
Andrew Mason's statement about being fired as Groupon CEO - robbiet480
https://www.jottit.com/v5wux/
======
sethbannon
Full text of his statement:

(This is for Groupon employees, but I’m posting it publicly since it will leak
anyway)

People of Groupon,

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. From
controversial metrics in our S1 to our material weakness to two quarters of
missing our own expectations and a stock price that’s hovering around one
quarter of our listing price, the events of the last year and a half speak for
themselves. As CEO, I am accountable.

You are doing amazing things at Groupon, and you deserve the outside world to
give you a second chance. I’m getting in the way of that. A fresh CEO earns
you that chance. The board is aligned behind the strategy we’ve shared over
the last few months, and I’ve never seen you working together more effectively
as a global company – it’s time to give Groupon a relief valve from the public
noise.

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.

If there’s one piece of wisdom that this simple pilgrim would like to impart
upon you: have the courage to start with the customer. My biggest regrets are
the moments that I let a lack of data override my intuition on what’s best for
our customers. This leadership change gives you some breathing room to break
bad habits and deliver sustainable customer happiness – don’t waste the
opportunity!

I will miss you terribly.

Love,

Andrew

~~~
downandout
Very classy. Keep in mind, though, that it makes is somewhat easier to take
being fired in stride when you have a $200 million cushion. He doesn't have to
deal with many of the challenges that most newly-fired people do - like
finding a job in the not-too-distant future, etc. To be sure, getting kicked
out of the company you founded is an emotionally challenging experience, but
he can lick his wounds on board a private jet to a private island.

~~~
hyperbovine
Getting fired from something you poured your heart and soul into for close to
five years, sacrificed relationships, health (+40 lbs), etc., must feel awful.
I suspect he really does feel love for many of the people who were in the
trenches with him during this time, as he avers in the closing line. Staring
at your bulging bank account can only do so much to lessen that pain, at least
in the short term.

~~~
juan_juarez
Staring at an empty bank account, a pile of bills & wondering how you're
paying rent next month does a remarkable job at distracting you from the
emotional aspect of getting fired as well.

~~~
mudge
Yes, thank goodness for being broke.

------
sethbannon
I've had little respect for the way Mason ran Groupon, but I have immense
respect for the way he's handling his dismissal.

~~~
bigiain
Indeed - that's a really well written letter.

(Though cynical-me wonders how much of it is heartfelt and honest, and how
much of it is carefully engineered spin - crafted and chosen by a team of
psychologists/marketers. About the only admirable thing about Groupon, at
least to me, is their magnificent use of language to persuade and influence
both buyers and sellers of Groupon deals.)

~~~
raylu
I felt it was dishonest when I got to "good fat camp to lose my Groupon 40."
It seems he tried really hard to inject humor and trivialities into the
letter.

~~~
pchristensen
More than once at company meetings, when he turned around and looked at the
video projection, he'd mention being startled at how fat he looked from
behind.

This is what Andrew Mason was like. He was one of the high points of working
at Groupon.

~~~
bjeanes
hi peter! :P Also, 100% agreed — he was the heart and soul of the culture
there.

------
kurtvarner
Here's a copy of his statement.

\--

 _(This is for Groupon employees, but I’m posting it publicly since it will
leak anyway)

People of Groupon,

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. From
controversial metrics in our S1 to our material weakness to two quarters of
missing our own expectations and a stock price that’s hovering around one
quarter of our listing price, the events of the last year and a half speak for
themselves. As CEO, I am accountable.

You are doing amazing things at Groupon, and you deserve the outside world to
give you a second chance. I’m getting in the way of that. A fresh CEO earns
you that chance. The board is aligned behind the strategy we’ve shared over
the last few months, and I’ve never seen you working together more effectively
as a global company – it’s time to give Groupon a relief valve from the public
noise.

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.

If there’s one piece of wisdom that this simple pilgrim would like to impart
upon you: have the courage to start with the customer. My biggest regrets are
the moments that I let a lack of data override my intuition on what’s best for
our customers. This leadership change gives you some breathing room to break
bad habits and deliver sustainable customer happiness – don’t waste the
opportunity!

I will miss you terribly.

Love,

Andrew_

------
jedwhite
"Nothing in his life Became him like the leaving it."

