

In fact, Whitman's big move after EBay reached its full potential was the 2005 acquisition by Ebay of Skype for over $2.5 billion. Skype, a Finnish/Estonia-based company founded by Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis, had 220 million members and was profitable and very sucessful at the time. Whitman's idea was that eBay vendors would use Skype for customer service, but it just didn’t happen that way. Even before the economy crater, it was clear that Skype never fit in the EBay model and the company has been trying to unload since the day Whitman walked out the door in 2008.

Note to California - Give this one back to Niklas and Janus and find someone else (not Jerry Brown).

Jason Rodgers
Jason Rodgers: Jason Rodgers was an experienced research analyst for a major bank prior to retiring to run his own investment consultancy in beautiful Lihue, Hawaii. Jason contributed articles to BestCashCow from 2008 to 2014.

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Comments

  • Philip Cohen

    March 13, 2010


    Meg previously presided over the world’s most dysfunctional, unscrupulous, indeed criminal, organisation—eBay, that is. With the standard of ethics that she displayed whilst running eBay, the mind boggles at what she could do with the governorship of the state of California.

    With Meg as Governor, the “eBafia” (and who knows who else) will undoubtedly be able to carry on facilitating criminal frauds on the whole world with even less risk of some competent authority ever shining a light under this slimy rock.

    How did “Dr Death” Donahoe MBA ever get to be CEO of a listed public company? She, who is “rich and tired” but still aspires to be Governor of California, hand picked him; he’s Meg’s protégé! Donahoe is the totally incompetent buffoon who undoubtedly will go down in US corporate history as the idiot who actually did “kill the golden goose”.

    More details at: http://www.auctionbytes.com/forum/phpBB/viewtopic.php?p=6502877

  • Brittanicus

    March 15, 2010

    THINK! AMERICA! DON'T STAY OBLIVIOUS?

    Could these be the last months before we lose our national sovereignty, OUR UNITY to the illegal immigration occupation on our soil? That approximately 20 to 30 million foreign nationals who could get AMNESTY? Getting clemency and an almost free pass to being on their way to citizenship? Even though the majority are using fraudulent ID to get work, not forgetting they illegally crossed the border or overstayed their entry visa? If President Obama forces through an AMNESTY, once legitimized these people can bring into this nation all their elderly, sick and mentally ill family members who will expect free health care? Guess who pays for all those in the family reunification measure? When Americans cannot afford health care for the own families-WE ARE EXPECTED TO PAY FOR FOREIGNERS?

    MARK MY WORDS, THAT IF WE DON"T SHOW OUR OWN FORCEFULNESS ANOTHER AMNESTY WILL GET PASSED AND TAXPAYERS WILL GET THE BURDEN OF FINANCIALLY PAYING FOR THE AMNESTY PROCESSING, THE PENSIONS AND THE NEXT WAVES OF FOREIGN NATIONAL WHO WILL BE AT OUR DOOR. BEFORE AMNESTY IS EVEN SIGNED INTO LAW, MILLIONS MORE WILL TRY TO REACH AMERICA? GENERATIONS OF OUR GRANDCHILDREN ARE ALREADY PAYING FOR 2 FOREIGN WARS, WHY SHOULD WE PAY EVEN MORE FOR THE IMPOVERISHED CITIZENS OF FOREIGN COUNTRIES ?

    Those of us who are avid patriotic Americans and see us slipping into a third world morass, loss of our unifying language. The first step is to bombard every legislator state and federal, demanding NO AMNESTY. Second step is to confront every lawmaker who pamper foreign nationals with the peoples entitlements and then make sure they don't get re-elected. Another step is to build on E-Verify, in-perpetuity that is mandated in detecting illegal alien workers. Every local, county and state police must be trained with the 287 (g) apprehension directive, under federal mandate to apprehend anybody they believe is an illegal immigrant on the streets and highways. ICE raid need to be stretched to the limit, so business owners understand they are not above the law and they can end-up behind prison bars. National Guard patrolling our borders along with more US Border patrol agents.

    Every law that comes down the pipeline must be taken advantage of, culminating in zero tolerance for foreign nationals. EVERY SANCTUARY CITY, COUNTY AND STATE POLICY MUST BE RESCINDED BY A FEDERAL ACT. On the web is a outspoken blogger who writes about the financial sinking of the SANCTUARY STATE OF CALIFORNIA. All Americans who strongly feel about the imminent danger to our society, the influx of indigent illegal alien families, needs to study these observations. Although this blog refers to mostly to the West coast, the illegal alien propagation is now become a nationwide scourge that vastly becoming a plague. Learn some stark truths at this website, not the lies and political distractions that makes us oblivious of the fiscal nightmares to come. GOOGLE-- http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2010/03/shocking-reality-of-los-angeles-under.html Remember they are already trying to distract us with a national biometric ID care, to substitute E-Verify. What about a non-counterfeit type Social Security card with picture?

    Are you aware that taxpayers in America subsidize other countries treasuries, with billions of dollars from illegal workers here? California loses billions of dollars annually from money transfers across the borders. CALIFORNIA IS BROKE, BUT ELECTED OFFICIAL KEEP PAYING ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT WELFARE, ANCHOR BABY ENTITLEMENTS. Thousands of People who contact me always ask why I have not authored my own blog. One ominous reason because I have a family and that I had already been threatened? I moved away from the illegal alien gang infested neighborhood of Los Angeles years back, but I do have family there still. Californians must demand E-Verify, even though its not perfect, it eventually become a strong arm of enforcement. Amend the 1986 Immigration Simpson-Mazzoli bill? IT WOULD WORK--IF ENFORCED. Any foreign Guest Worker program, MUST BE RIGOROUSLY ENFORCED, WITH NO EXCEPTIONS. GUEST WORKERS MUST STAY IN THAT JOB, OR BE REPATRIATED.

    ALREADY THERE ARE RUMORS WASHINGTON IS GOING TO COMPROMISE E-VERIFY- PROBABLY BY FOREIGN GOVERNMENT LOBBYIST INTERVENTION. Get mobilized at NUMBERSUSA (a million members and counting) and learn who is involved in corruption at JUDICIALWATCH. This is the only way we can save America from the Liberal progressives and the travesty of world government, without borders.

    No copyright to my comments, articles. Copy & Paste and let the people know. AMERICAN JOBS-FOR AMERICAN WORKERS.

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