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Comment by sethbannon | Hacker News Reader

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

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A funny goodbye letter doesn't make up for lying consistently to investors since before the IPO. He failed, a lot, he did not have an accident, he failed over a long period and in various ways (ripping off the shops, the accounting trick and the share value/financial results).

He's not a hero for writing this letter, he as to be treated with circonspection, and at best given a second chance under close watch.

Unless you have been in his position, running a multi-million dollar public company for the first time in your life, you don't know what mistakes you will make.

And? I would probably fail way sooner, and that wouldn't mean that making a funny departure letter should save my ass if I misled people.

clark-kent is right. Hindsight is 20/20. I'm sure we all know Tom Brady shouldn't have made that pass that caused the game losing interception, but its hard to say if you were in his shoes at that point, that you would have done it any differently/better.

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.)

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.

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.

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

He has repeatedly talked about the weight he has put on due to long work hours, so I don't think he's being dishonest here.

With Mason, I'm assuming phoniness at every turn:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5301302

I assume Mason answered that question about ten thousand times before at that point. If the person that asked that really asked it like that, then I have to say it was a poorly phrased, thoughtless question that no CEO would answer. He's hardly a phony for having answered it with a simple, "Yes." How would you actually expect him to have answered that? What's your ideal scenario there? "Nope. We're hosed. Everyone get out now." Would you have wanted to hear all of his strategies for how he was going to make it sustainable? So their competitors could preempt them? Perhaps if the question had been asked in a more thoughtful manner, he would have elaborated in greater detail.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5301375

"for the way he's handling "

Assumes he wrote the statement and wasn't helped by PR people of course. In that case he gets credit for at least listening to those more experienced than he is.

Can't tell without seeing his reaction in other situations that are similar of course.

"John, I'm just been told that Groupon is announcing my termination tomorrow. If you could put me in touch with a PR person that's familiar with Battletoads, I'd be very appreciative."

If you've ever seen, read, listened to anything from this guy, you know he doesn't use PR people. Trust me, this is straight from his mouth/mind.

Thanks I was wondering about that.

Yeah, he was once meant to be on TV news talking about Groupon and because they asked a question he didn't want to answer, he told a funny irrelevant story about his life just to play out the clock. A real square peg in a round hole but in the best possible way (though not necessarily from investors' POV).

Same as politicians do. It takes some practice to learn to do that. I would suspect he was prepped in evasion techniques prior to the TV appearance. Actually hard to believe he wasn't schooled in some of this actually.

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