Getting a Little Wild on the Net

By Chris Taylor/San Francisco

Jeff Jordan is the Tasmanian Devil. At least that's what the folks at eBay decided when they were choosing cartoon characters to represent the top brass for the company's conference-room decorations. Jordan, 44, who heads the auction website's U.S. operations from its San Jose, Calif., base, wanted to be Buzz Lightyear. But his peers had no doubt: he's Taz. "It's something about my energy level," says Jordan. "Plus, I've been known to grumble."

His mania for speed (Jordan can barely sit still through an interview) and impatience with mediocrity sit at the center of eBay's phenomenal growth. A veteran of the entertainment industry and a former management consultant, Jordan was tempted away from a doomed dotcom by his former boss at Disney (now eBay CEO), Meg Whitman. At the time, in 1999, eBay had 400 employees; now it has 5,600. Its share price has grown 33-fold. Worldwide, $23 billion in transactions will pass through the eBay marketplace in 2003. Jordan's U.S. arm handles $14 billion of that. "There's a friendly competition not to let the rest of the world catch up," he says.

The way Jordan is going, the rest of the world won't see anything but his dust. He is responsible for nine of eBay's 23 merchandise categories--including motors, electronics, sports and collectibles, each with more than $1 billion in gross sales. He also proposed eBay's two most successful acquisitions: PayPal, known for simplified electronic transactions between buyer and seller; and Half.com a website that sells secondhand books, music and movies.

And Jordan has made himself popular with eBay's community of more than 100,000 merchants by responding to their e-mails. Though Whitman isn't planning to step aside soon, Jordan seems to be laps ahead of anyone else in the race to succeed her. After all, it's hard to compete with a Tasmanian Devil. --By Chris Taylor/San Francisco