King Duncan: Is execution done on Cawdor? Are not Those in commission yet
return'd?

Malcolm: My liege, They are not yet come back. But I have spoke With one that
saw him die; who did report That very frankly he confessed his treasons,
Implor'd your Highness' pardon, and set forth A deep repentance. Nothing in
his life Became him like the leaving it.

Macbeth Act 1, scene 4, 1–8

------
choxi
I used to work at Groupon, and for all the shit it gets there are a lot of
good people working on ambitious problems there and this letter is exemplary
of the kind of character that inspired people to work there.

Best of luck to them as they try to turn things around.

------
sfink
Errrr... I'm not really getting the tenor of many of the comments here.

For one, look at what he _isn't_ saying. But start with what we know.

He is being fired. That means he isn't leaving by choice, and most likely
doesn't want to be leaving at all.

He is the CEO, and the CEO takes responsibility for the company's failures.
Them's the rules of the game, for any leadership role. He is saying no more
than that.

In particular, he never says he was wrong. He says he failed to continue being
the successful CEO of this particular company. In fact, he somewhat obscurely
implied that his intuition was right when what the company did turned out to
be wrong. Why do you think the company did those things then? Did he tell it
to, or did he lose the battle?

This letter was not written to us. It was written to the people at his
company. People who are important to him. Which means it probably wasn't
written _for_ us either. The speculation that this is wholly a calculated move
seem BS to me.

All that is just pointing out the known facts and suggesting likely
deductions. More speculatively, I'd like to share my interpretation of the
tone of the letter:

He's pissed. He's pissed but doesn't want to show it. He is staying well in
control, writing a decent letter that puts something of himself into it but
not too much, not enough to lose face or stir up conflict that could only harm
the ones left behind. He's trying to bow out gracefully without capitulating,
and I think he did a decent job of it. But this is no "wow, this guy is
awesome, I bet he's learned some great lessons and I'd be stoked at the chance
to work with him" letter. It's adequate, mainly admirable for hitting just the
right level of adequacy when you know the guy probably wants to scream and rip
someone or something's head off. He just got fired, dammit!

~~~
awakeasleep
And not just fired from some place he worked at. Fired from a company he put
more thought and time into over the past 5 years than anyone even puts into
raising their own children.

------
NZ_Matt
Andrew Warner of Mixergy interviewed Andrew Mason in 2010 while Groupon was at
its peak. I haven't had a chance to re-watch it yet but I imagine it'll be a
very interesting watch given recent events.

Here's the video: <http://blip.tv/mixergy/mixergy-groupon-andrew-
mason-3852853>

And transcript: <http://mixergy.com/andrew-mason-groupon-interview/>

------
octatone2
Chrome throws a security error up for this site:

The site's security certificate is not trusted! You attempted to reach
www.jottit.com, but the server presented a certificate issued by an entity
that is not trusted by your computer's operating system. This may mean that
the server has generated its own security credentials, which Google Chrome
cannot rely on for identity information, or an attacker may be trying to
intercept your communications. You cannot proceed because the website operator
has requested heightened security for this domain.

~~~
jacquesc
I don't understand this error (I get it too). Why doesn't Chrome allow you as
a user to understand the security risk and bypass it? Firefox and Safari let
me at least continue.

<http://cl.ly/image/2c1I0U2o3t0I>

~~~
codewright
>I don't understand this error

Is it typical for front-enders in Rails to not know web security / SSL?

~~~
jacquesc
I meant I don't understand why Chrome forces this error with no bypass.

Do we really need to be sniping?

~~~
codewright
Sorry if I offended, I was legitimately curious.

~~~
jacquesc
Ah, no worries.

Yep, Rails people have to understand and deal with SSL issues just like
everyone else :)

------
unreal37
I'm surprised that there's not more comment that they guy taking over, Eric
Lefkofsky, is the "slimy one" that made Groupon such as sleazy IPO, not Mason,
for cashing out $1BB+ pre-IPO.

------
goronbjorn
I saw Andrew Mason speak at Startup School in 2010; the headline of his talk
was 'Polishing your turds and GETTING SUPER RICH.'

