Review: The Perfect Store: Inside eBay.

Speaking of eBay, I just finished this book this weekend. A somewhat interesting read, but I only recommend the book if you're already pretty damn interested in eBay. I was only from a web industry perspective. I've only used the service minimally (never sold anything), but I'm usually fascinated by business-building stories. I don't know if this one just wasn't well-told or the company just isn't that interesting, but I wasn't riveted. The overall impressions I got were that the company was started by an idealist who had excellent timing and did some things right, mostly by intuition and paying a lot of attention to the community, they made a lot of money, went public, changed the world for collectibles and many other cottage industries (and is in the process of changing more), lost some of its soul to the pressures of being public, and now are basically good (as opposed to evil), massive, and getting more boring. (And they'll probably suck the life out of PayPal.)