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.
For those who are concerned about me (Score:5, Insightful)
I bet most stopped right there.
Re: For those who are concerned about me (Score:5, Informative)
He is the founder, and probably know a lot of people therr personally.
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Funny, but I am reminded of the old joke... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Funny, but I am reminded of the old joke... (Score:5, Informative)
I don't know anything about him, but it was the best CEO firing letter ever.
After four and a half intense and wonderful years as CEO of Groupon, I've decided that I'd like to spend more time with my family. Just kidding - I was fired today. If you're wondering why... you haven't been paying attention.
and
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. I am so lucky to have had the opportunity to take the company this far with all of you. I'll now take some time to decompress (FYI I'm looking for a good fat camp to lose my Groupon 40, if anyone has a suggestion), and then maybe I'll figure out how to channel this experience into something productive.
I'm sure he made plenty of cash and now is a good time to get the hell away from GroupOn, toxic as it is.
Re: For those who are concerned about me (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: For those who are concerned about me (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: For those who are concerned about me (Score:5, Funny)
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.
what if we give you 50% off the second bean's worth
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, Insightful)
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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.
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If you were there you would love a good old fashioned sociopath CEO, at least they will fire 5 people to save 50.
Except that the good old fashioned sociopath CEO would never have reached this point in the first place. He'd have fired the 50 long ago to pad out his golden parachute and long since jumped ship.
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CEOs, like politicians, usually start out as normal, everyday friendly, well meaning people. It is just the system that corrupts them.
"When You Dance With the Devil, the Devil Don't Change - the Devil Changes You"
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maybe they should look for a CEO with at least a tenuous connection to reality.
Good luck with that.
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For those who are concerned about me
Personally, I would reserve judgement until I know what his severance package is. If he left without one, then I might be concerned. If he was given a few million in cash/stock before he left, then there is hardly any reason to worry, is there?
It's not that CEOs don't get fired, it's that they often make more money by being fired then they do by working.
Re: For those who are concerned about me (Score:5, Informative)
His severance package is $378.36 [cnn.com]. not $378 thousand or $378 million, Three Hundred and Seventy Eight dollars and Thirty Six cents.
Re: For those who are concerned about me (Score:5, Funny)
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Yeah, that totally sucks. Course, he can probably just cruise for awhile on the $200+ million in stock he's got...
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Or even if all that disappeared he might be able to barely squeak by with the $30M he already cashed out...
His problem is that they're too small (Score:5, Funny)
You need to be big like Amazon to lose money like that.
Re:His problem is that they're too small (Score:5, Funny)
Re:His problem is that they're too small (Score:5, Insightful)
Or more accurately, they are getting boned because EVERYONE has a competing service. Barrier to entry on this concept is near zero.
On the other end... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Spare me your apologetics. Wall Street sees something in apple's future that you are unable to understand.
the reason apple got to be so profitable was innovative design. these days, Apple's os looks the same as it did 5 years ago. Its smartphone got slightly bigger. The mp3 market is drying up. There are now hundreds of tablets on the market and apple releases a smaller one.
The market isn't biased against apple. It's simply realizing that the wave of iPod,iPhone,iPad is over. If apple isn't creating their o
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On a PER and growth basis Apple should be worth over a trillion dollars already. The holdup seems to be death of St. Steve and doubts about the company's ability to innovate without him. Both of those issues are about to be quashed in the most absolute and indisputable ways possible. The outcome is obvious.
/not a big fan of the company or its products, but I calls 'em like I sees 'em.
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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"
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Oooh, you've angered the Apple marketdroids. Apple toys have become brat bait and that's never good for sales as it's considered tasteless. Now that's exactly what happens when you play the fad/fashion game, high profits but when the marketing loses it's bite as it always inevitably does, watch out. So groupon lots of noise and colour so that it could be sold and then hang on for the ride.
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To be more accurate, Apple has nowhere to go but down. Their stock price is still in a giant bubble compared to the companies actual worth (market cap is what someone would THEORETICALLY pay not what someone would actually pay).
Apple's stock price got that high because they were very good at marketing. The Iphone had the cool factor but like all fads it's wearing off fast.
I dont think Apple will be destroyed, rather it will b
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With Apple's market cap [palegray.net] sitting at over USD $400 billion, there's a pretty short list of outfits that even could pay. Further, market capitalization is simply the product of the share price and the number of shares outstanding. It's worth what the market says it's worth, and it's certainly not an island in terms of bubble characteristics if that was truly where you were trying to take the conversation.
Apple does need some new and big things (Score:2)
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This is a fairly idiotic comment. "Apple's fucked". Really? You don't have anywhere else to go than "fucked" for that company? Nice digital logic; let's see how that works out for your stock portfolio.
So according to you, with $137bn in cash reserves (1/3 their market cap), and a more profitable quarter than the same time last year, they are on an irrevocable death spiral? And based on iPhone 5 being slightly disappointing, and a handful of production issues, you think there is no possibility that they
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I know, right? Being valued at $410 billion -- on the backs of two consumer products in a very fickle market -- is just brutally punishing, treating them like some fly-by-night nobodies. How grossly unfair.
