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

What makes eBay successful - the real value and the real power at eBay - is the community. It's the buyers and sellers coming together and forming a marketplace.

Bringing buyers and sellers together through a single platform is not a new idea - most of us know about eBay's success - but with advancing technology comes new innovative methods for businesses to connect customers with those who want to offer services.

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.

You look at the tremendous success of Facebook. To my mind there is not a lot of commerce going on in these social networking sites. eBay is a community anchored in commerce. It is a commerce site that built a community around it. What has not been proven is if the reverse can happen and people will go to community sites to do commerce.

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 think if you look at the commonalities between eBay, PayPal and OpenTable, all three are businesses that built a network in a vertical. Network effect businesses are very attractive businesses.

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

Although eBay is a fantastic tool for collectors who want to buy or sell, you really have to have knowledge of items before you embark.

I'm not saying the whole world will work this way, but with Airbnb, people are sleeping in other people's homes and other people's beds. So there's a level of trust necessary to participate that's different from an eBay or Facebook.