Mr. Mason

Typically, when CEOs are ousted from the businesses they founded, they go "spend more time" with their families, take up a hobby like yachting or move immediately on to the next company they can try not to drive into the ground. Not so for former Groupon CEO Andrew Mason, who was fired earlier this year. Though he's going to join Y Combinator as an advisor, Mr. Mason has another trick up his sleeve: dropping an album, of course.

TechCrunch reports that the daily deals site founder spent a week in L.A. recording "Hardly Workin'," which Mr. Mason describes as "a seven song album of motivational business music targeted at people newly entering the workforce." Sounds like the perfect graduation gift for aunts and uncles to give you that you'll leave stuck between the seats of your parents' SUV.

Mr. Mason told TechCrunch that young people would frequently show up to meetings unarmed with business wisdom. What kind of riffraff would do such a thing? Since business books weren't really their style, he decided to record an album that youngs could make fun of with their friends while getting stoned.

"These songs will help young people understand some of the ideas that I’ve found to be a key part of becoming a productive and effective employee," Mr. Mason told TechCrunch. "I’m really happy with the results and look forward to sharing them as soon as I figure out how to load music onto iTunes, hopefully in the next few weeks."

How long 'til this thing is fully annotated on Rap Genius?

(Photo: Daily Tech)

Quinn Norton speaks out on what life inside the Aaron Swartz investigation was like. "This will not be the final word on Aaron's story, nor is it intended to be. Two years later, these are the events as I remember them, and the feelings as I knew them." [The Atlantic]

Former dotcom millionaire Jennifer Sultan plead guilty to selling prescription drugs and conspiring to sell a firearm in exchange for four years in prison on Friday. Ms. Sultan, who sold her company Live Online during the first boom, burned through her fortune after becoming addicted to prescription pain killers. Let this be a cautionary tale for bubble 2.0. [New York Times]

Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz took to Rap Genius this weekend to decode Andrew Mason's goodbye letter. Swag? [TechCrunch]

If you got an email this weekend from Evernote that it had reset your password, that’s because the company suffered a major security breach. [The Verge]

SpaceX Dragon has successfully docked at the International Space Station, which is great because we don't really need any more griping from Elon Musk right now. [Ars Technica]

Just not the best fit, probably.

“What’s just depressing to me is how—and it’s not just for us, let me generalize it—the moment a company goes public the conversation shifts from how they’re trying to change the world and the product they’re building to how they’re making money.” Andrew Mason probably wasn't ready to be the CEO of a publicly traded company. [Fast Company]

Meanwhile, at TED: Vint Cerf is dreaming of a day when we can use the Internet to communicate with aliens. Dude must make it a point to believe six impossible things before breakfast. [Gizmodo]

Former Gilt CEO Susan Lyne is now Brand Group CEO at AOL. Resident enfant terrible Alexia Tsotsis published the memo and added, "As far as we can tell, Arianna, with her Hellenic iron fist, has retained her dominion over the HuffPost stronghold, and we’ll continue to push the boundaries of what we can do until we get fired." Noted! [TechCrunch]

In other shuffles, Federated Media founder John Battelle is once more CEO of the blog network that he founded, taking over for Deanna Brown, who is leaving for an unspecified new project. [Forbes]

Apple Fellow Guy Kawasaki is now advising Motorola. [Android Authority]

(Photo: Vanity Fair)

Rumors of Andrew Mason's imminent demise as Groupon CEO started swirling back in November, but the bubble officially burst today following Groupon's "disastrous" financial report.

Yesterday, in response to question about how the numbers would affect Mr. Mason, Groupon spokesperson Paul Taaffee told Bloomberg, "He’s here today." He was speaking literally.

Groupon just announced that Mr. Mason is being replaced. The company has named a "newly created Office of the Chief Executive," led by executive chairman Eric Lefkofsky and vice chairman Ted Leonsis, who will "serve in this role on an interim basis."

Mr. Lefkofsky, whose venture firm Lightbank recently set up shop in New York, got some attention pre-IPO when he and cofounder Brad Keywell used a Groupon funding round to cash out shares worth $451 million--a tactic he's used in the past.

As Business Insider points out, Mr. Lefkofsky also "has interests in several companies that have close relationships or contracts with Groupon that, for a long time, have represented a conflict of interest for the company, as disclosed in its SEC filings."

Take this disclosure from a recent 10-Q filing:

"[Lefkofsky's] investments may be in areas that present conflicts with, or involve businesses related to, our operations. There can be no assurance that our business will not be adversely affected as Mr. Lefkofsky devotes less time to our business in the future."

Groupon's board, which is currently searching for a new CEO, has its work cut out for them.

