eBay王者归来！（节选）

    “我想带你们踏上一段特殊的旅程。”2500位eBay公司的员工聚集在加州圣何塞城市中心。这里常举行音乐会，距公司总部只有几英里。他们的老板——首席执行官约翰•多纳霍正站在台上，请大家回顾自己的工作。他用低沉的男中音要求大家：“请闭上眼睛想一想，今年你们团队取得的成就中，哪一件最让你骄傲？”

    随后，多纳霍开始回顾自己在eBay度过的八年职业生涯，其中五年他都担任首席执行官一职。他在爱尔兰、德国和eBay在美国的其他分公司也都已经发表过这番讲话。但在12月的这个早上，多纳霍却仍以颇为真诚，几乎可说是带着忏悔的口吻回顾了自己所经历过的那些自我怀疑的时刻——比如2008年6月，出席芝加哥的一个经销商大会的前夜。此前数月，他曾宣布大刀阔斧地改革eBay的支出结构，在经销商中引发众怒。其中一位经销商怒不可遏，甚至制作了一段视频放到了YouTube上。这段视频毫不含糊地把多纳霍比作《辛德勒名单》（Schindler's List）里的一位纳粹警卫。多纳霍回忆道：“我记得，那天晚上我坐在酒店房间里沉思，这么做值得吗？”

    五年后的今天，他已经找到了答案。在多纳霍的领导下，eBay进行了重大变革，从最初的（也是摇摆不定的）主要业务——网上拍卖，转型为一家提供全方位服务的电子商务企业，主要为家得宝（Home Depot）、梅西百货（Macy's）等大型零售商以及成千上万家类似企业在移动支付、网上比价和当天快递等复杂的领域提供帮助。换句话说，eBay正在飞速成为各大零售业主应对亚马逊公司（Amazon）挑战的最佳搭档。而目前，亚马逊（Amazon）正以大幅折扣和令人眼花缭乱的新业务把零售界搅得天翻地覆。多纳霍称：“很多零售商向我们表示，‘我们需要一个技术合作伙伴’。”

    长期以来，eBay一直为零售企业提供各种极具价值的电子商务工具——其中最知名的就是大获成功的贝宝（PayPal）支付服务。而多纳霍则通过并购加强了公司的无线产品线，如收购移动支付公司Zong和比价应用RedLaser。2011年，他斥资24亿美元收购了GSI Commerce，这是一家为零售巨头创建并管理在线购物网站的公司。去年底，eBay宣布达成了一桩交易，可让消费者在任何接受Discover卡的实体店使用贝宝（不妨想象一下下面的情形。收银员问顾客：“您是用现金、信用卡、借记卡还是贝宝付款？”）。此举让eBay终于能为零售商提供全套商业服务。这些努力使公司业绩大幅增长：去年eBay的营收达到了141亿美元，比前年增长了21%。主要由贝宝完成的支付业务则增长了26%，营收增加到了56亿美元。日益成为固定价格商品展示窗口的eBay商场（eBay Marketplaces）也实现了11%的健康增长。而据多纳霍称，一度作为主营业务的网上拍卖“在我们业务总额中所占份额已经不足10%。”

    投资者们对这个脱胎换骨的eBay用行动给予了热情回应。仅仅去年一年，它的股价就猛涨了70%，在技术类股票中一枝独秀，风头甚至盖过了亚马逊。分析师称， eBay整体实现凤凰涅槃在科技界实属罕见，而多纳霍应记首功【而最著名的两大逆转案例，也就是苹果（Apple）和IBM，只能用传奇来形容】。韦德布什证券公司（Wedbush Securities）分析师吉尔•卢里亚称：“我认为多纳霍在eBay的成就堪称奇迹。他接手的是一家业绩欠佳的硅谷巨头，却把它转变为一家增长迅猛、充满创新、专注移动领域的技术领军型企业。”而风险投资家兼eBay董事会成员马克•安德森则补充说：“如果说斯蒂夫•乔布斯或马克•扎克伯格是创始型首席执行官的代表的话，那我想约翰如今已成为职业化首席执行官的楷模。”（财富中文网）

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    译者：清远

    "I'd like to take you on a journey." A group of 2,500 eBay employees is assembled at the San Jose Civic, a concert venue a few miles from company headquarters. Their boss, CEO John Donahoe, is onstage, asking them to reflect on their work. "Close your eyes," he urges in a deep baritone. "What is the thing you are most proud of that your team has accomplished this year?"

    Donahoe then begins to ruminate on his eight years at eBay (EBAY), five of them as CEO. He's delivered a variation of this speech to employees in Ireland, Germany, and other eBay locations in the U.S., yet on this December morning Donahoe still sounds raw, almost confessional, as he recounts his moments of self-doubt -- such as the night in June 2008, before he was due to appear at a sellers event in Chicago. It was months after he had announced sweeping changes to eBay's fee structure, and sellers were irate. One went so far as to create a YouTube video comparing Donahoe to a Nazi guard in Schindler's List. (Seriously.) Donahoe recalls, "I remember sitting in a hotel room that night and thinking, Is this worth it?"

    Five years later he has his answer. Under Donahoe's leadership eBay has undergone a remarkable transformation, shifting from its original (and flailing) mission -- online auctions -- to a full-service e-commerce operation that helps big retailers such as Home Depot (HD), Macy's (M), and hundreds of others navigate the complex world of mobile payments, online comparison shopping, and same-day delivery. In other words, eBay is quickly emerging as the shopkeeper's best answer to Amazon (AMZN), which continues to disrupt the retail world with deep discounts and a dizzying array of new businesses. "Retailers are coming to us and saying, 'We need to have a technology partner,' " says Donahoe.

    eBay has long offered merchants valuable e-commerce tools -- most notably its wildly successful PayPal payments service. Donahoe has bolstered the company's wireless offerings with acquisitions such as Zong, a mobile transactions company, and RedLaser, a price-comparison app. In 2011 he orchestrated the purchase of $2.4 billion GSI Commerce, which builds and manages online shopping sites for giant retailers, and late last year the company announced a deal that will allow consumers to use PayPal at any brick-and-mortar location that accepts the Discover (DFS) card. (Imagine a clerk asking, "Cash, credit, debit, or PayPal?") The moves enable eBay to offer retailers a full suite of commerce services. They're also fueling growth: Last year eBay posted $14.1 billion in revenue, up 21% from a year earlier. The payments business, mainly PayPal, grew 26%, to $5.6 billion in revenue. eBay Marketplaces, increasingly a showcase for fixed-price items, was up a healthy 11%. Auctions, Donahoe says, "are less than 10% of what we do."

    Investors are responding enthusiastically to the new eBay -- the stock is up 70% in just the past year and has outperformed much of the tech sector, including Amazon -- and analysts say Donahoe deserves much of the credit for pulling off that rarest of feats in the tech world: a company turnaround. (The most famous tech reversals of fortune – Apple (AAPL) and IBM (IBM) -- are the stuff of legend.) "I consider Donahoe's accomplishments at eBay nothing short of amazing," says Gil Luria, a Wedbush Securities analyst. "He took an underperforming Silicon Valley giant and transformed it into a high-growth, innovative, mobile-focused technology leader." Adds venture capitalist and eBay board member Marc Andreessen: "If Steve Jobs or Mark Zuckerberg are the templates for the founder CEO, then I think John has become the template for the professional CEO."