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Looking at the Founder's background and the roster of corporate clients, PrivCo look fairly legit. http://www.privco.com/our-team/founder-and-ceo http://www.pr

Looking at the Founder's background and the roster of corporate clients, PrivCo look fairly legit. http://www.privco.com/our-team/founder-and-ceo http://www.privco.com/our-team/founder-and-ceo

tptacek 14y ago
LivingSocial denied unequivocally the following: * That the investors PrivCo mentioned as participants were participants or even investors in LivingSocial * That it was a debt round rather than an equity round * That the liquidation preferences on the deal came close to 4x * That it repriced existing shareholders * That quotes attributed to LivingSocial personnel were real These are not minor details. They are major details. LivingSocial's CEO would have to be lying about very important facts that will inevitably be public. PrivCo, on the other hand, merely needs to claim they were misinformed by their source to extricate itself.
- BostonCFO2 14y ago
  From the employees' owns mouths. Draw your conclusions about how they feel about LivingSocial's CEO and Sr. Management's credibility and honesty: http://www.glassdoor.com/GD/Reviews/LivingSocial-Reviews-E234830.htm?filter.reviewRating=1.0 http://www.glassdoor.com/GD/Reviews/LivingSocial-Reviews-E23...
- BostonCFO2 14y ago
  GLASSDOOR.com LivingSocial 190 EMPLOYEE reviews livingsocial.com HQ: Washington, DC Write a Review “Lies, Unprofessional Management, Abuse” Current Marketing Consultant in Township Washinton, NJ – Reviewed Dec 4, 2012 Cons – Daily HR violations Lies “Executives are in over their head” Former Senior Marketing Associate in Washington, DC – Reviewed Feb 27, 2013 – New Communication is pathetic. I sold takeout and delivery and I was never told when the product was going to launch until I read about it in the news. Not efficient - managers take over a month to make simple decisions that could be made in one hour. Its a "fake it till you make it" hierarchy. Directors and executives are all talk and basically take 50 PTO days and play on their computers all day. Not very motivating Advice to Senior Management – Restructure the whole organization. Hire seasoned directors and executives instead of 20 somethings who just want to make money and have fun. Culture should be more strict. Strategic Account Manager-Intel VMware – Reston, VA “Cool brand but dying industry” Former Account Manager in San Diego, CA – Reviewed Feb 22, 2013 – New Cons – incompetent management and dying product. Advice to Senior Management – get out in the field “Sinking Ship” Former Sales in New York, NY – Reviewed Feb 21, 2013 – New Advice to Senior Management – Get out now, company won't last very long “Horrible Place, Worst Experience Ever!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” Former Account Manager in Washington, DC – Reviewed Sep 8, 2012 No one is happy. Employees are crying in the bathrooms and taking long lunch breaks for job interviews. People are dropping left and right, either getting fired for not hitting outlandish goals or leaving for positions with an actual career path. Comp plan changes for no reason and terrible direction. All the while, they punish employees by having them go on performance plans or firing them while they are experimenting with plans. When questioned about the extremely high turnover, terrible responses such as "we only want the best" or "that's the nature of sales" is given. Instead of being an innovate company, they just want to copy others. Worst of all, they set your expectations during the interview so high, while knowing too well that you will never make that overall comp. They are crooks! Given how badly Groupon peformed post IPO, they can no longer go IPO, so everybody is leaving. Be warned, stay away!!!! Advice to Senior Management – Stop treating employees as a number and be honest with them. “Long hours, very hard to move, do not look behind the curtain” Current Inside Sales in Washington, DC – Reviewed Jul 16, 2012 LivingSocial talks a big game about how innovated they are but their sales department is a carbon copy of every other sales department out there, if you've worked in one whip cracking sales department you've worked at LivingSocial's. The one they got going for them is a lot of young people who dont know any better and don't mind drinking the kool aid. They'll be delusional and talk about the great perks but they really don't know any better. Also, I find a lot of the practices unethical. We were told not to post fake reviews on ratings sites so that our merchants look better. But then LivingSocial corporate/HR does the same thing The biggest con is a con in itself. “Bread and Circuses replaces all values” Former Employee in Washington, DC – Reviewed Jun 7, 2012 I would think an organization who communicates to their employees that they are not like that wouldnt: lay off influential employees, punish those who do not bend the rules, force employees into roles they are not comfortable with and threaten them with unemployment if they don't comply, make false promises, not consider all factors when coming up with performance plans, etc - Inadequate leadership. This stems from having too many on staff that are not experienced enough to handle the tasks at hand. - Inept leadership. I do not need the VP of sales to tell me to make more money to "just sign better deals." My eyes could not roll further back into my head. - Comp plan changes with no rhyme or reason and terrible direction. All the while, they punish employees by having them go on performance plans or firing them while they are experimenting with plans. When questioned about the extremely high turnover, terrible responses such as "we only