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Comment by commiebob | Hacker News Reader

"Mason sold around $28 million worth of shares before Groupon's IPO in the fall of 2011."

I think he'll be ok.

"Much of Mason's wealth comes from Groupon's stock. He owns 7 percent, or about 46 million shares, according to FactSet. Based on Thursday's closing price, that's worth more than $208 million."

I think he'll be more than ok.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1731820...

as GRPN's share price went up almost 20% since his announcement - well I guess its fair to say he made about $40M (on paper) by leaving.

As long as he sells soon and realises his gains, otherwise he might end up with nothing. The money isn't real till the shares are sold.

The funny thing is he would have been much richer if he got fired much sooner. That would have given him an excuse to sell his stake before it tanked. Being the CEO meant he couldn't dump his stock.

the other perspective is that it isn't much for the sole founder of a company that Google offered $6B for, and was worth nearly $20B[0] in the public market.

[0] Nov '12 peak was $20.15B http://knowledgetoday.wharton.upenn.edu/2011/11/groupon%E2%8... same article also says that pre-IPO secondary market valuation reached $30B

> But those developments hurt Groupon’s pre-IPO valuation, which fell from a peak of $30 billion to one institutional investor’s estimate of $8.7 billion.

> When Groupon went public, in 2011, it was valued at $11 billion dollars

Straight up bullshit. "It isn't much" is not valid commentary on "$28 million."

Not to mention he has close to $200 million worth of shares on paper.

Right. So, why is this news-worthy?

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