Not sure how to even begin, but at this moment… right now, I’m seating in a chair in LA working at a company called Green Dot Corp. Thats right, I’ve moved from my comfy Bay Area where I spend the majority of my life (650 no more!) as well as my beloved eBay.
The reason that I havent been diligent with responding to emails or writing is because I’ve spent the last month moving, interviewing, turning on/off utilities, apartment hunting/leasing, and even taking a little bit of a vacation. Sometimes life throws you curve balls, and you roll with the punches and keep on going. . . well this is that time.
For various reasons (personal and otherwise) I’ve moved down to LA and started working at Green Dot in the product management group. The company provides financial services and payment products to the underbanked and underpreviledged. It has a socially conscious mission statement similar to that of eBay (empowerment, independence, level playing field). And is one of the largest providers of prepaid debit cards in the U.S. (shameless plug. . .pick one up at your local drug store!).
So its officially true, the web 2.0 craze must be legitimate because I have decided against jumping into the game. (The last time I jumped into the dot-com craze, 18 month later, the top was reached 
). And yes, Green Dot is as far away from web 2.0 (in practice but not in ethos) as you can get.
Come to think of it, I never had much interactions with the early adopters . . . from working for Frank Quattrone (:)), selling internet solutions to the construction industry, to eBay, and now to serving the under-banked; I’ve pretty much made a career of selling/making/designing technology solutions to people who doesnt really want it (atleast initially). So I guess the whole web 2.0 stuff is not really me any ways despite my stupid posturing?
As for eBay, I will miss everyone dearly. And I will miss a project that I nutured from an idea to a deck to a team of revolutionaries. . . a project that I guarantee will change the landscape of e-commerce one more time (more stupid hype from me:)) . . . One thing about eBay that I’ve learned is that its people is comfortable being under-estimated (not your typical ego driven valley types) while quietly changing the world. The world, on the other hand, seems to under-estimate its innovation while over-estimating the general publics appetitie for technology . . . Living in that intersection is what made eBay special and different and why its future is STILL limitless.
Enough about me so what does this mean for the blog?
Well, I’m gonna continue to blog for sure. The name of the blog wont change either. But I’ll be blogging more about the “626″ and about the payments/finance industry (which is under going a huge shift perhaps larger in magnitude than web 2.0).
And I’m going to beg Jason not to take me off Best of eBay Blogs.
