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Groupon CEO fired

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“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.”This was the last internal email Andrew Mason (pictured), CEO and founder of Groupon, sent to his staff today in farewell. He explains his leave to failed business targets and that he is “getting in the way of [a second chance].”Though regretful, Mason remains to be his quirky and weird self to the end, comparing his journey with the company to video game Battletoads: “it would be like I made it all the way to the Terra Tubes without dying on my first ever play through.”Four and half years ago, Mason and his friends started Groupon as a side project of The Point, a company that puts together projects that aims to change the world for better: pulling people together in group buys for discounted products was one of the ways to help the then-slumping economy.Media and vendors quickly caught on their business plan, and a year later, Groupon grew from a handful of people to around 300; by mid-2010, it had more than 5,000. Today, the company feeds more than 10,000 employees.But the young CEO never let the business overrun his character.In 2011, when he was on the road asking investors to trust him with hundreds and millions of dollars, his Twitter avatar remained a picture of him in his underwear, on his knees, ecstatically ripping off the wrapping to a Nintendo Wii.He is also known to make up obscene lies to media, like how he has 20 cats, or marking videos of himself doing yoga in front of the Christmas tree sporting nothing but his tighty whities.This quote from his past interview with Wall Street Journal perhaps best summarises his time with Groupon:"I was weird before we were a public company and managed to get it worth whatever it's worth. I'm going to continue doing my thing and work my butt off to add value for shareholders and as long as they and the board see fit to keep me in this role, I feel enormously privileged to serve."Read the full letter here.

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