So many companies were given too much money too early, and then taken public too early, that had no sound financial models and no demonstrated track record. It was all Get Big Fast. At investor conferences in 1999, they would challenge me on why eBay was profitable. It does shake your confidence a little bit. I thought injecting a bit of financial discipline DNA into the organizational culture was going to be very important.
Cultures are very hard to change.
The fundamental underlying secular trends of the Internet remain strong. The number of new users. People are spending more and more time on the Net doing more and more things. There's also more commerce on the Net. The Internet is going to change everything.