The Mercury News reports today on the recent sale of stock by eBay's Chief Operating Officer. The newspaper said Maynard Webb has pocketed more than $90 million exercising and selling eBay option shares since joining the company in 1999.

eBay's out-going COO Maynard Webb

CEO Meg Whitman hired Webb to fix problems related to the severe site outages of June 1999, and said of him, "Maynard in many ways saved the company," according to the book on eBay's early history called "The Perfect Store."

eBay announced 2 months ago that Webb will step down in August. eBay will not replace him, instead, corporate technology will be jointly managed by Matt Carey, Chief Technology Officer, eBay Marketplaces, and Scott Thompson, Chief Technology Officer, PayPal.

eBay's Chief Operating Officer is not the only executive to cash in stock options. A list of insider trades for this year can be viewed online at MSN MoneyCentral (http://moneycentral.msn.com/investor/invsub/insider/trans.asp?Symbol=EBAY). Nor is Webb the only high-level executive to leave eBay this year (http://auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y06/m07/i06/s01).

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/business/15109340.htm