want the best" or "that's the nature of sales" is given. Instead of being an innovate company seems as if they want to follow lock step behind others. - And worst of all, the Bread and Circus. LivingSocial has taken a page out of the formula the Romans used to keep the populace at bay. They knew that conditions were terrible and so to keep the general populace at bay, the Romans gave away bread and held circuses for entertainment. LivingSocial does the same and disguises it as "culture." Take away the bread and circuses and you have an extremely unhappy employee base. Advice to Senior Management – Be an actually innovative company. Senior Wholesaler/External Practice Management Consultant Advice to Senior Management – RETRENCH! get back the good, upscale subscribers and lose the tanning, National, and kettleball deals! “Pitiful” Current Account Executive Manager in Orlando, FL – Reviewed Feb 26, 2012 Disgusting Local Management. Selfish to point of "winning becomes more important than ethics and honesty" Gossipy, easily put down competition when competition clearly outshines Living Social. Most unethical group of people to work with. If you have ethics, morals, scruples, a sense of fairness and have been up to this point descent - THIS IS NOT THE PLACE FOR YOU. If you posses those traits run to DC and get the job. You will fit in at all levels right up to the President. By the way if I was an investor quickly demand your money back and RUN! Advice to Senior Management – EGO's so big - they all think they are Local God's so full of Self Worship. “I drank the Kool-Aid and woke up in Sugar Shock” Former Marketing Consultant in Brooklyn, NY – Reviewed Feb 5, 2012 “Don't waste your time!” Current Marketing Consultant in Los Angeles, CA – Reviewed Dec 1, 2011 Linux Systems Administrator – new MITRE – McLean, VA “Great Employees, bad communication.” Horrible communication. Leadership was held by those with little experience who did not know how to manage people. More Poor management; job was not what I interviewed for” Former Employee – Reviewed Dec 10, 2012 Strategic Account Manager-Intel “Lack of Integrity and Honesty” Former Employee – Reviewed Nov 13, 2012 Sr. Management and BP (lacking integrity and emotional maturity) Hiring people who lack certifications and credentials Advice to Senior Management – Be honest with your employees and be sure to provide them with a solid support and development system in which you are willing to back up. “Absolutely miserable experience full of stress and LOW PAY” Current Marketing Consultant – Reviewed Jun 3, 2012 management that is clueless You will be churned and burned and replaces without a thought Groupon is offering better cuts and we are supposed to tell the merchant "oh well, we are God and won't do that" Don't be fooled by these phony HR planted reviews. This is a miserable existence where you will literally wake up in the middle of the night thinking "I have to get another deal." If you have any more that 5 years in sales....walk away from this. You get into sales for autonomy and the money. With this, you have NEITHER. “Dying industry - TERRIBLE salary, zero respect for staff, unrealistic goals” Current Account Executive, Outside Sales – Reviewed Mar 4, 2012 “Merchants don't want to run deals!” Current Senior Marketing Consultant-Outside – Reviewed Jan 4, 2012 I have been at LS over 18 months. My biggest issue is that most merchants are now pretty savvy to the "deal" space and no longer want to participate. Both LS and Groupon have a bad reputation. They are unhappy with type of customer they are getting, no repeat business, only deal seekers and in some cases have been pushed to brink of bankruptcy. I would like to leave as I feel morally that what we are selling is no longer in the business owners best interests and my conscience is getting the better of me... Advice to Senior Management – sell before it is too late! I was misled and made a huge mistake by coming on board” Current Marketing Consultant – Reviewed Dec 20, 2011 Markets are saturated. Trying to get 20 new clients every month is nearly impossible unless you're in a new or huge market Advice to Senior Management – You reap what you sow. I'm checked out. “Holding on by a thread” Former Employee – Reviewed Dec 12, 2011 Advice to Senior Management – You are a lawsuit waiting to happen “Karma is not going to be kind Livingsocial - you are headed towards a train wreck!” Current Marketing Consultant – Reviewed Dec 3, 2011
- trevelyan 14y ago
  The article I read claimed it was an equity round with some strange preferred stock that had punitive warrants and other guarantees which effectively nixed the value of the existing common stock without technically repricing it. So two of the points are irrelevant (#2 and #4). I can easily imagine a source saying "over three" or "over three if you add up all of the guarantees" and having that become four (#3) while there is no denial of the general claim of punitive liquidation terms. Which leaves #1 as partially wrong and #5 as a he-said-she-said. PrivCo is contextualizing an apparent leak with what it thinks it knows about the company finances and making a judgment call about the reliability of their sources. That isn't horrible journalism and if they are right this piece is miles above most of what passes for tech journalism online. And if it is wrong they have just tanked their reputation Judith Miller style and posters like the one above will be able to support their claims in the future. In the meantime, dealing with this sort of thing is part-and-parcel of running a very public business that has taken nearly a billion dollars in outside investment. You are going to have aggrieved investors and employees when things go sour. They seem to be handling it professionally.
