This book tells a great story about how eBay grew from a single person-the founder Pierre Omidyar’s bedroom, to a small group consists of he and his intimate friends, who are also the key members of eBay, Meg Whitman and Maynard Webb, to a multi-billion-dollar organization. The author, Adam Cohen worked very closely with everyone at eBay and even had his own company ID and workspace in the office building. Therefore he is capable to give us the look of how the community work and collaborate as an insider. In addition, this book also describes the challenges that eBay has confronted during its history such as the “fully functional kidney” event in 1999, the decision to ban guns, how to handle pornography and even used underwear; outlines those practical strategies that eBay adopted; and gives some fascinating impacts it has had on its users through the virtual marketplace such as the story of Jane Dee who literally started a new life for herself because of eBay. Another significant aspect of this book mentions is the Ebaysian philosophy that Omidyar developed as a absolute new vision of a perfect market, an online auction through which the sellers online can get the market price for a certain commodity on that certain day. Although after eBay’s IPO some practices and ventures that violated this philosophy were implemented to satisfy the need of their stockholders, the community abandoned some of these practices for insisting on the Ebaysian philosophy. To sum up, Cohen both tells a great story about how the group of people worked together to make a simple but also a brilliant idea become an outstanding business and demonstrates the human aspect behind the business.
Everyday, millions of furniture, appliances, vehicles, computers, and collectibles are posted, sold and bought on eBay. Those items could be something very rare and precious while mostly these items are