How an employee secretly recruited a team to fly to Sydney and redesign eBay’s homepage, without the direct signoff of the CEO:

But now, in that cab at the airport, the manic high had for a moment worn off, and Abraham was suddenly facing reality. The reality was his plan had a few problems.

Abraham listed them off in his head. For starters, almost no one at eBay knew what he was up to — including Donahoe himself. It was unclear who was going to pay for the trip. Abraham had gotten the six tickets to Sydney through eBay’s travel service, but technically, he’d never actually gotten approval. As for the rest of the trip’s costs, his plan was to foot the bill and then expense it. Maybe they’d sign off, maybe they wouldn’t.

Then there was the little matter of where he and his team would sleep. There was a possible Airbnb apartment, but no confirmation.

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