3
MEGAMARKETS AND MICROCUSTOMERS
Fighting for Local Market Dominance
eBay may be a shark in the ocean, but I am a crocodile in the Yangtze River. If we fight in the ocean, we lose—but if we fight in the river, we win.
Jack Ma, chairman and CEO, Alibaba Group1
Founded in 1995, eBay has been one of the major success stories of the Internet age. Meg Whitman, who was recruited as the company's CEO in early 1998, is widely hailed as the architect who built eBay from before its initial public offering to a market capitalization of over $40 billion at the time of her retirement in March 2008.
Whitman was well aware of China's potential to emerge as the largest Internet market in the world. She noted to security analysts in 2005, “Share of e-commerce ...
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