- FinTech 14y ago
  It does honestly bug me that LivingSocial's CEO is lying or at least misleading employees and public about several very important facts, and is coming up with more only when forced to do so by privco questions or the press. First, it bothers me that in this initial memo announcing the funding he said nothing but how terrific it is that their investors love LivingSocial's financial performance SO much that they doubled down with more money. NO mention that they were down to their last month of cash left. NO mention that they had to give up the farm to get the money. NO naming (as is the custom) of the investors who invested (i.e. hiding that some did not...usually ALL prior investors put in at least a nominal amount and a new lead investor "leads the round). Here it was very bizarre the investors weren't named. And he doesn't say anything about this NOT just being a standard straight VC stock round, but only when pushed by PrivCo he coughs up yea ok the securities do "have some bells and whistles" that makes the employees' stock worth less. No mention of that on Wed. announcement (before privco forced the issue). Then he has the balls to suggest that don't worry if we IPO all of this won't matter. He the the guys KNOWS they'll never IPO. So call me old fashiond but that just bugs me. And hats off to PrivCo or any other media/research firm that calls companies out (esp private ones you can't even short sell...they took all their time prepping their research and went out ona limn for what? Bunch of blog posts criticizing em b/c CEO who has no more credibility IMO just says so, and he's the son in law of the CEO of the Washington Post, so he can say whatever the f'k he wants and we're all just supposed to take it all at face value. Obv PrivCo made every effort to get the facts right - they just even outed the sr. exec at Living Social to prove they didn't make up quotes: http://www.privco.com/livingsocial-receives-emergency-110m-cash-infusion-from-existing-investors-to-avoid-bankruptcy http://www.privco.com/livingsocial-receives-emergency-110m-c... (at the bottom) - nobody even the NYTImes bats 1,000, but this LIvingSocial CEO's arrogant dishonesty to those 4,000 employees while he cuts a side deal i'm sure so he gets some millions no matter how badly it tanks....well I just don't like it and I don't trust him one bit. It's drip drip drip with this guy. Spit it out: we basically borrowed money, we were almost out of cash, we call it equity but it has interest, loan's due in 4 yrs, we call it a "VC round" but look we had to do it. Now we need a new strategy and streamline.

Looking at the Founder's background and the roster of corporate clients, PrivCo look fairly legit. http://www.privco.com/our-team/founder-and-ceo http://www.privco.com/our-team/founder-and-ceo

tptacek 14y ago

LivingSocial denied unequivocally the following: * That the investors PrivCo mentioned as participants were participants or even investors in LivingSocial * That it was a debt round rather than an equity round * That the liquidation preferences on the deal came close to 4x * That it repriced existing shareholders * That quotes attributed to LivingSocial personnel were real These are not minor details. They are major details. LivingSocial's CEO would have to be lying about very important facts that will inevitably be public. PrivCo, on the other hand, merely needs to claim they were misinformed by their source to extricate itself.

BostonCFO2 14y ago
From the employees' owns mouths. Draw your conclusions about how they feel about LivingSocial's CEO and Sr. Management's credibility and honesty: http://www.glassdoor.com/GD/Reviews/LivingSocial-Reviews-E234830.htm?filter.reviewRating=1.0 http://www.glassdoor.com/GD/Reviews/LivingSocial-Reviews-E23...
