anyone would want to invent a time machine for a cool $5 billion dollars?? because that much Andrew Mason would pay you to get back to the table split seconds before he said "no" to Google's "we will pay you $6 billions for your website".
If Google did infact have the chance to look at the books (which I'm sure they did), and then allow that "$6bn meme" to circulate -- well, that's evil isn't it?
If that wasn't true, someone in Google did have obligation to deny it - denying it off record with no further comment would hardly have been saying a lot.
To expand on that a bit: If google had made public what they thought they found they would have been very much open to a lawsuit with some significant chance of success.
Breaking an NDA in such a situation is unheard of, every investor is supposed to make up their own mind and do their own homework before they decide to invest or not.
Any legitimate concerns about this would revolve around the question of whether or not groupon was forthcoming in their pre-IPO filings. If there is any proof to be found with google you could try to persuade a judge to grant a subpoena of people at google familiar with the deal, but google should never by themselves reveal any of this.
So: no, not evil.
If the story is true, it seems very strange that they wouldn't set the record straight (obviously without breaching any confidences or disclosing anything specific about Groupon).
I'm not sure they'd have made more in that deal. Honestly most of the folks invested early made a ton of money and now the guys at the backend are looking for a chair as the music ends.
Im sure if nothing has changed since the early days of groupon till now, the skeletons now are still the same as before, google was just smart about it, did the math and said no way and allowed Andrew to walk away and speak about the deal however he wished.
On another note, if groupon collapses is it a good thing for the daily deals market ie, more smaller ones take their place, better competition better monetization strategy or does it spell the end for this market ?
What do people think ?
Giving away $5B to get the company's valuation to $6B would only make sense if Groupon were valued below $1B right now. (unless you're insinuating that in the near future, Groupon will be below this threshold, or even in bankruptcy)
By the time they would find someone to buy it (had to announce somehow to find a buyer) and sign all the documents, the stock would be a penny one, with a market cap around $500MM.
Groupon stink before IPO and it will make people shorting it extremely rich, and unless rules of basic math like 1+1=5 or rules of economy won't change overnight, this will be one of the biggest deadpool everyone post-internet era has seen!
I already bought a popcorn.