Groupon Still Losing Money, CEO Is Fired And Leaks Final Email 207
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.
Yes! (Score:5, Interesting)
Let's see, a company who cons small business into bad decisions by taking advantage of their inability to quickly do an ROI and assess risk, is themselves falling ill to their unmitigated growth and overhead.
How much could it cost to run a company that just sells coupons?
Re:They should have taken the $6B from Google (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.
Re:Soooooo (Score:2, Interesting)
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.
Even if Groupon were less "predatory" it's still a bad deal for businesses. Businesses are losing money on every sale that uses a Groupon based on the hope that it will generate repeat business. But a couple of years experience with Groupon has shown that it just doesn't happen.
People go in, get their good deal, and then move on to the next deal. That's not theory or opinion, those are the words of the many business owners who lost a lot of money dealing with Groupon.
Re:If Groupon was Battletoads (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:On the other end... (Score:3, Interesting)
Since you replied to the AC only to say you won't answer ACs, I'll reply logged in. Just for you.
Apple's fucked. They have no future. Their latest iPhone was a large "meh." It wasn't a flop, but it certainly wasn't the success that earlier versions were.
Samsung, on the other hand, is showing impressive growth in that sector. Apple pissed off Samsung and lost their best supplier of quality parts. As a result, all Apple products that were using Samsung parts are now much, much worse. The new "retinal MacBook" has screens that have a "burn in" problem and apparently tint horribly pink.
There's no hotly anticipated Apple release on the horizon. No one really cares what the next iPad will be. Every other tablet on the market meets its standard. The lackluster iPhone 5 release means no one cares about the next iPhone either. Apparently Apple still makes computers, but no one who isn't an Apple fan cares about those.
Where's the future for Apple? Unless they announce something big real soon now, Wall Street is absolutely right to dump them. Google Glass is going to release soon (maybe), what's Apple's answer to that?
That's because it wouldn't have happened (Score:4, Interesting)
See with a buyout offer, there's a lot too it. It isn't like when Google says "We'll give you $6 billion," that is final, that if Groupon says "Ok," Google has to hand over a check and it is done. No, rather it is the first step. Next step is the lawyers get together to draft some NDA type stuff, and then Google gets to go over what happens in the company. They get to look at the financials, the operations, all that shit. They get to have a real good look at what they are going to buy. Only if they are then happy, does it go on to a formal offer and then cash changing hands if that is signed.
What Groupon knew would happen is Google would have a look at their books and realize they weren't making money, and had no plan as to how to. Google would then say "Ya, I'm thinking: no," and back out. That would screw over any IPO because people would ask "Well hang on, what did Google see that was wrong?"
They figured, correctly, that if they just went public they could pull a fast one on people and get some cash. It appears they were right.
Re: For those who are concerned about me (Score:5, Interesting)
He had an idea and marketed it well. Then had an IPO where he gained hundreds of millions of real dollars in real money for the phantom value of a business that didn't work. Now that he's got the money he departs with a smile having been fired rather than quit so it's not his fault if it all goes horribly awry now since it wasn't of his own volition and his story can be it might have survived if only it had followed his secret plan.
We ought to call this one the "clean and jerk". It's becoming a standard model. Some manage to repeat the process multiple times, like AOL.
Re: For those who are concerned about me (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Good CEOs have to put the company above their personal feelings. If they can't do this they will strangle their company to death by making terrible decisions. On some level being a terrible person is part of the job.
I've worked in a company where the CEO could not separate his personal feelings from work duties. When the money ran out he could not cut costs anywhere, he could not even retire off staff that got to retirement age. All his so called friends got lazy and only looked out for their own interests because they knew they could get away with it. If you were there you would love a good old fashioned sociopath CEO, at least they will fire 5 people to save 50.
Re: For those who are concerned about me (Score:4, Interesting)
Empathy and calculated reason are not mutually exclusive.
I manage a pretty large team, and work in turn for a guy who is far better than I am - I tend toward "nice", whereas this guy is best described as "lawful neutral". He's punctiliously fair, weighs the needs of the company and the overall population of employees with those of the individuals, and while he will give people a chance, does not brook avoidable failure.
I am learning a shitload from the guy, but understand that he'd drop me at a moment's notice - and that is okay. He's completely transparent about this, not in a threatening way, just very matter-of-factly because it's what he needs to do to keep the organization running successfully. We all know this and in turn do our best.
It's not black or white - "nice" vs. "utilitarian". Proper balance is everything.