BostonCFO2 14y ago
GLASSDOOR.com LivingSocial 190 EMPLOYEE reviews livingsocial.com HQ: Washington, DC Write a Review “Lies, Unprofessional Management, Abuse” Current Marketing Consultant in Township Washinton, NJ – Reviewed Dec 4, 2012 Cons – Daily HR violations Lies “Executives are in over their head” Former Senior Marketing Associate in Washington, DC – Reviewed Feb 27, 2013 – New Communication is pathetic. I sold takeout and delivery and I was never told when the product was going to launch until I read about it in the news. Not efficient - managers take over a month to make simple decisions that could be made in one hour. Its a "fake it till you make it" hierarchy. Directors and executives are all talk and basically take 50 PTO days and play on their computers all day. Not very motivating Advice to Senior Management – Restructure the whole organization. Hire seasoned directors and executives instead of 20 somethings who just want to make money and have fun. Culture should be more strict. Strategic Account Manager-Intel VMware – Reston, VA “Cool brand but dying industry” Former Account Manager in San Diego, CA – Reviewed Feb 22, 2013 – New Cons – incompetent management and dying product. Advice to Senior Management – get out in the field “Sinking Ship” Former Sales in New York, NY – Reviewed Feb 21, 2013 – New Advice to Senior Management – Get out now, company won't last very long “Horrible Place, Worst Experience Ever!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” Former Account Manager in Washington, DC – Reviewed Sep 8, 2012 No one is happy. Employees are crying in the bathrooms and taking long lunch breaks for job interviews. People are dropping left and right, either getting fired for not hitting outlandish goals or leaving for positions with an actual career path. Comp plan changes for no reason and terrible direction. All the while, they punish employees by having them go on performance plans or firing them while they are experimenting with plans. When questioned about the extremely high turnover, terrible responses such as "we only want the best" or "that's the nature of sales" is given. Instead of being an innovate company, they just want to copy others. Worst of all, they set your expectations during the interview so high, while knowing too well that you will never make that overall comp. They are crooks! Given how badly Groupon peformed post IPO, they can no longer go IPO, so everybody is leaving. Be warned, stay away!!!! Advice to Senior Management – Stop treating employees as a number and be honest with them. “Long hours, very hard to move, do not look behind the curtain” Current Inside Sales in Washington, DC – Reviewed Jul 16, 2012 LivingSocial talks a big game about how innovated they are but their sales department is a carbon copy of every other sales department out there, if you've worked in one whip cracking sales department you've worked at LivingSocial's. The one they got going for them is a lot of young people who dont know any better and don't mind drinking the kool aid. They'll be delusional and talk about the great perks but they really don't know any better. Also, I find a lot of the practices unethical. We were told not to post fake reviews on ratings sites so that our merchants look better. But then LivingSocial corporate/HR does the same thing The biggest con is a con in itself. “Bread and Circuses replaces all values” Former Employee in Washington, DC – Reviewed Jun 7, 2012 I would think an organization who communicates to their employees that they are not like that wouldnt: lay off influential employees, punish those who do not bend the rules, force employees into roles they are not comfortable with and threaten them with unemployment if they don't comply, make false promises, not consider all factors when coming up with performance plans, etc - Inadequate leadership. This stems from having too many on staff that are not experienced enough to handle the tasks at hand. - Inept leadership. I do not need the VP of sales to tell me to make more money to "just sign better deals." My eyes could not roll further back into my head. - Comp plan changes with no rhyme or reason and terrible direction. All the while, they punish employees by having them go on performance plans or firing them while they are experimenting with plans. When questioned about the extremely high turnover, terrible responses such as "we only want the best" or "that's the nature of sales" is given. Instead of being an innovate company seems as if they want to follow lock step behind others. - And worst of all, the Bread and Circus. LivingSocial has taken a page out of the formula the Romans used to keep the populace at bay. They knew that conditions were terrible and so to keep the general populace at bay, the Romans gave away bread and held circuses for entertainment. LivingSocial does the same and disguises it as "culture." Take away the bread and circuses and you have an extremely unhappy employee base. Advice to Senior Management – Be an actually innovative company. Senior Wholesaler/External Practice Management Consultant Advice to Senior Management – RETRENCH! get back the good, upscale subscribers and lose the tanning, National, and kettleball deals! “Pitiful” Current Account Executive Manager in Orlando, FL – Reviewed Feb 26, 2012 Disgusting Local Management. Selfish to point of "winning becomes more important than ethics and honesty" Gossipy, easily put down competition when competition clearly outshines Living Social. Most unethical group of people to work with. If you have ethics, morals, scruples, a sense of fairness and have been up to this point descent - THIS IS NOT THE PLACE FOR YOU. If you posses those traits run to DC and get the job. You