Claremont Independent

Harvard and Princeton graduate, entrepreneur, former CEO of eBay, billionaire, wife, mother, and possibly California's next governor. Meg Whitman, a very accomplished lady of many titles, recently spoke at Scripps' Balch auditorium as an invited guest of the Drucker Institute and Drucker School of Management. It was an invitation that she could not refuse. She was asked to visit Claremont by Rajiv Dutta, her close friend and former employee, who also happens to be a 1982 Drucker School graduate and is now the current Drucker Executive-in-Residence.

Meg Whitman defies feminist arguments that women are oppressed in the business world. She took eBay from a company of only 30 employees with little more than 4 million in revenue, to a workforce of over 15,000 with revenue of nearly $8 billion. Nice job, Ms. Whitman. Her success has not gone unnoticed. She has consistently been ranked by Times magazine as one of the world's most influential people, and is one of the most respected leaders in the business world. She recently left the fast paced business world to start a political career. In John McCain's recent campaign she served as national co-chair and spoke about the economy at the Republican National Convention. And now, rumor has it, that she is planning to run a campaign of her own - for governor of California. Although her current political engagements are intriguing, her visit to the Claremont Colleges was focused on the life she used to lead as the CEO of eBay

The interview between her and Mr. Dutta was entitled "The Character of the Company: How businesses balance profit with social responsibility". In response to Dutta's very first question regarding the character of eBay, Ms. Whitman made it clear she wanted eBay to be viewed as "A company with a moral center, a sense of right and wrong." That sounds more like a motto for a charitable foundation rather than a corporate business, but Ms. Whitman stressed that financial success in the corporate world and a strong moral backbone can go hand in hand. eBay, like all companies, has been faced with situations where they were forced to choose between economics and ethics. Ms. Whitman would argue that she always did what was "the right thing to do". One such example was in June of 1999 when the site crashed. eBay was hit hard -the site was down for a period of 22 hours, and then on and off again for 8 hours at a time. Sellers on eBay, the store that in theory never closes, lost a significant amount of business during the site's collapse. According to eBay's contract with its users, it was obligated to reimburse sellers whose sale expired during a site collapse. With eBay's millions of venders this was a pricey obligation.

However, Ms. Whitman took it a step further. Her intuition told her that "the right thing to do" was to compensate everyone who had an item up for sale during the period of the collapse, even if their sale time did not expire. In the short run this took a big bite out of eBay's revenue, but Ms. Whitman has always been about the long run. She says that moral character "develops goodwill and trust" in your users and will benefit you in the end. Business is all about building strong relationships.

Where did Ms. Whitman develop this attitude of focusing on the future and remaining loyal in tough times? Like many success stories, she related her character development back to high school sports. Young Meg Whitman was a member of her high school swimming team, and of course, she swam distance.

The endurance events taught her that there were "no shortcuts" to any worthwhile ends - a skill she'll need if she wants to trim California's bloated budgets. She saw that in swimming there was a "direct relationship between input and output." She claims that not only did she learn a strong work ethic, but that she also came to understand the importance of the "ethos of togetherness on a team." In a time that has overwhelmingly negative stereotypes about business personnel, Meg Whitman is a refreshing reminder that too often we overlook the good and focus on the bad.

Although this was a strictly non-political event, it is clear that some of the reoccurring themes of the discussion will likely make an appearance in the upcoming 2010 election. Still, sometimes it seems as if Whitman doesn't always do the right thing, but the easy thing.

Voters may be troubled to learn that Ms. Whitman seemed to ignore the free speech and freedom of association precedents when she, acting upon the advice of one of her board members who had visited a Nazi death camp, wanted to ban the sale of Nazi artifacts on eBay. True, eBay is free to set whatever rules it wants, but Ms. Whitman shrugged off the suggestion that she had created an ugly precedent. And while it may be that neo-Nazis would bid up the value of Nazi heirlooms, one could imagine that the National Holocaust Museum or others concerned with history might enjoy seeing that heinous memorabilia come out from the shadows.

In any event, it would not be a surprise if her campaign slogan resembles something like the following: Whether businesswoman, mother, wife, or governor, you can bet that Ms. Whitman will always "do the right thing" -the theme that was continuously repeated throughout Ms. Whitman's conversation with Rajiv. If she is elected as Schwarzenegger's successor, she promises to address California's unemployment, financial crisis, and poor education, and also to alleviate some of the heavy taxes on the middle class.

Ms. Whitman, the high profile billionaire businesswoman turned politician, stands a chance in the 2010 election. However, she will face competitive democratic candidates and many anxious Californians who are unhappy with Schwarzenegger's years in office.

It is too early to tell exactly what the elections will entail, but one thing is clear -if Meg Whitman makes it her priority to be active in the political world, then she'll certainly make her mark. And after years of bloated budgets from a body builder turned Governator, it might be time for a lady who dabbles in auctioneering to sell off a few of California's ever-growing state departments.

Breanna Deutsch SC '12 is a staff writer for the Claremont Independent.