????“我想帶你們踏上一段特殊的旅程。”2500位eBay公司的員工聚集在加州圣何塞城市中心。這里常舉行音樂會，距公司總部只有幾英里。他們的老板——首席執行官約翰?多納霍正站在臺上，請大家回顧自己的工作。他用低沉的男中音要求大家：“請閉上眼睛想一想，今年你們團隊取得的成就中，哪一件最讓你驕傲？”

????隨后，多納霍開始回顧自己在eBay度過的八年職業生涯，其中五年他都擔任首席執行官一職。他在愛爾蘭、德國和eBay在美國的其他分公司也都已經發表過這番講話。但在12月的這個早上，多納霍卻仍以頗為真誠，幾乎可說是帶著懺悔的口吻回顧了自己所經歷過的那些自我懷疑的時刻——比如2008年6月，出席芝加哥的一個經銷商大會的前夜。此前數月，他曾宣布大刀闊斧地改革eBay的支出結構，在經銷商中引發眾怒。其中一位經銷商怒不可遏，甚至制作了一段視頻放到了YouTube上。這段視頻毫不含糊地把多納霍比作《辛德勒名單》（Schindler's List）里的一位納粹警衛。多納霍回憶道：“我記得，那天晚上我坐在酒店房間里沉思，這么做值得嗎？”

????五年后的今天，他已經找到了答案。在多納霍的領導下，eBay進行了重大變革，從最初的（也是搖擺不定的）主要業務——網上拍賣，轉型為一家提供全方位服務的電子商務企業，主要為家得寶（Home Depot）、梅西百貨（Macy's）等大型零售商以及成千上萬家類似企業在移動支付、網上比價和當天快遞等復雜的領域提供幫助。換句話說，eBay正在飛速成為各大零售業主應對亞馬遜公司（Amazon）挑戰的最佳搭檔。而目前，亞馬遜（Amazon）正以大幅折扣和令人眼花繚亂的新業務把零售界攪得天翻地覆。多納霍稱：“很多零售商向我們表示，‘我們需要一個技術合作伙伴’。”

????長期以來，eBay一直為零售企業提供各種極具價值的電子商務工具——其中最知名的就是大獲成功的貝寶（PayPal）支付服務。而多納霍則通過并購加強了公司的無線產品線，如收購移動支付公司Zong和比價應用RedLaser。2011年，他斥資24億美元收購了GSI Commerce，這是一家為零售巨頭創建并管理在線購物網站的公司。去年底，eBay宣布達成了一樁交易，可讓消費者在任何接受Discover卡的實體店使用貝寶（不妨想象一下下面的情形。收銀員問顧客：“您是用現金、信用卡、借記卡還是貝寶付款？”）。此舉讓eBay終于能為零售商提供全套商業服務。這些努力使公司業績大幅增長：去年eBay的營收達到了141億美元，比前年增長了21%。主要由貝寶完成的支付業務則增長了26%，營收增加到了56億美元。日益成為固定價格商品展示窗口的eBay商場（eBay Marketplaces）也實現了11%的健康增長。而據多納霍稱，一度作為主營業務的網上拍賣“在我們業務總額中所占份額已經不足10%。”

????投資者們對這個脫胎換骨的eBay用行動給予了熱情回應。僅僅去年一年，它的股價就猛漲了70%，在技術類股票中一枝獨秀，風頭甚至蓋過了亞馬遜。分析師稱， eBay整體實現鳳凰涅槃在科技界實屬罕見，而多納霍應記首功【而最著名的兩大逆轉案例，也就是蘋果（Apple）和IBM，只能用傳奇來形容】。韋德布什證券公司（Wedbush Securities）分析師吉爾?盧里亞稱：“我認為多納霍在eBay的成就堪稱奇跡。他接手的是一家業績欠佳的硅谷巨頭，卻把它轉變為一家增長迅猛、充滿創新、專注移動領域的技術領軍型企業。”而風險投資家兼eBay董事會成員馬克?安德森則補充說：“如果說斯蒂夫?喬布斯或馬克?扎克伯格是創始型首席執行官的代表的話，那我想約翰如今已成為職業化首席執行官的楷模。”（財富中文網）

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????譯者：清遠

????"I'd like to take you on a journey." A group of 2,500 eBay employees is assembled at the San Jose Civic, a concert venue a few miles from company headquarters. Their boss, CEO John Donahoe, is onstage, asking them to reflect on their work. "Close your eyes," he urges in a deep baritone. "What is the thing you are most proud of that your team has accomplished this year?"

????Donahoe then begins to ruminate on his eight years at eBay (EBAY), five of them as CEO. He's delivered a variation of this speech to employees in Ireland, Germany, and other eBay locations in the U.S., yet on this December morning Donahoe still sounds raw, almost confessional, as he recounts his moments of self-doubt -- such as the night in June 2008, before he was due to appear at a sellers event in Chicago. It was months after he had announced sweeping changes to eBay's fee structure, and sellers were irate. One went so far as to create a YouTube video comparing Donahoe to a Nazi guard in Schindler's List. (Seriously.) Donahoe recalls, "I remember sitting in a hotel room that night and thinking, Is this worth it?"

????Five years later he has his answer. Under Donahoe's leadership eBay has undergone a remarkable transformation, shifting from its original (and flailing) mission -- online auctions -- to a full-service e-commerce operation that helps big retailers such as Home Depot (HD), Macy's (M), and hundreds of others navigate the complex world of mobile payments, online comparison shopping, and same-day delivery. In other words, eBay is quickly emerging as the shopkeeper's best answer to Amazon (AMZN), which continues to disrupt the retail world with deep discounts and a dizzying array of new businesses. "Retailers are coming to us and saying, 'We need to have a technology partner,' " says Donahoe.

????eBay has long offered merchants valuable e-commerce tools -- most notably its wildly successful PayPal payments service. Donahoe has bolstered the company's wireless offerings with acquisitions such as Zong, a mobile transactions company, and RedLaser, a price-comparison app. In 2011 he orchestrated the purchase of $2.4 billion GSI Commerce, which builds and manages online shopping sites for giant retailers, and late last year the company announced a deal that will allow consumers to use PayPal at any brick-and-mortar location that accepts the Discover (DFS) card. (Imagine a clerk asking, "Cash, credit, debit, or PayPal?") The moves enable eBay to offer retailers a full suite of commerce services. They're also fueling growth: Last year eBay posted $14.1 billion in revenue, up 21% from a year earlier. The payments business, mainly PayPal, grew 26%, to $5.6 billion in revenue. eBay Marketplaces, increasingly a showcase for fixed-price items, was up a healthy 11%. Auctions, Donahoe says, "are less than 10% of what we do."

????Investors are responding enthusiastically to the new eBay -- the stock is up 70% in just the past year and has outperformed much of the tech sector, including Amazon -- and analysts say Donahoe deserves much of the credit for pulling off that rarest of feats in the tech world: a company turnaround. (The most famous tech reversals of fortune – Apple (AAPL) and IBM (IBM) -- are the stuff of legend.) "I consider Donahoe's accomplishments at eBay nothing short of amazing," says Gil Luria, a Wedbush Securities analyst. "He took an underperforming Silicon Valley giant and transformed it into a high-growth, innovative, mobile-focused technology leader." Adds venture capitalist and eBay board member Marc Andreessen: "If Steve Jobs or Mark Zuckerberg are the templates for the founder CEO, then I think John has become the template for the professional CEO."