Rich as Croesus, take 2.

King Croesus of Lydia, born in 595BC, introduced one of the most important innovations of the ancient Greece: minted gold and silver coins. Riding the growth of Greek commerce enabled by a new standard way to exchange value in the market, the king and his city-state became rich and famous. Today, EBay aims to imitate Croesus's success with PayPal's digital coinage:

"PayPal is a business that will be bigger than eBay," CEO John Donahoe said in a talk at the Fortune Brainstorm: Tech conference here. However, he said that shift will take four to six years.

"We need to evolve on an auctions site to an e-commerce site."