Live data from Hacker News

Andrew Mason's statement about being fired as Groupon CEO

jottit.com

71–80 of 201 posts

Re: Andrew Mason's statement about being fired as Groupon CEO

#73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This comment is totally unnecessary given all the caveats downandout made, and as someone who has lived through hard times it upset me to read your comment, although I do appreciate the edit that was made.

Your hard times are only hard relative to that of others, and even then, only in some aspects.

Re: Andrew Mason's statement about being fired as Groupon CEO

#74
post #41
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same. Wow. That guy sounds like someone I'd want to work with in the future.

Agree that the letter is good. But I'm puzzled by your reaction to it. Seems more of a populist "touchy feely aw shucks nice guy". How does that make you want to work for him? He wrote a good letter. What about the things he sucked at? What about the immaturity? The bad business decision. So what he is humble. Some of the business people who are viewed as the most heartless and absolute assholes (by outsiders) can be…

If nothing else, the fact that he wrote this letter suggests that he knows to some extent what went wrong.

I'd argue it is better to work with someone who has made mistakes before (and will be less likely to make them again) than someone who hasn't.

Re: Andrew Mason's statement about being fired as Groupon CEO

#75
post #58

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…

"My biggest regrets are the moments that I let a lack of data override my intuition on what’s best for our customers." lack of data that overrides intuition? If it was a pile of data I could understand, but lack? That's when intuition come handy no?

I'm guessing he had an intuition that X was the right thing to do, but there was no data to support doing X.

Re: Andrew Mason's statement about being fired as Groupon CEO

#76
post #58

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…

"My biggest regrets are the moments that I let a lack of data override my intuition on what’s best for our customers." lack of data that overrides intuition? If it was a pile of data I could understand, but lack? That's when intuition come handy no?

That also leaves me a bit confused.

Re: Andrew Mason's statement about being fired as Groupon CEO

#79
post #67
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed - but I also suspect he's been writing this letter in his head for quite some time.

I think the guy knows his statement is going to be the lede of a lot of very popular news stories. I don't care who threw the grenade at this point, Mason jumped onto it. It's a great letter.

Got to agree with you, tptacek. People are conveniently forgetting that so many other fired CEO's with fat bank balances have not bothered to be honest about their reasons for leaving.

This is classy.

Re: Andrew Mason's statement about being fired as Groupon CEO

#80

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 i…

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

Post reply on HN