IT is the cliché of choice for anyone looking to put a positive spin on things when leaving their job.
• Outgoing Groupon CEO Andrew Mason leaves frank memo to staff revealing he was sacked
• Analysts say departure was overdue after sliding performance on stock market after initial meteoric rise
• Memo read: “After four-and-a-half years as CEO of Groupon, I’d like to spend more time with my family. Just kidding - I was fired today.”
But in a brutally frank missive to staff, the outgoing chief executive of voucher company Groupon admitted he would not actually be “spending more time with family” but had in fact been fired.
Andrew Mason, who co-founded the company, wrote to employees earlier this week, telling them he was paying the price for a slide which has left Groupon’s share price at around one quarter of its initial listing.
Poking fun at the hackneyed phrase so beloved by politicians, Mr Mason wrote: “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.”
Groupon, which offers online deals to customers, is now looking for a new leader after it posted dismal quarterly results on Wednesday.
Mr Mason continued: “You are doing amazing things at Groupon, and you deserve the outside world to give you a second chance. I’m getting in the way of that. A fresh CEO earns you that chance. The board is aligned behind the strategy we’ve shared over the last few months, and I’ve never seen you working together more effectively as a global company - it’s time to give Groupon a relief valve from the public noise.”
Once hailed as the fastest-growing start-up in history, Groupon rose to prominence in 2010 offering sharply discounted online coupons for everything from neighbourhood car washes to spa treatments.
The company joined a number of consumer internet start-ups to go public at multibillion dollar valuations in 2011.
But shortly after, demand for daily deals began to evaporate. Groupon’s costly international expansion began to erode growth and margins, and Wall Street quickly soured on the company, wiping out a lot of its market value.
A 32-year-old computer programmer known for his irreverent sense of humour, Mr Mason compared his failure at the company to Battletoads, a 1980s Nintendo video game, saying he had managed to reach the “Terra Tubes” level on his first shot, something the technology website Wired described as “a Herculean, almost impossible, achievement”.
“For those who are concerned about me, please don’t be,” Mr Mason wrote. “I love Groupon, and I’m terribly proud of what we’ve created. I’m OK with having failed at this part of the journey. If Groupon was Battletoads, it would be like I made it all the way to the Terra Tubes without dying on my first ever play through.
“I am so lucky to have had the opportunity to take the company this far with all of you. I’ll now take some time to decompress (FYI I’m looking for a good fat camp to lose my Groupon 40, if anyone has a suggestion), and then maybe I’ll figure out how to channel this experience into something productive.”
Groupon now has around 10,000 employees in 48 countries. However, its stock has lost around three quarters of its value since its November 2011 initial public offering (IPO) at 20 US dollars a share. Jordan Rohan, an analyst with Stifel, said Mr Mason’s exit “was long overdue”.
“I view Mason as a visionary idea generator,” he said.
“Few would argue with how impressive the Groupon organisation was as it grew. However, at some point it became the overgrown toddler of the internet — operationally clumsy, not quite ready to make adult decisions.”