Quotable Quotes: Andrew Mason, CEO, Groupon
by Miki Saxon
I get a kick out of reading interviews with Andrew Mason, Groupon’s 29 year old CEO. I find him refreshing; he seems to be missing the ego usually so obvious among entrepreneur superstars.
Most people are uncomfortable talking about themselves, which is why they dislike writing resumes and interviewing, but when they are highly successful they rarely admit it. Mason, on the other hand, has no such hesitation, “I’m just not used to talking that much about myself. It feels strange,”
Entrepreneurs, and those who write about them, love to tell how they always wanted to be an entrepreneur and started as a kid by selling whatever to their neighbors. Mason is an exception, “I never thought of myself as an entrepreneur before this,” he has often said, “and I still really don’t. I just like to build things and do things.”
As to planning out his career, “I never really planned my life more than one month in advance. I try to chase whatever I think is the most interesting thing to do at the moment, and if it becomes less interesting, I find something else to do.”
But he must have planned Groupon, right? Wrong. It was actually started as a side effort to support a different social enterprise. “There was a kind of freedom that came with not caring if it failed, and caring primarily that it was something we could be proud of.”
Mason also doesn’t see Groupon mainly as a technology function, “Really, it’s a way to get out of the house, to explore the city—an expensive city—and to spend more time with your friends or loved ones.”
Mason is young and many wonder how he will avoid being a shooting star instead of a major light in the online firmament as has happened to far more experienced CEOs, but I think he has the perfect approach, “I’m hopeful that as long as we continue to think that we suck and try to be better every day than we were the day before, then we can avoid a similar fate.”
Wouldn’t it be nice if more CEOs channeled Andrew Mason?
Flickr image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/techcrunch/5036271875/
