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Meg Whitman Biography Quotes 31 Report mistakes

31 Quotes
Occup.Businessman
FromUSA
BornAugust 4, 1956
Age69 years
Early Life and Education
Margaret Cushing "Meg" Whitman was born on August 4, 1956, in Cold Spring Harbor, New York, and grew up on Long Island. She attended Princeton University, where she studied economics and graduated in 1977. Seeking to deepen her understanding of management and markets, she went on to Harvard Business School, earning an MBA in 1979. The combination of a liberal arts foundation at Princeton and quantitative, case-driven training at Harvard shaped the pragmatic, data-focused approach that defined her later leadership roles.

Early Career and Management Formation
Whitman began her career in brand management at Procter & Gamble in Cincinnati, a classic proving ground for consumer-focused executives. She then joined Bain & Company, where she advised companies across industries and developed a diagnostic style grounded in analysis and operational detail. In 1989, she moved to The Walt Disney Company as vice president of strategic planning, working during the tenure of CEO Michael Eisner as Disney expanded its media and parks portfolio. The Disney period exposed her to large-scale brand stewardship and the complexities of global entertainment businesses.

In the mid-1990s, Whitman transitioned to a series of top operating roles. From 1995 to 1997, she served as chief executive of Florists' Transworld Delivery (FTD), leading the storied network through modernization and an early embrace of online commerce. She then joined Hasbro, managing its Preschool division, including Playskool, where she honed product, licensing, and retail execution skills as the toy business confronted shifting consumer trends. These assignments placed her close to the front lines of marketing, supply chains, and turnarounds, and they set the stage for her move to Silicon Valley at the dawn of the consumer internet.

eBay and the Scaling of Online Marketplaces
In 1998, Whitman was recruited by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar to become president and chief executive officer of the young online auction company. She arrived as eBay prepared to go public and was tasked with translating a fast-growing community into a durable platform. Working alongside early leaders such as Omidyar and co-founder Jeff Skoll, she instituted systems for trust and safety, payments, customer support, and seller standards, converting a grassroots marketplace into a global business.

Under Whitman's leadership, eBay broadened beyond collectibles and auctions to fixed-price formats and international markets. She steered major acquisitions that shaped the company and the wider internet economy, including PayPal in 2002, integrating the payments service to reduce friction across transactions with executives such as Peter Thiel and Max Levchin among the prominent figures in the PayPal cohort. She also led eBay into communications with the acquisition of Skype in 2005 and expanded into ticketing with StubHub in 2007. Although eBay later sold a majority of Skype after her tenure, the acquisitions captured the ambition of her strategy to embed eBay deeper into the fabric of online commerce. In 2008, she stepped down, and John Donahoe succeeded her as CEO. By then, eBay had become one of the most recognized brands on the web, and Whitman was known as a builder of large-scale platforms.

Politics and Public Profile
After leaving eBay, Whitman entered public life in California. In 2010 she ran as the Republican candidate for governor, facing former governor Jerry Brown. The campaign, one of the most visible statewide contests in the country that year, foregrounded economic issues, fiscal stewardship, and job creation, drawing on her business credentials. She ultimately lost the race but remained a prominent voice in policy and civic discussions. In subsequent years, she became notable for bipartisan endorsements during presidential campaigns, reflecting a pragmatic streak that emphasized institutional stability and economic competitiveness over party orthodoxy.

Hewlett-Packard and the HPE Transformation
In 2011, Whitman joined Hewlett-Packard as chief executive during a period of intense turbulence following the tenure of Leo Apotheker. She stabilized the company, addressed legacy challenges, and set a long-term plan to simplify operations and focus portfolios. Working with leaders across the enterprise, including board chair Ray Lane and finance chief Cathie Lesjak, she pursued restructuring to improve execution and rebuild investor confidence.

A defining decision came in 2015, when Whitman oversaw the separation of Hewlett-Packard into two companies: HP Inc., focused on personal systems and printing, and Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), focused on servers, networking, storage, and services. She became CEO of HPE, sharpening its strategy around hybrid cloud, edge computing, and enterprise solutions. In early 2018 she stepped down as HPE chief executive and was succeeded by Antonio Neri. The split and ensuing focus gave both companies strategic clarity, and Whitman left a reputation for making difficult, structural calls designed to align organizations with future markets.

Entrepreneurship and Quibi
Whitman returned to the startup realm when she partnered with media executive Jeffrey Katzenberg to launch Quibi, a mobile-first video service. As chief executive, she led a rapid build-out of teams, product, and content partnerships. Quibi launched in 2020, just as the pandemic reshaped consumer habits, and struggled to gain traction. Leadership announced a shutdown later that year, and Whitman managed an orderly wind-down and asset sale. The experience underscored both her willingness to take risks in new media formats and the unforgiving dynamics of digital entertainment.

Diplomacy and Service as U.S. Ambassador to Kenya
In 2021, President Joe Biden nominated Whitman to serve as United States ambassador to Kenya. Following Senate confirmation in 2022, she presented her credentials in Nairobi and began work on a portfolio that spanned trade, security cooperation, health partnerships, and digital economy initiatives. Drawing on her private-sector background, she engaged Kenya's government and business community, including collaboration with President William Ruto after his election, to deepen investment and entrepreneurship ties. She also promoted programs in innovation, women-led enterprises, and youth employment, positioning the embassy as a connector between U.S. capital and Kenyan talent.

Boards, Philanthropy, and Civic Engagement
Alongside her executive roles, Whitman has served on the boards of major companies, including Procter & Gamble and Goldman Sachs, and on various nonprofit boards. She and her husband, neurosurgeon Griffith Harsh, have been active philanthropists in education and public service. Their most visible contribution to Princeton University helped establish Whitman College, a residential community that expanded student housing and fostered interdisciplinary life on campus. The gift reflected her belief in the formative role of universities in innovation and civic leadership.

