Former CEO of Bankrupt Dot Com Flop Webvan Named As New Ebay CFO

[mandy]

eBay will pay Swan a base salary of $600,000 yearly plus a generous stock and options package.

eBay Inc today named Data Systems Corp Chief Financial Officer Bob Swan, a dot-com refugee who once served as chief financial officer at bankrupt online grocer Webvan, as eBay's new CFO. 

Near the peak of the dot-com craze, Swan joined Webvan in October 1999, where he served as chief financial officer, chief operating officer and chief executive, for two years. Webvan filed for bankruptcy protection in 2001.

In a statement, eBay said Swan's tenure at Webvan gave him solid experience in running Silicon Valley businesses

full article: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=3&ObjectID=10369545

In a statement, eBay said Swan's tenure at Webvan gave him solid experience in running Silicon Valley businesses 

Webvan was one of the largest dot com flops and was infamous for spending lavishly on its executives salaries.  The company filed bankruptcy and liquidated its assets. Investors sank $1.2 billion into the company and were left with only $25 million.  That is the solid experience he brings to eBay. 

Once worth $8.4 billion and touted as one of the top companies in e-commerce, the Foster City, Calif.-based company burned through hundreds of millions of dollars in investor and venture capital before closing shop in July.

http://news.com.com/Seeking+relics+amid+...75181.html

After holding one of the biggest fire sales the Internet has seen, Webvan is divvying up the money it has left: $25 million.

The money represents only a fraction of the $1.2 billion that investors sank into the company, among the Web's costliest flameouts to date.

http://news.com.com/Webvan+set+to+divvy+...16711.html

In retrospect, all of the signs were there, pointing to the eventual demise of Internet  grocery delivery service Webvan...

As recently as last month, Webvan CEO Bob Swan tried gamely to put on the best face, saying the company could achieve financial self-sufficiency by the middle of 2002.

Swan claimed the company needed to raise $25 million to reach profits by the target date. Unfortunately, he could not point to any potential sources for that capital.

The fact that his company's stock closed at 6 cents on Friday could not have been particularly encouraging to anyone on the short list of potential investors

http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/11849.html



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I'm taking bets that Auctionbytes will write a glowing review of Swan's career and not mention the central role his bad decisions played in Webvan's demise. 

[bargainbloodhound]

I'm taking bets that Auctionbytes will write a glowing review of Swan's career and not mention the central role his bad decisions played in Webvan's demise.    

Good guess. 

eBay's press release mentioned Webvan.  All 500+ of the news stories about the new CFO with the exception of one mentioned that Webvan went bankrupt.  Can you guess the only publication that completely omitted any mention of Webvan?

http://auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y06/m02/i22/s01

Correct! AuctionByteme!  Umm, is someone hoping to one day take Hazy Dizzy's BS'ing job? ...or did someone just have    On the positive side, AuctionByteMe did take a day off from running yet another article plugging their advertiser Wham BamThankYouMa'am's auction site

In a statement, eBay said Swan's tenure at Webvan gave him solid experience in running Silicon Valley businesses

 
Isn't it wonderful how public relations people can turn being CEO one of the worst dot com bombs into "solid experience" 

[rose]

Webvan 

[xppman]

What happened to RAJIV?
Is he bailing?
http://biz.yahoo.com/t/87/320.html

[bargainbloodhound]

Rajiv was appointed the new president of Skype

[rejoicemusic]

Has anyone doublechecked his resume to make sure he didn't graduate from a non-existent university somewhere? 

Looks like eBay is really developing quite the "brain trust".  He should fit in nicely with the guy they hired last year who was well-known for having had his new Porsche delivered to the office - the same day the pink slips went out for an entire division (this was at his former job prior to coming to eBay).  eBay Forever!

[jezebel]

I heard from an inside source that eBay is holding a press conference on Friday to announce the appointment of the Pets.com Sock Puppet as their  new CTO.

[bargainbloodhound]

[quote author=jezebel link=topic=2748.msg9898#msg9898 date=1140672083]
I heard from an inside source that eBay is holding a press conference on Friday to announce the appointment of the Pets.com Sock Puppet as their  new CTO.
[/quote]

The Sock Puppet would probably do a better job of keeping the site running than eBay's current chief technology officer has done. 

[rejoicemusic]

Hey, now I remember .... the Porsche guy is eBay's new CTO.  I think he used to work for AT&T and you can find some interesting comments about him in various articles and blogs.  He is the king of outsourcing.

[rose]

The Sock Puppet got a new job as spokessock for an auto loan company http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pets.com