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And Wall Street continues to punish it.
In what sense? The only real way Wall St can punish a company is by not loaning them money, which Apple has no need of.
Are you complaining about the stock price? $400billion valuation is "punishment"!?
It is very high already in terms of revenue, employees, etc.
Apple is not a big company like Ford or General Electric, just very profitable at the moment. Stock price reflects the market opinion of future profit.
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Nice post a AC, but you're wrong on all counts. If you weren't AC I'd take the time to explain why.
I doubt that, if you had any sort of argument to make you'd have made it. Names are only needed when the poster is relying on his or her reputation, or when you're planning to launch a personal attack instead of making a real argument. But looking at the parent post, I guess it's just a case of a troll with a face slamming on one without.
But just FYI, this entire thread is nothing but flamebait, plain and simple so I'll respond in kind... only a complete dipshit would even bother using a real account to res
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If Groupon was Battletoads (Score:5, Funny)
I nominate this for nerd meme of 2013. If slashdot was battletoads. If the republican national convention was battletoads. If shopping at Wal-Mart was battletoads. And then all those of us who never played it will have to make friends with gamefaqs all over again to understand WTF everyone is talking about.
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I played it like 25 years ago and don't remember much of it either so you're in good company.
Re:If Groupon was Battletoads (Score:5, Informative)
I nominate this for nerd meme of 2013. If slashdot was battletoads. If the republican national convention was battletoads. If shopping at Wal-Mart was battletoads. And then all those of us who never played it will have to make friends with gamefaqs all over again to understand WTF everyone is talking about.
There hasn't been a Battletoads game released since 1994 but recently Battletoads has seen reemergence on boards like 4chan and Reddit. It has been used by Anonymous to prank scientology [knowyourmeme.com].
I'd imagine he could have included that in there to try to make himself look like an average guy who's in on all the jokes (not the reality). It has also been used for trolling -- perhaps he was trolling? Put up a screenshot of Battletoads and ask "Is this Battletoads?"
And then there's also the possibility that he really likes the game, wants to see a sequel and therefore decides that he can give it a ton of publicity by mentioning it in his farewell e-mail.
Who knows or cares at this point?
I found this hilarious from the article:
In addition, Mason also has support on the eight-member board — director and former AOL exec Ted Leonsis has always been a key mentor to him, for example.
What is this? Game of Thrones?
Re:If Groupon was Battletoads (Score:5, Insightful)
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 (Score:5, Interesting)
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Put out enough and you're bound to get some return.
That's what she said!
Re:If Groupon was Battletoads (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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Re:If Groupon was Battletoads (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:If Groupon was Battletoads (Score:5, Funny)
Battletoads?!?!? (Score:3)
I nominate this for nerd meme of 2013. If slashdot was battletoads. If the republican national convention was battletoads. If shopping at Wal-Mart was battletoads. And then all those of us who never played it will have to make friends with gamefaqs all over again to understand WTF everyone is talking about.
If this new meme you are pushing were battletoads, it would have crashed at the load screen.
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In South Korea only old people play Battletoads.
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"were", not was FFS.
By the standard rules of memes, it's irrelevant whether you're correct.
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Haven't logged into Slashdot in just short of forever, but I see that you're my foe. To the death!
I wonder who started it. Die, scum!
They should have taken the $6B from Google (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:They should have taken the $6B from Google (Score:5, Insightful)
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: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.
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Not a scam, just a crappy business model
Most group one I see are over priced and from places I would never give my business to. The good deals are long gone because any good business will have repeat customers
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Definitely should have taken the $6B from Google (Score:2)
Google has enough market power to make it work. If Google had bought Groupon, it would be called "Google Deals" and would appear at the top of every search result page vaguely relevant to the query. It would be tied into Google Groups, Google Maps, Google+, Google Chrome, and Google Anal Probe [google.com]. Businesses would sign up or else.
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.
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I dunno, I got a business to run here, and only so much space in inventory. Lemme call a buddy of mine who's an expert on overpriced dot-coms.
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Is he a time traveler from 2000? You might want to give him a tip about the impending crash...
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As if ANY stock ain't overpriced. That's what you get when your stock value isn't tied to how well your products fare but only to how much you manage to trump the expectations of some fortune tellers.
Soooooo (Score:2)
.. does this mean that everybody's caught on to their predatory business model?
Re:Soooooo (Score:4, Insightful)
does this mean that everybody's caught on to their predatory business model?
No, not everybody. Just those who haven't seen it from day zero.
Re:Soooooo (Score:5, Insightful)
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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.
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Do you keep cutting and pasting that?
Not all business lost money on every sale. Stupid ones that offered to much did. That's not Groupons fault, and Groupon isn't predetory.
Yes, some idiot decides they are going to sell cup caked to an unlimited number of people for a dime, they are going to lose money.
Of course, it never occurs to them to put a volume limit, or simply close earl;y when they realize they have made a mistake.
It's all groupon's fault.
I talk about this to every place I use a groupon at.
