A bad day to be an enemy of eBay

It's not every day that seven employees of a publicly listed company plead guilty to criminal conspiracy charges—especially not a criminal conspiracy carried out on behalf of their employer.

Yet, that is exactly what happened in 2019. eBay employees intimidated a couple, David and Ina Steiner, who operated an online newsletter that, among other things, critiqued policy changes at eBay. By intimidated, I mean these eBay employees sent the couple a bloody pig mask, a funeral wreath, live cockroaches, and live spiders to their home.

This fiasco fell just short of being explicitly sanctioned by the then-CEO Devin Wenig.^[1] The most surreal evidence of this case can be found in the following quotes from the Wikipedia article:

For example, in April 2019, eBay’s chief communications officer at the time, Steve Wymer, sent Wenig a post about how outsized Wenig's compensation was compared to typical employees, adding "we are going to crush this lady." One month later Wenig texted Wymer "Take her down." Wymer allegedly took the concerns to the head of eBay's security division, Jim Baugh, whose team began harassing the Steiners at home and online. Wymer texted Baugh that Ina Steiner was a "biased troll who needs to be BURNED DOWN"; that he wanted "to see ashes"; and that Baugh should do "whatever it takes."

All of this transpired in the same year that Wenig appeared on Forbes' list of America's 100 most innovative leaders. A real pioneer indeed.