New beginnings at eBay

My work is an important part of my life – after all, like many people I spend more time working than doing anything else.  When I started thinking about what I wanted to work on after TV software for cable/telco carriers at Microsoft, I established a set of criteria that I would use to measure the opportunities:

1. A consumer product or service that ships directly to customers
2. Something that I use (or if not yet shipped, would use) and that my friends and family can use
3. A move entailing risk outside of my comfort zone
4. Something that makes the world a better place
5. Ability to make a measurable impact fairly quickly after we roll out
6. Fairly short ship cycles with plenty of opportunity for iteration
7. Ability to move quickly to seize opportunities or disrupt things
8. Easily reachable by walking, biking or public transit

Over time I considered a set of internal and external opportunities and through a well-timed text message from a former teammate of mine I started to consider eBay.

The more I looked into eBay the better it looked.  I was really impressed by the people I met during the interview process.  During that process I got to know more about the eBay business and how well it measured against my criteria.  eBay is certainly not a new company but it is in the midst of a great deal of change — organizationally as well as technologically. In that change I saw opportunity for my career growth and for being a part of the reinvention of eBay.  On top of that, I get to work on something that I’m personally passionate about so work doesn’t feel like “work” so much.

Shortly after starting, the Wall Street Journal ran a story about our transformation in progress and it featured my manager – a nice surprise! Then while visiting my family over Thanksgiving, Nightline re-ran the piece they did for our 15th anniversary.

[Content is no longer available – Thanks Disney!]

The first few weeks have been exciting and it feels good to be exercising some new muscles once again.  I can’t wait to build up my team and ship some great new stuff.