Meg Whitman: I grew a company, I’ll shrink the government

On Sept. 22, former eBay CEO Meg Whitman formally announced she’s running for governor of California, as a Republican. In the speech, delivered in Fullerton, California, she talked about how her business career prepared her for the job:

During the past 10 years, I was the President and CEO of eBay. I built eBay from a 30-person, $4 million dollar company, to a company of 15,000 employees and nearly $8 billion in revenues.

eBay was the culmination of my business career. It’s the place where I tested my years of experience and honed my leadership skills. But it was also much more.

At eBay, I helped millions of people create small businesses in the marketplace. I became intimately familiar with the challenges small businesses face in this country.

I came to understand that job creation is dependent on a fragile mix of circumstances—circumstances all too often disrupted by the intrusive hand of government.

And I came to love the inspired individual—a person set free to pursue his or her dreams in by an open marketplace and a free society.