<http://www.justin.tv/startupschool/b/272030648>

------
nhangen
How fitting for a man that built a predatory company to be ousted by predatory
executives.

------
Volscio
Check out Andrew Mason's bio blurb at WSJ. Weird.
<http://topics.wsj.com/person/M/Andrew-Mason/6435>

------
porter
Battletoads:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qor5Rn7glaU>

------
rayiner
As a fellow Northwestern grad it disappointing to see him go, but as a lover
of Chicago its probably for the best. I'd really love to see GroupOn succeed
and help anchor a diversified tech presence in the city. We have some great
startups, but you need big public companies in the same way a mall needs a
Macys, Nordstrom, etc.

~~~
mattmaroon
Why do I routinely see people on the net capitalize the second o? (You're not
the first I've seen even today.) Is it like Microsoft, where it used to
actually be MicroSoft and people like Mark Cuban still spell it that way out
of hipsterish I-was-there-in-the-old-days sentiment? Or do a lot of people
just think thats how it's supposed to be?

~~~
rayiner
I think it's just because the pun "Groupon = coupon" is too subtle to be
intuitive to me. I think of it as "group on [to]" which I realize makes no
sense.

------
michaelwolfe
Andrew took Groupon further than 99.99% of all startups will ever go, then
went out with a funny, accountable, and humble goodbye note.

If you honestly embrace startup risk and failure, you simply cannot bash this
guy.

------
Cherian
“ _My biggest regrets are the moments that I let a lack of data override my
intuition on what’s best for our customers._ ”

Are there more insights in this? What do you think are the intuition decisions
Groupon took (that’s public) that probably wasn’t against data?

It might seem obvious in retrospect, but as a startup founder I’d love to
learn in context.

~~~
bcoates
Agreed, even if it's too sensitive today I'd love to someday hear the real
story behind ambiguous statements like that. There's a lasting lesson in there
for everybody somewhere.

------
brunorsini
Battletoads is definitely one of the best platform games ever created, kudos
for the reference. It's playable on online NES emulators such as
<http://www.playnes.net/play/107/Battletoads.html>

------
millerc
Dear Andrew,

One bad year and a couple missed objectives, and your boss fires you? Looks
like you were dealing with somebody who doesn't invest in training his
employees... you'll be much happier working for somebody else.

Love,

an observer

~~~
mattmaroon
It's not one bad year. Every year they've had, from a profit perspective, has
been a bad year. We just didn't know how unstable the business model was when
they were private. By the time merchants had a chance to figure out what
selling a Groupon actually gets them (which for most is little more than a
huge headache and a loss of money) Groupon was a public company.

Groupon built this massive juggernaut on a shaky premise, which is that
merchants can sell a Groupon and more than recoup the lost revenues in future
business. It's debatable whether merchants will keep selling these at 25% when
most lose money on it and seem to get no long term benefit. It actually seems
unlikely.

Groupon also spent more to acquire users than they made off them, figuring
they'd make it up later, much like they were telling merchants. That's why
they included the ridiculous ACSOI metric in their prospectus.

It's likely at this point that they need to pivot, and they probably just
don't think Mason is the guy to do it. Maybe they think he should have done it
sooner.

The nice thing about Groupon is they're in a great position to do it. The bad
thing is it's going to be tough, and what they pivot too is uncertain.

~~~
millerc
Interesting argument. Seeing as Mason created from scratch a company valued at
around $20B using Lefkofsky's seed investment of $1M, it seems to me like a
very respectable accomplishment.

Whether the current business model is viable and how much they need to pivot
if they do, that's hard to tell without walking a mile in their shoes. But if
I only had to bet on one horse, I'd pick the one that has a proven record for
a "very respectable accomplishment" and give him the tools he need to succeed.

If Lefkofsky thought the business was so bad, would he have taken the reigns
himself?

~~~
mattmaroon
Well, no. He used Lefkosky's $1m, plus about $1.14 billion in venture funding
to make a company that is now worth about $2.8 billion.

Groupon's market cap was just under $13b at IPO I think. Now it's under $3b.
Losing 75%+ of your value isn't an accomplishment in the eyes of the public
market, it's a dismal failure.

Remember the original dot com bubble? Lots of startups grew to multibillion
dollar valuations, some even in the public market, then flamed out. Is that a
"very respectable accomplishment"?

