I agree that the founders/early investors of Groupon acted quite suspiciously, cashing out billions of dollars in value before the IPO and at the IPO - which te

I agree that the founders/early investors of Groupon acted quite suspiciously, cashing out billions of dollars in value before the IPO and at the IPO - which tends to mean they would rather have cash than shares in their own company. But the sad thing is that all investors invested with their eyes open to it. You can't call it a Ponzi scheme because everyone knew of Groupons profit challenges BEFORE the IPO. This is just IPO greed / tech bubble meets reality, if anything. Groupon was never worth what the people who bought the shares thought it was. Speculation is not illegal though. If the shares doubled/tripled post IPO, they would have all made off like bandits, so I feel no sympathy for them.