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Guess what? The world changes. eBay has defined e-commerce.

I spend far too much time on eBay buying lamps and upholstery remnants.

When I started eBay, it was a hobby, an experiment to see if people could use the Internet to be empowered through access to an efficient market. I actually wasn't thinking about it in terms of a social impact.

eBay started with a core focus on the collector. At the time of its S-1, six or seven percent of its total sales were Beanie Babies.

In February of 1996, about six months after I created eBay, I started receiving a spate of complaints. Everyone was complaining about each other. I felt very much like I was a parent who had to adjudicate the brothers beating each other up.

eBay's business is based on enabling someone to do business with another person, and to do that, they first have to develop some measure of trust, either in the other person or the system.

When we talk about the things at Airbnb that are challenging and that they are going to have to overcome, the parallels with eBay are across the board. It's community management. It's making sure the marketplace is in balance - the right amount of buyers and sellers.

I don't know that I've ever bought anything online. I'm about 10 years behind the technological curve, I think.

As much as people are griping about the Internet taking sales away from artists, it's been a huge promotional tool for me.

EBay is a great company. There are a lot of good assets and good customers, and the U.S. people love it.