eBay Inc. (NASDAQ:EBAY) decided last month that it will spin off PayPal, the electronic payment unit. After hearing this decision, Marc Andreessen decided to quit eBay Inc. (NASDAQ:EBAY)’s board of directors.

Marc Andreessen, a venture capitalist as well as a pioneer from the depth of the Silicon Valley, has had arguments with Carl Icahn. Carl Icahn is of the largest shareholders of the company eBay Inc. (NASDAQ:EBAY). Incidentally, he is also the one who suggested that the company should spin off PayPal. He has publically exchanged “words” with Marc Andreessen publically. After a long campaign, Icahn finally managed to convince eBay Inc. (NASDAQ:EBAY) that PayPal should be cut from the company.

Monday, Andreessen tweeted that after 6 years of serving eBay Inc. (NASDAQ:EBAY) and the company’s final decision to spin off PayPal, he has decided to step down from his position in the board of directors. Meanwhile, Icahn could not be contacted for a comment regarding this scenario.

If you take a look at the “fights” between Icahn and Andreessen, then both had personally attacked each other at some point and that too, quite viciously. In March, Carl Icahn publicly said that Marc Andreessen had a conflict of interest with the board of directors in 2009, when the company, eBay Inc. (NASDAQ:EBAY), had decided to sell their web-based, phone service, Skype, to private companies. This also included Andreessen’s firm for venture capitalism.

Andreessen did not take this lightly. In an interview with a famous news channel, he said that Carl Icahn was an evil personality who did not care about the companies he was involved in at all. This comment was passed in an interview that occurred this month. The next day, in an interview to the same new channel, Carl Icahn personally attacked Andreessen. He said that Andreessen’s voice was so squeaky and shrill that it fell in the ultrasonic range that could only be heard by dogs. Icahn also said that Marc had wronged a lot of people – too many to count, and that he had messed up big time several times.

So eBay Inc. (NASDAQ:EBAY) has made the decision to spin off PayPal by 2015. This news is very big for the board of directors of eBay Inc. (NASDAQ:EBAY). The reason being that for many months, Icahn had tried tirelessly to convince the company that it is time for them to split from PayPal. All this time, the board of directors of the company had run their own campaign to convince the investors that the company should not split from PayPal. But now, as we can see, that Icahn has won the battle and the board of directors has agreed with him.

Andreessen is also the co-developer of Mosaic, which is a widely used web browser – one of the first. He is also a founder of Netscape Communications Corp.

As for eBay Inc. (NASDAQ:EBAY), its shares did not see much change in the premarket trade on Friday.

Get Free Updates and Stock Alerts!

*We only send one email per week