As eBay’s Meg Whitman becomes co-chair of Sen. John McCain’s national campaign, she talks to our Lesley Stahl about retiring from the business world and about her future. The following is part V of a VII-part, exclusive interview that took place on Tuesday, March 11. To read the entire interview, click the links at the end of the article.

LESLEY: Can we ask you a little bit about your personal life?

MEG: Sure.

LESLEY: And I want to tell you something, because I’ve already read up on you and there is a very interesting parallel between you and me. That is, you were pre-med. When you were at Princeton you were working toward being a doctor.

MEG: Correct.

LESLEY: Organic chemistry did you in.

MEG: Correct.

LESLEY: OK. So pre-med went away. And you married a doctor.

MEG: Correct.

LESLEY: Same story. I have identical –

MEG: Is that right?

LESLEY: Identical. Some day you and I will sit down and talk about this. But here’s what I’m interested in: you married a brilliant brain surgeon, right?

MEG: Correct.

LESLEY: He was really chugging along in his career. He was head of the brain program at Mass General Hospital, maybe the …

MEG: Correct.

LESLEY: … finest hospital in the world.

MEG: The abbreviation is MGH – Man’s Greatest Hospital.

LESLEY: OK. Perfect. Exactly. But now your career started to take off and I wonder what happened with him? Did he move with you? Did he give up his job to move with you? How did that dynamic work and how has it played out?

MEG: We have been a dual-career couple since the day we got married, which was June 7, 1980, and have really traded off opportunities over the years. And you will relate to this, Lesley. You know, for the first 10 or 15 years, we used to say that we took turns sabotaging each others’ careers. Because when someone would get traction doing something, then the other one would say, "Oh, I’ve got a great opportunity in Los Angeles or Boston or whatever." But when I was offered the eBay job, my husband was running the brain tumor program at the Mass General and I was at Hasbro down in Rhode Island. And we had a great life in Boston. He loved his job. I loved being at Hasbro. I worked on Mr. Potato Head and some other fun brands.

LESLEY: Claim to fame.

MEG: Yes, exactly. And I got this job and I came back to Boston and I said, "Griff, I really think that we should move to California. I think this is going to be the opportunity of a lifetime. We loved living in California. It’d be great to raise the boys in a more technology-oriented environment." And Griff was, at first, a little skeptical. He said, "Well, how about you go out there and see how it goes?" And I said, "No, no, no, no. We have to do this as a family because I will not be successful if I’m separated from you and the boys." And he said, "Alright." And I said, "So, what do you think we ought to do?" And he said, "Well, I will call out to California and see if there are any jobs." And as fate would have it, the head of the neurosurgery department said, "Actually we have the perfect job for you. It’s the head of the brain tumor program at Stanford. It’s an opening in brain tumors," which is what my husband does. "And I know your reputation and we would be delighted if you applied. And, if you want it, I think there’s a good chance you can get this job." It never happens like that, Lesley.

LESLEY: I was going to say, you have the most golden life I’ve ever heard about. What woman, who gets this great job, her husband loves what he’s doing, says, "Let’s move." And he says, "Fine," and gets a job as good. That doesn’t happen in the real world.

MEG: It was one of those things – and I’m a big believer, actually, that things happen for a reason. It was one of those things where the stars aligned. And so we moved out to California with two new jobs, two new schools for the kids. We moved from a lovely 10,000 sq. ft. brick Georgian house in Brookline, to Oak Creek Apartments across from Stanford Medical School. And that’s because I took a huge cut in pay.

LESLEY: You did? You took a huge cut in pay from Hasbro? But you weren’t running Hasbro?

MEG: No, no, no, no. But I was the president of the preschool division. And when you came to dot-com companies, pre-IPO, you actually took a huge cut in pay. I went from close to a million dollars to actually $100,000 when I joined eBay.

LESLEY: Oh, my God.

MEG: And so we didn’t want to take on the responsibility for a house. We moved to Oak Creek Apartments into a two-bedroom apartment. And the fun part about this was that the second bedroom was actually smaller than the walk-in closet for the master bedroom. And so our 13-year-old lived in the master bedroom walk-in closet for the year. It was one of those … you know, it was one of those great things, Lesley, where we were together as a family in a tiny little space. It was, you know, one of those things where you think it’s going to be bad but it actually has some really good outcome.

LESLEY: But these were teenage boys, right?

MEG: They were 13 and 10.

LESLEY: Oh, 13 and 10. OK. But still – I said this while you were telling your story – you have this golden life. Things work out. You take this gigantic cut in salary and now you’re one of the richest women in the world, because you took the gamble. Your husband moved with you. No one has a life like that. What are you doing? What are you doing that brings you this … what is it? The mantel of heaven, I think.

MEG: I have no idea, Lesley. You just try to do the right thing. You try to make it work for everybody. And frankly I would not have moved had Griff not gotten a job out here. I wouldn’t have. Because, you know, moving across the country with a young family … I mean, you just can’t do it. Right? And so, when he was working at Harvard, he had a full-time – more than a full-time – job. So, sometimes things happen for a reason. You’re supposed to be where you’re supposed to be at a certain point in time. And that’s the only thing I can chalk it up to.

Meg Whitman on What’s Next After eBay (Part I)
Meg Whitman: ‘Oh, Gosh. People Put Up Anything You Can Imagine’ (Part II)
Meg Whitman on ‘Security 101’: ‘Consumers Deserve to Know’ (Part III)
Meg Whitman: ‘I Think It’s Better, but We’ve Got a Long Way to Go’ (Part IV)
Meg Whitman: ‘Glam, She’s Not?’ (Part VI)
Meg Whitman on Running a Household and Thoughts on the Economy (Part VII)