Source: Maribel Bylund That's right -- eBay's seemingly irrational behavior is a direct result of activist investor Carl Icahn's heavy pressure on the company. A year ago, Icahn had put together a 0.8% ownership stake in eBay and started pushing for strategy changes. The company refused to take his advice, so Icahn bought more shares and tried again. By October, eBay had already decided to spin out its PayPal online payments service, but Icahn owned 2.5% of the company and insisted management think about selling that operation to some cash-rich tech giant instead.