Venture capitalist Marc Andreessen has stepped down from the eBay Inc (NASDAQ:EBAY) board of directors after serving for six years, he announced today on his Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) account, shortly ahead of the official press release.
“After 6 years of service + completed decision to split, I’ve decided now is a good time to step off the eBay Board of Directors,” wrote Andreessen, referring to the decision to spin off PayPal. “It’s been an absolute privilege to serve with John, Pierre, and team, and I could not be more proud of what we’ve accomplished. I wish eBay, and both of its successor companies, all the best in the years to come & will seek to continue to help as much as I can.”
Andreessen leaves on good terms with eBay management
Andreessen is leaving on good terms, with eBay Inc (NASDAQ:EBAY) president and CEO John Donahue praising his contributions in the press release, and even though the company took a beating during the financial crisis along with everyone else, its stock price has rebounded and is well above pre-crisis levels so shareholders shouldn’t be reasonably happy as well.
But there’s at least one major shareholder who will be happy to see Andreessen out the door after months of alleging that Andreessen’s conflicts of interests made him unsuitable to serve on the board.
Icahn-Andreessen feud hasn’t died down
While neither he nor Donahue mentioned it in their statements, you can’t help but notice that Andreessen is leaving after months of defending his reputation from Carl Icahn, who accused Andreessen of using his position to take advantage of other shareholders during eBay Inc’s (NASDAQ:EBAY) sale of Skype, which was ultimately resold to Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) for a substantial profit. eBay has said that it was aware of the conflict at the time and that Andreessen didn’t take part in those negotiation.
Andreessen has hit back just as often, most recently comparing Icahn to the Evil Captain Kirk in an interview. You might have expected the feud to die down now that Icahn is getting what he wants, but since that clearly isn’t happening Andreessen may have simply decided that he’d rather spend his time doing something else while Icahn is trying to get the most value out of the upcoming PayPal spin-off.
