eBay appoints Netscape co-founder Andreessen to board

SAN JOSE, Calif. eBay has appointed Marc Andreessen to its board of directors, effective immediately. An entrepreneur, investor and blogger, Andreessen’s current focus is Ning, a new consumer Internet company founded in late 2004 that is building a next-generation platform for social networking.

“Marc is a true visionary whose experience will be invaluable to eBay,” said president and ceo John Donahoe. “We look forward to learning from Marc’s insights and expertise as we drive further innovation on our platform, invest in growth opportunities and develop technology that will further benefit our customers, build powerful communities and enhance e-commerce.”

Prior to Ning, Andreessen co-founded Opsware (formerly known as Loudcloud) and Netscape. Opsware, which created the datacenter automation software market, was acquired by Hewlett-Packard in 2007. Netscape, which was founded in 1994, pioneered commercial Internet and invented or co-invented such technologies as Javascript, SSL and RSS, and helped Internet standards such as HTML, HTTP, Java, SMTP, IMPA and LDAP become commercially mainstream. Netscape was acquired in 1998 by America Online. Andreessen subsequently served as AOL's chief technology officer until September 1999.

In addition to founding and leading successful public companies, Andreessen also has served as an angel investor and advisor to startups. Some of his current and prior investments include Digg, Del.icio.us, Twitter, Qik, Aliph/Jawbone, LinkedIn, Meebo, Netvibes, Outside.in, Revision 3, Fon, Funny or Die, Scribd and Wikia. Andreessen received a bachelor's degree in Computer Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

In addition to eBay, he currently serves on the boards of Facebook, Stanford Hospital in Palo Alto, Calif., and Room to Read in San Francisco.