Andrew Mason - Groupon CEO - FIRED
- Thread starter nickCR
- Start date
Well, not taking that $6 Billion Dollar buyout offer from Google really looks like a stupid move now, doesn't it Mr Mason.
I think he made a lot more by going public? Looks like the current market cap is $3.6 B at a share price of ~ $4.50, it IPOed at over $30 lol.
Well he definitely doesn't own 100% of that company, and I guarantee he didn't sell any shares when they went public (CEOs are the last people you'll see selling shares around the IPO).
No doubt he has a lot of money to his name, but that buyout was an obvious YES that he arrogantly dismissed and now he's fired. He went from being the badass CEO who turned down Google to the jobless former executive who missed a great opportunity.
Didn't the vulture capitalists on his board veto the deal? That's what I heard anyway...
Probably because they, in typical VC ponzi scheme circle jerk fashion, wanted a new set of investors (in this case, the IPO brought in share purchasers) to buy them out at a higher valuation. Very common in the shitty internet startup world.
Everyone thinks they want to be in this world.... until they get in and realize how shitty it is for everyone involved except the VCs.
Let's put in perspective how stupid/greedy Groupon is.
$6 BILLION DOLLAR offer.
Even $1 Million is a lot of money.
$500 Million is ULTRA wealthy, enough to buy anyone literally anything for a lifetime.
Now they could have made:
$500 Million
$500 Million
$500 Million
$500 Million
$500 Million
$500 Million
$500 Million
$500 Million
$500 Million
$500 Million
$500 Million
$500 Million
Or how many millionaires could have been made?
6,000 millionaires. That's 6,000 days you would make a $1 Million dollars a day, lol.
For an "online website", a digital website...
$6 BILLION DOLLAR offer.
Even $1 Million is a lot of money.
$500 Million is ULTRA wealthy, enough to buy anyone literally anything for a lifetime.
Now they could have made:
$500 Million
$500 Million
$500 Million
$500 Million
$500 Million
$500 Million
$500 Million
$500 Million
$500 Million
$500 Million
$500 Million
$500 Million
Or how many millionaires could have been made?
6,000 millionaires. That's 6,000 days you would make a $1 Million dollars a day, lol.
For an "online website", a digital website...
You have to realize though, that at the offering of the buyout, they were hiring 20 people A DAY. They were growing like mofos, albeit at a massive burn rate. And again, in the wonderful circle jerk-y world of VC money, growth is more important than profit...until you go under.
Andrew Mason could have sold Groupon to Google for $6 mil at its peak and looked like a genius when the company started crumbling without him.
But now he looks like a stubborn pain in the ass with questionable business sense. I'm sure he'll latch onto a new company somewhere else, but he'll have nowhere near the same amount of fame/influence as if he left on top.
This is when Groupon started really looking like a terrible business model. Needing a sales team in EVERY SINGLE city shows a huge scaling problem. Especially when they never seemed to be able to put a figure on the ROI of these salesmen.
Then when they started doing Enron-style accounting of future revenues you knew it was on its way to crumbling.
But now he looks like a stubborn pain in the ass with questionable business sense. I'm sure he'll latch onto a new company somewhere else, but he'll have nowhere near the same amount of fame/influence as if he left on top.
This is when Groupon started really looking like a terrible business model. Needing a sales team in EVERY SINGLE city shows a huge scaling problem. Especially when they never seemed to be able to put a figure on the ROI of these salesmen.
Then when they started doing Enron-style accounting of future revenues you knew it was on its way to crumbling.
lettuce be reality
He's still got millions & millions of dollars
As we speak he's probably on a jet, drinking some wine, and headed to a tropical island
He no longer has the day to day stress of having to turn around a failing company
If the new CEO can turn it around he still has a lot of upside
We've all seen worse days.
He's still got millions & millions of dollars
As we speak he's probably on a jet, drinking some wine, and headed to a tropical island
He no longer has the day to day stress of having to turn around a failing company
If the new CEO can turn it around he still has a lot of upside
We've all seen worse days.
Whenever I watch an interview with someone like Mason I can't help but chuckle. Didn't really seem motivated, excited, admitted he had no biz or marketing knowledge, just kind of talked about the idea like it wasn't that special, had no enthusiasm etc.
It's funny how some of these guys create really popular businesses but they just don't seem to "get it". Does anyone else here feel the same way or get what I'm talking about?
I can't help but wonder if I'm just reading them wrong since they are developers at heart and never really wanted to create a "business" in the first place.
It's funny how some of these guys create really popular businesses but they just don't seem to "get it". Does anyone else here feel the same way or get what I'm talking about?
I can't help but wonder if I'm just reading them wrong since they are developers at heart and never really wanted to create a "business" in the first place.
He's worth around $200-$300 million so he'll be able to eat for awhile. But I think he owned around 20% of the company when Google tried to buy them out which would have made him a billionaire. Oops.
Now Groupon is worth less than half of what Google offered, and that number is going to continue to shrink because it's a shitty business model. Google must be doing the happy dance knowing they dodged that bullet.
Lefkosky was always the largest shareholder and the real brains behind the operation anyway and now he gets to run the show.
Now Groupon is worth less than half of what Google offered, and that number is going to continue to shrink because it's a shitty business model. Google must be doing the happy dance knowing they dodged that bullet.
Lefkosky was always the largest shareholder and the real brains behind the operation anyway and now he gets to run the show.