Leadership Style and Legacy
Whitman's leadership is often characterized by operational rigor, metrics-driven decision making, and attention to the customer experience. At eBay, she championed community standards and trust mechanisms that were foundational to online marketplaces. At Hewlett-Packard and Hewlett Packard Enterprise, she made strategic choices that addressed structural realities rather than chasing short-term optics, even when those choices involved significant restructuring. Her career also highlights collaboration with influential figures across sectors: building with Pierre Omidyar and Jeff Skoll in the early internet; navigating post-merger complexities alongside technologists such as Peter Thiel and Max Levchin after PayPal joined eBay; contending with policy heavyweights like Jerry Brown in electoral politics; and coordinating with public leaders including President Joe Biden and President William Ruto in diplomacy.

Whitman's path from consumer goods and consulting to Silicon Valley, corporate turnarounds, a statewide campaign, a media startup, and an ambassadorship is unusual in its range. It illustrates how core management disciplines can translate across industries and how public and private sectors intersect in shaping economies. Through successes and setbacks, she has remained a consequential figure in business and public service, with a legacy tied to the rise of online commerce, the reshaping of an American technology icon, and a late-career commitment to international engagement.

Our collection contains 31 quotes who is written by Meg, under the main topics: Leadership - Deep - Change - Decision-Making - Work.
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31 Famous quotes by Meg Whitman

"Well, California used to be in the dream-making business, and unfortunately what's happened I think we're now in the dream-breaking business"
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"Communications is at the heart of e-commerce and community"
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"When people use your brand name as a verb, that is remarkable"
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"One good thing about California is we have quite a broad-based economy. We provide more fruits and vegetables and produce to the United States than any other state. So we have actually the single largest agricultural sector in the country"
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"My view is that, just as in many businesses, brands really matter. There will always be a role for destination sites. Eighty million users come to our destination. I think that will be the vast majority of our future business"
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"It is very clear that voice communications is moving on to the Internet. In the end, the price that anyone can provide for voice transmission on the Net will trend toward zero"
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"For me, the international expansion of eBay was the best idea. We are now in 35 countries, and have a huge global network. The second best one was the acquisition of PayPal - the wallet on eBay"
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"You know, in a workplace, when you shrink the size of a workforce, there is pain there. But there is no question: we have a government that we can no longer afford.That is the cold, hard fact. So we have to make this more efficient. We have to sunset programs that no longer work. We have to eliminate waste and fraud. We must do this"
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"Regulation is strangling businesses of all sizes in California, and we've got to streamline regulation so it's easy, not hard, to do business"
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"You know, I think, people of all stripes in California, Republicans, Democrats, conservatives, liberals, frankly, as I have traveled the state, the number one issue is jobs. And they are looking for which candidate can get the economy back on track"
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"I'm not a career politician. I spent 30 years in business. I can tell you that people in California have had it with career politicians: they are done"
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"I got to get the right people in the right job. Because a lot of costs can be taken out in the context of your administration without the legislature.For example, using technology to do more with less. Using technology to fight fraud. Reorganizing and streamlining can be done within the context of the administration"
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"Guess what? The world changes. eBay has defined e-commerce"
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"You know, I like to think that I will subscribe very much to the core Republican principles of small government. Making a small number of rules and getting out of the way. Keeping taxes low. Creating an environment for small businesses to grow and thrive"
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"We can put our head in the sand and continue to lose jobs overseas and to other states, or we can say, 'You know what? We are not going to lose another job from California, and we're going to be the very best place to start and grow a business.' So I'll be the chief sales officer for California businesses"
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"Sometimes it's a little bit like being a politician. We have work to do in understanding our users' sentiments"
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"Look at growth, look at how much time people spend on the Net and look at the variety of things that they are doing. It's all really good, so I am actually encouraged by the fundamentals that underlie usage growth on the Net"
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"We have always said that advertising is just the icing on the cake. It is not the cake"
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"Most of us can't even begin to imagine"
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"Because what happens is, as the economy suffers, tax revenues go down. But unlike businesses, where at least your variable costs go down, in government your variable costs go up: unemployment insurance, workmen's compensation, health care benefits, welfare, you name it"
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"Because if you don't have a great workforce, a great higher education system, you're not going to have the next eBay, the next AmGen, the next, you know, Miasole, and not only California but America is going to fall behind a whole new competitive context which is obviously China, India, and other countries"
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"I want to work with the teachers' union. But as I said out there, we have to put the kids first and we are letting down a generation of California children. It's not acceptable"
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"I think we can be the very best place to start a business, to grow a business, to invent a new technology, to change the world, to change the country. But we've got a lot of work to deliver a new California to the people of California"
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"I have run large organizations, I know what it takes to create a healthy business climate, and I have more experience than Jerry Brown doing that. So it'll be a stark contrast, a career politician vs. someone who has met a payroll, gotten a return on investment, knows how to use technology to do more with less"
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"I answer that question by saying: 'Why Meg Whitman' which is: I'm not a career politician. I spent 30 years in business. I can tell you that people in California have had it with career politicians: they are done"
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"I want to spend 100 percent of my time focused on what I think I can make the biggest difference on as the governor of California"
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"I think maybe it is about time for a governor who has created jobs, who's managed a budget, who's led and inspired large organizations, who listens well, and who can drive an agenda"
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"And I want to be able to - you know, make Republicans and Democrats famous for keeping jobs in California"
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"What's sort of interesting about the whole public relations disaster that is the Net, in some ways, is that the fundamentals are really good"
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"You can't stand for too many things. You can't use the bully pulpit for too many things. So, I promise you, every day, I am going to talk about jobs, spending, and education"
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"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"
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