Here’s an excerpt from a note to all PayPal employees sent by eBay Inc. CEO, John Donahoe, this morning:

As you may already have seen, Yahoo! announced this morning that Scott Thompson is joining the company as CEO, effective immediately. Scott informed me Tuesday afternoon, saying that despite his passion for PayPal, this was an opportunity he felt he had to take. I know I speak for everyone in wishing Scott the best.

I will serve in the interim role as President and will be meeting with the PayPal leadership team this morning to plan a seamless transition. And while I’m sure Scott’s decision is a shock to many of you, as it was to me, there is one thing I am certain of: PayPal has an enormous opportunity in front of it and we will not slow down. We will not miss a beat. And we will continue driving the incredible momentum that each of you has helped to create.

PayPal had an outstanding 2011 and a strong close to the fourth quarter. PayPal’s vision is clear. Our strategies are set and we have a strong, focused leadership team in place. And across PayPal, we have you — an incredibly talented team, committed to creating the future of money and changing how the world shops and pays.

Let’s do it, and take this special business to the next level in 2012 and beyond.

I join John in wishing Scott all the best.

I’ll update this blog post with any new developments as they happen.

Cheers,
RBH

Here are parts 1 & 2.

Also, please be sure to check out our photos from the event on our eBay Ink Flickr page.

Cheers!
RBH

The first features eBay CEO, John Donahoe, discussing eBay’s take on Black Friday activity in the marketplace and PayPal‘s role in that. He also talks about m-commerce, and the early successes of the eBay Mobile application…

The second features PayPal president, Scott Thompson, discussing the 20% growth in PayPal traffic on Black Friday when compared to one year ago. He also discusses mobile payments:

Cheers,
RBH

You can see Scott’s intro to the conversation over on the PayPal Blog.

The conversation can be listened to here.

Cheers,
RBH

Now there are three reasons for me to visit Ireland (and this is the first that doesn’t involve beer). There’s a pretty cool blog post over on the PayPal Blog from Scott Thompson, president of PayPal, talking about the official opening of PayPal’s new European Centre of Excellence, based in the Ballycoolin Business Park in Blanchardstown, Dublin.

Scott and the team were joined by Irish prime minister, Taoiseach Brian Cowen TD and members of the Irish Development Agency for the grand opening.

Details can be found over in Scott’s blog post here.

Cheers,
RBH

PayPal is celebrating its 10-year anniversary this year and has created a website dedicated to the milestone at http://www.paypal-10.com. PayPal president, Scott Thompson, talks more about the anniversary over on the PayPal Blog

With a 10-year proven legacy, outlasting now-defunct online payment services such as C2IT, bitpass (even eBay’s own Billpoint) it’s going to be interesting to see what’s next for PayPal and for the online payment sector in general with Google, and more recently Amazon, now getting in on the act.

Regardless, congrats to everyone who has been a part of PayPal – both past and present – and I look forward to covering future accomplishments here on Ink.

Cheers,
RBH

Related Links:
PayPal 10 Year Anniversary
PayPal Celebrates 10 Years of Giving People a Safer and Easier Way to Shop Online
Amazon Launches Amazon Checkout!
Amazon eats PayPal’s Lunch Money