This week, the company revealed that Q1 revenue would be $560 million to $610 million, when analysts (on average) predicted $647.7 million. Groupon also said it lost $81.1 million (12 cents a share) in Q4, when analysts predicted a loss of 2 cents per share. That led to the largest intraday decline since November, with stock diving 19 percent yesterday afternoon.

However, shares are up in after-hours trading once Mr. Mason's ouster was announced.

In the press release, Mr. Lefkofsky thanked Mr. Mason, on behalf of the board, "for his leadership, his creativity and his deep loyalty to Groupon."

But through an unverified Twitter account, @AndrewMason tweeted a link to an unconfirmed good-bye letter that says he was fired.

https://twitter.com/andrewmason/status/307239473165516800

The letter has since been deleted, but we have a screencap from earlier this afternoon. And it has mensch written all over it.

Mr. Mason took accountability for his role in the company's financial weakness--a first from Startupland? He also praised his employees, admitted failure, referenced the NES videogame Battleroads, and asked for recommendations for how to lose the Groupon 40. (Nota bene: this is coming from a leader who presided over some sophomoric stunts and "financial voodoo," that adversely affected his company.)

OK, I’m good on the fat camp recommendations.You may stop.Thank you.

— Andrew Mason (@andrewmason) February 28, 2013

Enjoy your new waistline, Mr. Mason. Sounds like you earned it.

Twice yearly, Google releases data on government requests to remove content from the internet. Can we see that on an interactive map? [Slate]

Share buttons notwithstanding, people still like to cut and paste. [AdWeek]

The Museum of Modern Art added 14 video games—including Tetris, Mist and Dwarf Fortress—to its collection. Hear that, Mom? Video games do so have cultural relevance. [NYT]

Groupon founder and CEO Andrew Mason gets to keep his job—for now. [WSJ]

The United Nations makes an embarrassing Twitter typo. [Business Insider]

IDK.

Bet you thought the next big story in the ailing daily deals business was going to be Andrew Mason's ouster. And yet, it's a competitor making headlines: Bloomberg News reports that LivingSocial has laid off 400 of its 4,500 employees. That's about 9 percent of its staff, for those keeping score at home.  

Hardest hit were the customer service, sales and editorial departments, spokesperson Andrew Weinstein told CNNMoney, and cuts were concentrated in the U.S. Washington, D.C. lost 160 jobs, because customer service ops are being moved to, ugh, Tucson. Mr. Weinstein explained that the cuts "will free up additional resources for the company to invest in some of the critical things in our business, like mobile efforts."

Just last month, Amazon reported that it had lost $169 million of a $175 million investment in the company. The wrath of Bezos is not to be trifled with.

Suddenly, Mr. Mason's week looks a lot better.

Mason (screen grab).

What's a young CEO to do amid rumors that he may soon be relieved of his duties? Hunker down and lobby privately for an extended tenure? Or sit for a public interview on the subject of his imminent demise?

That was the question from Groupon CEO Andrew Mason faced this week, as gossip swirled that he would cancel a planned experience at Business Insider's Ignition conference following AllThingsD's dish suggesting management changes could be in the offing at the Chicago-based company.

In the end, Mr. Mason decided to attend as scheduled. The first question he faced from Henry Blodget: "Is the board going to fire you tomorrow?"

"Here's a news flash, our stock is down 80 percent," Mr. Mason answered. "It would be weird if the board wasn't asking if I was the right guy to do the job."

Maybe going forward with the interview was a savvy decision. If, as The Wall Street Journal reported last night, discussions about replacing Mr. Mason centered on the company's need to do a better job communicating its successes, the chatter ahead of the conference only ensured that journalists far and wide would be hanging on his every word.

To that end, Mr. Mason presented as self-assured, acknowledging the company's struggles—"When you're creating a new category, there's going to be bumps along the road" and taking in stride Mr. Blodget's repeated prodding—"if I ever didn't think I was the right person for the job, I'd be the first person to fire myself."

It wasn't until Mr. Blodget invoked his own reputational rise-and-fall to ask how Mr. Mason handled the criticism—"Does it suck?"—that the Groupon founder resorted to sarcasm: "No it's awesome Henry, it's the greatest thing of the world."

Meanwhile, Mr. Mason took the moment in the spotlight as the opportunity to tout Groupon's strong point, including 38 percent year-over-year growth in gross billings in North America, high volume of mobile transactions and never-ending search—including new forays into travel and shipping goods directly to people's houses—for ways to make money. Mr. Mason admitted that Groupon's international business was lagging--the result of a rapid expansion, but said it was all part of the long-term plan.

"There's so much exciting stuff happening in the company, that tends to be what we're focused on," he said. "We've built up a resiliency to the external noise, because we know what's in the best interest of our shareholders is not optimizing for three months from now, but optimizing for three years from now."

