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Rank: 31
Why He Matters: You won't find his name on eBay's senior management roster, but Isaacs is critical to the growth prospects of the $4.6 billion company, which is increasingly threatened by competition from the likes of Amazon, Craigslist, Google, Swaptree, and countless other online discounters and marketplaces. Isaacs's job is to make eBay as indispensable to the Web at large as, say, Google Maps. But to do that, he first had to persuade eBay's brass to open up its auction database so outside software developers could build business-to-business tools and consumer-friendly widgets around it. He won that battle late last year, and several startups have already sprung up with new services built around eBay auction data. As a result, the number of eBay listings funneled through third-party applications is up 11 percent from last quarter. So-called network effects made eBay the dominant player in online auctions. Now, thanks to Isaacs's efforts to expand the reach of the company's network, eBay hopes to stay that way.Greg Isaacs Director of developer relations, eBay |
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