Andrew Mason: the man who turned down Google's $6bn

Andrew Mason, founder of discount shopping website Groupon, recently spurned a $6bn takeover from Google. He's betting he can make it big on his own - and few would disagree.

Andrew Mason is known as a serial prankster. But there was no larking about last week when he spurned a $6bn takeover from Google for Groupon, the discount shopping website he founded just two years ago, says Bloomberg. Like Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg who famously turned down a $1bn offer from Yahoo! five years ago Mason, 30, is betting big that he can go it alone. Few disagree; Forbes declares Groupon "the fastest growing web company in history".

By just about any measure, "Groupon is killing it", says Thenextweb.com. Breaking into the black just seven months after inception, it has already steamed into 88 US cities and 22 countries. Mason's trick is to have made cash-saving vouchers and coupons sexy, says The Daily Telegraph. "It is social networking meets bargain-hunting."

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