Be that as it may, there's a reason for the chatter about who will lead Groupon in the future. The stock, as Mr. Mason noted, has fallen precipitously since the company's Novemeber 2011 IPO, and third-quarter earnings didn't exactly make investors smile. Where Mr. Mason sees Groupon's diversity of offerings as a strength, others might see a lack of focus. Last month brought news that the Securities and Exchange Commission is sniffing around the company again. The breakneck pace of Groupon's growth—zero to 12,000 employees in four years—had made it a very different company than the quirky deals service Mr. Mason founded.

Mr. Mason didn't actually say whether he expected the board to fire him. But he did take a subtle dig at the notion that the company needs an adult—someone such as Google's Eric Schmidt—to help the rapidly growing startup mature.

"We've had plenty of professionals that we've brought into Groupon in various roles," he said. "And we've seen the speed and at times, the chaos of Groupon, crush them as seasoned professionals."

On the other hand, if seasoned pros can't handle the chaos of Groupon, what makes Mr. Mason think that he can?

No fair distracting us with cattitude. (Photo: Vanity Fair)

Late last night, Twitter tongues wagged as to whether Groupon's goofy CEO Andrew Mason would actually show up for his scheduled appearance at Business Insider's Ignition conference in New York, especially after his name disappeared from the agenda.

"He has been off most relevant agendas for quite some time. The exception, of course, is the SEC watch list," Interview Circuit founder Jon Sterling quipped, referencing the beleaguered company's repeated run-ins with the commission (most recently over revenue details from its new business lines and questions about the daily deal site's financial revision this spring.)

Mr. Mason's presence seemed even less likely after scoop master general Kara Swisher trotted out sources who claimed discussions were underway about "making major leadership changes" at Groupon, "including bringing in a more experienced CEO to take over for co-founder Andrew Mason."

We thought for sure that would send Mr. Mason on a flight back to Chicago, and so did Business Insider, until they got the good news:

On the contrary, we got a call from Mason's team saying, in effect, "Well, now you have an interesting first question."

We're not sure how loosely to interpret that "in effect." Perhaps it was more like: Go ahead and try to get something out of him?

Regardless, there's one particular bit from Ms. Swisher's report about the company needing its own Eric Schmidt that we hope gets addressed. Is the problem really with Mr. Mason or Groupon's meandering business model?

Andrew Mason, American treasure.

We haven't heard too much from Groupon CEO Andrew Mason lately. (One gets the impression he felt the need to lie low for a little while.) But it seems he's decided to reemerge into the public eye with a Businessweek profile wherein he puts on his absolute most serious, most adult, most professional game face.

Well, considering the company's plunging stock price, it's probably about time for a charm offensive.

For one thing, the man dressed up:

 Mason, 31, is looking a lot less scruffy these days. His hair is neatly parted to the right, and he’s wearing tortoise-shell glasses and a crisp light-blue dress shirt with a pen in the pocket.

Forget the daily deals and the crazy cat mascot and the boozy staff meetings. Mr. Mason now has an enterprise vision:

The CEO’s focus now is on building what Mason calls the “operating system for local commerce”—a suite of software and technology services that would embed Groupon into every facet of every transaction on Main Street.... Merchants would use the system not only as a form of advertising but also as a touch point for every sale they ring up and a hook for bringing customers back.

Point-of-sale systems are serious tools built by serious companies with serious balance sheets.

But then, after spending the entire interview demonstrating that he's the right man with the right vision for Groupon's long-term stability, Mr. Mason makes a terrible last-minute blunder:

With the dress shirt and neat haircut, he even looks like the centi-millionaire CEO that he is. Then he heads out the door, and the impression dissipates. There’s no car and driver waiting for him, just his sage green Vespa. He hops on and rides off into Chicago traffic, without a helmet.

Never change, Andrew Mason. Never change.

The old economics.

Well, well, will you look at that: Long-suffering Groupon finally had a good day. Q1 results are in, and the AP reports that revenues are up and losses slimming. Of course, after that mortifying Q4 earnings revision, the company badly needed things to go well. Maybe they're getting better at being a public company, after all.

Revenues were up 89 percent year-over-year, from $295.5 million to $559.3 million. That number also beat expectations: Groupon had forecast somewhere between $510 million and $550 million, whereas analysts averaged out at $530.5 million. The company was also losing less money: Just $11.7 million this quarter, as opposed to $146.5 million in Q1 of 2011. There's something to be said for moving in the right direction, at least. 

“We are pleased to report a record quarter that demonstrates our progress in unlocking the opportunity in local commerce for merchants and customers worldwide,” the chief executive, Andrew Mason, said. He said the company had started to see the benefits of new technologies, such as its “SmartDeals” program, which aims to make deals more relevant to users depending on where they are and who they are, for example.

Maybe "not taking stupid risks" is a better strategy than we gave him credit for.