Groupon’s Fired CEO Andrew Mason Sends Memorable Goodbye Letter To Staff
I want to take a moment to salute Andrew Mason, the co-founder and now former CEO of Groupon. Whatever else one thinks of his tenure, Mason set a new standard for exiting a job with grace, humor and a commendable lack of finger pointing.
Logo of Groupon (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
In a note Mason sent to Groupon employees announcing that he’d been let go, he wrote:
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.
Groupon, as many Forbes readers know, went from wunderkind company to stock market laughing stock in about as much time as it takes to click “Buy!” on the daily deal discount site. The company went public in late 2011 at $20 per share, only to quickly plunge. The stock closed today at $4.53.
The problems were myriad. Some were self-induced, like accounting issues that attracted the notice of the Securities and Exchange Commission. Others were likely impossible to avoid; it does not take the entrepreneurial skills of Richard Branson to realize that Groupon has a fairly easy to replicate business model. The company was such an obviously troubled concern that even CNBC’s Jim Cramer, who championed all-too–many dubious online firms during the Internet bubble of the 1990s, begged investors to stay away.
Mason, in his goodbye letter, did not take the occasion to blast Groupon’s board of directors or deep-pocketed investors. Nor did he resort to a face saving untruth like saying he wanted to devote more effort to music, a subject he had studied in college. He simply accepted responsibility for what had gone wrong. In an age where we’ve come to expect expletive filled diatribes by just-fired executives, this is an achievement indeed.
About Helaine Olen
I am the voice of The Bills, a column about the intersection of money and life, at Slate. At Inc., I contribute to the Spread the Wealth personal finance column. My work on politics, economics, workplace culture and women’s issues has been published in numerous other print and on-line publications, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, Salon, Pacific Standard, and The Los Angeles Times, where I wrote and edited the popular “Money Makeover” feature.
I'm the author of the critically acclaimed book Pound Foolish: Exposing the Dark Side of the Personal Finance Industry, and The Index Card: Why Personal Finance Doesn’t Have to be so Complicated, which I co-wrote with Harold Pollack.
What else? I’m a passionate bibliophile, a fan of 1970s pop music and a lover of rummage sales. I live in New York City.
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