fearlessrick - 6:23 pm on Jan 22, 2009 (gmt 0)

Ebay's CEO, John Donahoe, and his concepts of "disruptive thinking" has torpedoed the company. He tried to fix something that wasn't broken and this 4Q report of declining sales and profits is just the first in what should be a long string of failures.

Fees are too high, the feedback system has been bastarized (sellers can't leave negs for buyers) and just today they launced their new "my Ebay" which everyone hates.

Donahoe will go down in history as one of the worst CEOs ever to set foot in an executive suite. He's got all these metrics and neat-sounding ideas, but absolutely no common sense. He's made it nearly impossible to attract new sellers and has alienated most of the good ones from the past 10 years.

It will be interesting to see how the company decides to break up because they have a very profitable PayPal, a large user base in Skype and a screaming horde in eBay.

The company is in deep trouble, all created by the CEO. Sound familiar (hint: banks)? They all went to the same business schools, I think, ones that put more emphasis on rewarding executives than planning and executing a strategy that rewards CUSTOMERS and shareholders.

Ebay will not last through 2009 in its current structure.