A former PayPal executive recently pointed out that PayPal, as a division of eBay, has swelled to 7,000 employees — vastly more than it ever had as an independent concern. "What do those people do?" he asked. The growth in headcount had not led to a concomitant increase in inventiveness. Take, for example, the news, breathlessly reported by TechCrunch, that PayPal would roll out a "virtual credit card" for shopping even at stores that don't take PayPal. This would be more impressive had PayPal not rolled out the same product six years ago.

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