eBay's CEO shared an article a newsletter writer published about his pay. His comms chief replied "We are going to crush this lady." A month later the CEO texted "Take her down." Then eBay's security team mailed her live cockroaches, a preserved fetal pig, and a book about surviving the death of a spouse.
Ina and David Steiner ran EcommerceBytes from their home in Natick, Massachusetts. A small trade publication for online sellers. What enraged executives was the comment section, where sellers vented about the company.
The campaign went far beyond packages. eBay employees sent pornographic magazines in David's name to his neighbors. They listed the couple's home on Craigslist as a nightly destination for swingers. They flew to Boston, tailed the Steiners in rented vehicles, and planned to break into their garage to plant a GPS tracker on their car.
The Steiners began sleeping in separate bedrooms so that if someone broke in at night, one of them could escape and call police.
A Natick detective traced one rental van back to an eBay employee. That single trace unraveled the whole operation. Seven employees pled guilty to federal charges. James Baugh, the security director who ran it, got nearly five years in prison.
Now read the final ledger. Baugh, who executed the texts, went to federal prison. Devin Wenig, who sent "take her down," was never charged, denies knowing about the campaign, and left eBay in 2019 with a $57 million exit package. This week he settled for $2 million plus a $1 million donation to a First Amendment charity in Ina Steiner's name.
Steve Wymer, the comms chief who texted "I want to see ashes. As long as it takes. Whatever it takes," is paying $50,000.
The Steiners fought for seven years and got $48.7 million. The CEO's severance was bigger than their settlement.
psychiatric diagnoses and ideological positions are potemkin villages meant to serve as new identities for the atomized and alienated as the march of progress replaces their communities, traditions, histories, and family networks
Augmented Reality is the natural interface for robotics.
Not only for giving commands, but also to visualise hardware data (like LiDAR) natively in 3D.
@specs AR glasses, @UnitreeRobotics Go2 Lite quadruped, @dimensionalos OS for the robot