Groupon founder admits ‘bush-league’ mistakes on ‘60 Minutes’

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Updated: February 17, 2012 8:15AM

Groupon CEO Andrew Mason conceded in a “60 Minutes” interview Sunday that the Chicago-based daily-deal startup made a “bush-league mistake” in misstating its revenues before it went public, but said it’s because “we’re inventing a new industry.”

“Smart people can get this stuff wrong,” said the 31-year-old Mason, a native of Mount Lebanon, Pa., and a Northwestern University music major. Mason has grabbed headlines for posting a YouTube video of himself doing yoga in his underwear, setting up a porto potty as his executive washroom and for writing a memo to employees during a pre-public quiet period in which he said Groupon was “getting the sh-- kicked out of us in the press.”

“If we were smart, evil people, we would be more cunning and subtle in our evil ways, you know?” Mason told “60 Minutes” reporter Leslie Stahl on the CBS-TV news show.

Last September, the three-year-old Groupon — Forbes dubbed it the fastest-growing company ever — restated its 2010 revenues to less than half what it had first reported. The new figures — to $312.9 million from $713.4 million — resulted from Groupon agreeing to omit the payments it made to merchants for their part of the deals. The results showed Groupon had a $420 million operating loss in 2010 and a $117 million loss in the first quarter of 2011.

Founding investors Eric Lefkofsky and Brad Keywell attracted new attention after they sold shares or received dividends worth $325 million and $133 million, respectively, before Groupon’s public-share offering, according to media reports.

Mason, Lefkofsky and Keywell became billionaires when Groupon first went public on Nov. 4, 2011. The stock closed at $26.11 on its first day of trading and this past Friday stood at $19.15 a share.

Mason said the experience has been phenomenal,

“Once we started Groupon, the success was intoxicating,” he said.

Mason said the keys to the company’s success are tailoring deals based on subscribers’ ages, gender and other traits, and writing engaging copy about the deals that keeps people coming back for laughs as well as bargains. Groupon touts 150 million subscribers and employs 10,000 in 46 countries worldwide.

And Mason insists he can grow up to be a responsible CEO, despite being described as “thin-skinned, impetuous and childish,” according to Stahl’s account.

“I think if there’s any difference between me and a traditional CEO, it’s that I’ve been unwilling to change myself or shape my personality around what’s expected,” Mason said.

Mason said he believes it’s useful for a company’s founder to be the CEO and, after all, he asked “60 Minutes” beforehand whether he should wear a tie. He owns more than four now.