Groupon Still Losing Money, CEO Is Fired And Leaks Final Email

New submitter Inzkeeper writes with news that the CEO of Groupon met the axe today: "Groupon CEO Andrew Mason made public an email he sent to Groupon employees. He takes responsibility for the company's downturn, expresses his appreciation for his staff, and wishes them well. 'For those who are concerned about me, please don't be — I love Groupon, and I'm terribly proud of what we've created. I'm OK with having failed at this part of the journey. If Groupon was Battletoads, it would be like I made it all the way to the Terra Tubes without dying on my first ever play through.'" Despite increased revenues, they are still losing about $81 million each quarter, and Wall Street needs blood.

Comments

For those who are concerned about me

[Ripp]

I bet most stopped right there.

Re: For those who are concerned about me

[multiben]

Harsh. It may be convenient to group people into nice neat categories eg. "All CEOs are terrible people with no feelings", but in reality the world is a much more varied place.

Re: For those who are concerned about me

[Anne Thwacks]

I have no idea what the CEO is like, but from the first time I saw one of their promotions, I thought this is a really bad concept, and I would not invest a bean in it.

On the other end...

[zoffdino]

There's a company that pumped the highest profit in a quarter without pumping oil. Massive cash pile, no debt. And Wall Street continues to punish it. Wall Street wants bloods.

They should have taken the $6B from Google

[cryfreedomlove]

2 years ago Google offered $5B to $6B to buy Groupon. Groupon turned them down and today their market cap is $3B. Oops.

Re:They should have taken the $6B from Google

[the_humeister]

I'm not sure that's really what happened. I'll bet it's more like Google looked at their books, said "WTF???" and let Groupon "back away" from the deal to save face.

Re:Soooooo

[CastrTroy]

The thing is, they could probably stand to make a lot of money if they weren't quite so predatory. I think that for the most part, the people who bought the groupons were quite happy. However, the businesses who offered the groupons often got shafted. I'm sure they could easily change the way they they deal with businesses to make sure they have a much better experience. For instance, most of the time they push for no limits on the number of coupons sold. Instead, there should always be a limit, because most businesses aren't set up to handle the amount of business that Groupon could send to them. Groupon would still make money off the deal, and would probably even have some repeat business.

Re:If Groupon was Battletoads

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I'm pretty sure that 'being CEO of a company built on skimming a percentage of the profits from businesses willing to lose money and make it up in volume' is epic trolling on a scale that most trolls will never even be able to dream of...

Re:If Groupon was Battletoads

[guttentag]

If Groupon was Battletoads, it would be short-lived, fictitious, and not popular with today's consumers. Maybe Groupon is Battletoads.

Re:If Groupon was Battletoads

[reverseengineer]

The analogy between Battletoads and Groupon goes even deeper. Just as Battletoads had an infamous bug that prevented Player 2 from completing Level 11 (they would just sit motionless until they lost all their lives), Groupon looks like in the near future it will be stuck in Chapter 11.

Re:His problem is that they're too small

[Dahamma]

Or more accurately, they are getting boned because EVERYONE has a competing service. Barrier to entry on this concept is near zero.