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In the end, Groupon is just a marketing tool. It's up to you to be smart about using it. If repeat business does not happen, it's more likely a weakness of your business model than Groupon's fault.
I once bought a coupon for a restaurant. The food was bad and when I complained, I was insulted by the owner.
Needless to say, I did not go back, and it's really not Groupons fault.
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I think that for the most part, the people who bought the groupons were quite happy.
I have bought a few groupons (mostly fancy dinner offers) and was quite happy with the deals. So yes, I can confirm that. My wife has bought several more and I've never heard any complains from her about it.
However after buying a few of those Groupons, you quickly realise that the price you pay is a good price for the dinner the restaurant serves you. It is not a very special deal, really. You get maybe 10-20% discount on what such a meal would normally cost, but then the restaurant only sells it on their s
Re:Soooooo (Score:5, Funny)
.. does this mean that everybody's caught on to their predatory business model?
It's worse than that: Not only is their business model predatory, it has a low first-mover advantage and minimal barriers to entry(and to the degree that the barriers are there, other people are way beyond them).
There is nothing stopping a bevy of more-or-less-exact imitators ('livesocial' and friends); but there is also nothing stopping the people who already issue the consumer's credit card and the small businesses' hosted-payroll service from spinning something ('Bank Amerideals(tm)').
Groupon was doubly screwed: not only are they vultures who are ultimately bad for the people they depend on to offer further offers, they are less efficient and well placed vultures than those who are already well entrenched. Bank of America, or any other major financial institution/credit card issuer, aren't creative enough to know their asses from a hole in the ground; but they are trivially better placed than groupon to skim a few extra percentage points from the transactions they already skim a few percentage points from.
Battletoads, eh? (Score:3, Funny)
I have a theory of what the CEO was doing instead of fixing up Groupon.
Battletoads? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Battletoads? (Score:5, Informative)
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I certainly know Battletoads. But Terra Tubes? I thought Battletoads only had three levels.
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3 leves, yes:
hard, extremely difficult, and "who designed this impossibility?"
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The Russians [google.com] apparently.
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?
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My question for Groupon is how can they sell a product that essentially costs nothing, with the provider of the coupon taking all the risk, and still not make a profit. It seems to me that they must be an issu
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Well, duh. Why do you think they are poor/small business?
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Judging by the sheer amount of Pro-Groupon turfing you've been doing I'm guessing you've got money invested in them, or are just completely clueless. The entire model is geared to push retailers to short-sell their products or services, it's a lowest-bidder war between the merchants who are putting them out. Groupon also aggressively markets to businesses which are already on the verge of failing, using a line of basically "well it's worth a last ditch effort" and as long as they don't close shop in a week
Battletoads! (Score:2)
Google? (Score:2)
My search-fu is down at the moment, but iirc Google made an offer to buy them, why would they decline if they're in such dire straights?
Battletoads and Small Businesses (Score:2)
As far as the Groupon thing, I don't have much sympathy. I have a few entrepreneur
Great analogy (Score:3)
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.
It is just like that especially if the consequences for dying in battletoads was losing $81 million each quarter. Usually when stakes are high, you don't get someone who's playing the game for the first time to be in charge.
talking about quarters the arcade ver was better (Score:2)
talking about quarters the arcade ver was better and had kick ass music from the BSMT2000 chip.
Ok, it's my fault he left. (Score:2)
pet food dot com take two (Score:2)
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I have heard before that Groupon takes a 50% cut of most actions (as in: 50% of the amount spent by the customer when buying a Groupon). Sounds big, must vary per product as mostly margins are not that great.
Then the "original price" is of course fake. That's just a feel-good number.
Groupon collects the money the moment you spend it, and pays the company that provides the service/goods three months later. Great for Groupon's cash flow, of course! And the risk is wholly at their partner's side as if Groupon
Dear Mr. Mason, (Score:2)
End Of File.
I'm sure banning all gun-related deals (Score:3)
has greatly helped their profits!
How is that possible? (Score:2)
Here is what's wrong with business today.
How can Groupon lose $81 million every three months and still be in business? Where is the money coming from to pay the bills?
I started a business a year ago and have been profitable, and grown consistently, every month. And yet, not a single bank will talk to me about a loan to expand.
I guess I need to lose some big money before they'll talk to me...
Hmm... (Score:2)
"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."
Wow! He must have been the greatest CEO ever!
Damn this economy.
try Ghost N' Goblins (NES) - (Score:3)
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Or basically any of the sequels to Contra. The original wasn't too horrible, but in any of the later and fancier games, if you didn't know what was where you were going to die.
I am so thankful that today we have games with more replay value than rote platformers.
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Yeah I remember that. Two hits and you were dead, and it wasn't like mario where you could recover that last hit with mushrooms everywhere, rather your "mushrooms" were very hard to find. Plus you had to make it through the WHOLE level without taking those two hits, and they were long.
Still though I couldn't stop playing that game. There was this big hole in the first level where you had to avoid this demon with wings while you made your way over it, and it was such a bitch that I rarely made it passed it w
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