Lefkosky took over because it's quite common for the board to lead the hunt
for the new CEO. Who else would do it?

And even if you assume that Groupon was well-managed pre-IPO, rather than a
Ponzi scheme that used VC capital to buy users and hype themselves into an IPO
and then dump a loser of a company onto buyers from the public market, that
still doesn't mean Mason's the guy to get them to the next stage. Some people
are good early stage CEOs but not late. I quite suspect Mason is neither
though.

------
kamaal
This is classy, glorious and full of honor.

Me personally, I would love to fail like this someday.

The most big wins in my life have come after big failures. This guy is set for
something big in life.

------
kgosser
It's shocking to me how bad the HN community is getting when I check out of a
comment thread every couple weeks or so.

------
sk2code
Another Steve Jobs in the making. This has happened with Steve as he was fired
after founding Apple.

~~~
taphangum
I doubt it.

------
photorized
Sorry, I am not buying this.

He knows what he is doing.

~~~
pokpokpok
i too felt that it was very self serving. didn't actually place the blame on
himself

------
camkego
Well done.

"I let a lack of data override my intuition on what's best for our customers."
Isn't it intuition that becomes the problem when faced with a lack of data?

~~~
mrgordon
It seems he means that his intuition was correct but wasn't followed for lack
of data backing it up

------
redact207
The problem isn't the CEO, it's the business model.

~~~
berlinbrown
I thought the entire concept was kind of confusing.

------
sideproject
an honest post. I haven't really followed what's going on with Groupon or the
whole daily deal space, but good on him for driving the whole world insane
with the daily deal craze. Seriously, two years ago, finding daily deals
online was EVERYWHERE - it's not easy to start something like that.

It's like... Gangnam style for startups!!!

------
dylangs1030
Heads up, as of this writing, the website is down. I think we accidentally
slashdotted the page.

Anyone confirm it's not just me?

~~~
mehulkar
confirm

------
alxbrun
I don't like Mason, but I like this smart, classy, honest message. And he has
a great sense of humour.

------
donflamenco
Groupon has Jeff Holden, who was an extraordinary exec at Amazon in the
earlier days.

He might be a good fit for CEO.

------
skulquake
Overall Andrew has done a awesome job, from just being a guy with a great idea
and taking it to be the fastest growing company in history while inventing a
new space is quite remarkable. I think everyone on this board would have liked
to hit a homerun like this after only a couple hits at the plate.

------
joonix
I'm curious why he was "fired" rather than given the "opportunity to resign."

------
kvirani
This is a true testament to the difference between startup and cube culture.

------
codeme
He has made his money. Enough to do another startup.

------
aaronbird
I love how candid he is in this letter. Good stuff.

------
redment
Does anyone know how many employees Groupon has?

------
mmuro
I was okay with this until the third paragraph.

~~~
ritchiea
Why do you hate battle toads?

------
beedogs
$25 IPO stock about to become an OTC stock.

------
droithomme
That's a great letter.

------
wilfra
Your app crashed from the traffic

~~~
jedc
Jottit is a site that was co-created by Aaron Swartz. (And runs on Heroku,
apparently.) Hopefully his co-creator can help bring it back up?

------
just2n
Groupon fires an excellent CEO while Yahoo's new CEO is utterly impervious
(for whatever reason) and is getting away with waging a holy war against
engineers? What is going on?

Can I expect the laws of physics suddenly to invert tomorrow?

~~~
objclxt
I am not sure that Andrew Mason would be universally described by all as an
"excellent CEO"...Groupon's financial performance suggests otherwise.

~~~
just2n
To blame a company's success or failure on 1 person is a ludicrous notion. All
I've seen from the man indicates that he's a CEO I'd definitely like to work
with and then have a beer after work with.

To take the failure of a company on your own shoulders in spite of it being a
collective group failure or a fundamental failure of the business model is a
heroic act. To be so publicly fired for something that arguably no person
could have prevented is not something I'd want to experience.

OTOH, it's interesting to see how bad the downvoting on HN has become lately.
Point out a CEO is good and another CEO is terrible, which seems to be in
broad agreement with every other commenter, and get downvoted into oblivion.
What's going on, guys?

