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

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the can't-even-use-the-subjunctive dept.

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.

1 of 207 comments (clear)

  1. Re:They should have taken the $6B from Google by rudy_wayne · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

    That's a very real possibility. Another possibility is that Andrew Mason really did turn down Google's offer because he knew it would kill his scam. Google isn't just going to walk in and hand them a check for $6 Billion. There's a lot of "due diligence".

    Groupon was cooking the books, losing money but showing profitability. Mason was probably worried that if word got out that Google killed the deal because of what they found, Groupon would be tainted and that could put a serious damper on their IPO.

    Don't cry for Andrew Mason, the fired CEO. Thanks to Groupon's IPO he leaves a pretty wealthy guy. Which is what this was really all about all along.