My read on this, especially given the extreme flexibility series G investors showed in cashing out founders, is that when Groupon is up and running in a locale, it makes a whole shitload of money.

I also would anticipate from reading the expansion numbers and having a little bit of business experience myself that Groupon grew literally as fast as it possibly could in the last few years; there was no way for them to successfully move any faster, no matter how much cash they were given.

I'm guessing you'll see some gyrations as they continue to try and solidify their global lead, then slow move to profitability, then one day, (if margins hold up) BAM. Major Net Income.

Right now the market clearly is going to reward a company who can get this done successfully in as broad a portion of the world as possible; if they can demonstrate that existing locales are profitable after a certain period of time, they will have happy shareholders as well. It's a landgrab, and Amazon is a good comparison.