will fit in at all levels right up to the President. By the way if I was an investor quickly demand your money back and RUN! Advice to Senior Management – EGO's so big - they all think they are Local God's so full of Self Worship. “I drank the Kool-Aid and woke up in Sugar Shock” Former Marketing Consultant in Brooklyn, NY – Reviewed Feb 5, 2012 “Don't waste your time!” Current Marketing Consultant in Los Angeles, CA – Reviewed Dec 1, 2011 Linux Systems Administrator – new MITRE – McLean, VA “Great Employees, bad communication.” Horrible communication. Leadership was held by those with little experience who did not know how to manage people. More Poor management; job was not what I interviewed for” Former Employee – Reviewed Dec 10, 2012 Strategic Account Manager-Intel “Lack of Integrity and Honesty” Former Employee – Reviewed Nov 13, 2012 Sr. Management and BP (lacking integrity and emotional maturity) Hiring people who lack certifications and credentials Advice to Senior Management – Be honest with your employees and be sure to provide them with a solid support and development system in which you are willing to back up. “Absolutely miserable experience full of stress and LOW PAY” Current Marketing Consultant – Reviewed Jun 3, 2012 management that is clueless You will be churned and burned and replaces without a thought Groupon is offering better cuts and we are supposed to tell the merchant "oh well, we are God and won't do that" Don't be fooled by these phony HR planted reviews. This is a miserable existence where you will literally wake up in the middle of the night thinking "I have to get another deal." If you have any more that 5 years in sales....walk away from this. You get into sales for autonomy and the money. With this, you have NEITHER. “Dying industry - TERRIBLE salary, zero respect for staff, unrealistic goals” Current Account Executive, Outside Sales – Reviewed Mar 4, 2012 “Merchants don't want to run deals!” Current Senior Marketing Consultant-Outside – Reviewed Jan 4, 2012 I have been at LS over 18 months. My biggest issue is that most merchants are now pretty savvy to the "deal" space and no longer want to participate. Both LS and Groupon have a bad reputation. They are unhappy with type of customer they are getting, no repeat business, only deal seekers and in some cases have been pushed to brink of bankruptcy. I would like to leave as I feel morally that what we are selling is no longer in the business owners best interests and my conscience is getting the better of me... Advice to Senior Management – sell before it is too late! I was misled and made a huge mistake by coming on board” Current Marketing Consultant – Reviewed Dec 20, 2011 Markets are saturated. Trying to get 20 new clients every month is nearly impossible unless you're in a new or huge market Advice to Senior Management – You reap what you sow. I'm checked out. “Holding on by a thread” Former Employee – Reviewed Dec 12, 2011 Advice to Senior Management – You are a lawsuit waiting to happen “Karma is not going to be kind Livingsocial - you are headed towards a train wreck!” Current Marketing Consultant – Reviewed Dec 3, 2011
trevelyan 14y ago
The article I read claimed it was an equity round with some strange preferred stock that had punitive warrants and other guarantees which effectively nixed the value of the existing common stock without technically repricing it. So two of the points are irrelevant (#2 and #4). I can easily imagine a source saying "over three" or "over three if you add up all of the guarantees" and having that become four (#3) while there is no denial of the general claim of punitive liquidation terms. Which leaves #1 as partially wrong and #5 as a he-said-she-said. PrivCo is contextualizing an apparent leak with what it thinks it knows about the company finances and making a judgment call about the reliability of their sources. That isn't horrible journalism and if they are right this piece is miles above most of what passes for tech journalism online. And if it is wrong they have just tanked their reputation Judith Miller style and posters like the one above will be able to support their claims in the future. In the meantime, dealing with this sort of thing is part-and-parcel of running a very public business that has taken nearly a billion dollars in outside investment. You are going to have aggrieved investors and employees when things go sour. They seem to be handling it professionally.
FinTech 14y ago
It does honestly bug me that LivingSocial's CEO is lying or at least misleading employees and public about several very important facts, and is coming up with more only when forced to do so by privco questions or the press. First, it bothers me that in this initial memo announcing the funding he said nothing but how terrific it is that their investors love LivingSocial's financial performance SO much that they doubled down with more money. NO mention that they were down to their last month of cash left. NO mention that they had to give up the farm to get the money. NO naming (as is the custom) of the investors who invested (i.e. hiding that some did not...usually ALL prior investors put in at least a nominal amount and a new lead investor "leads the round). Here it was very bizarre the investors weren't named. And he doesn't say anything about this NOT just being a standard straight VC stock round, but only when pushed by PrivCo he coughs up yea ok the securities do "have some bells and whistles" that makes the employees' stock worth less. No mention of that on Wed. announcement (before privco forced the issue). Then he has the balls to suggest that don't worry if we IPO all of this won't matter. He the the guys KNOWS they'll never IPO. So call me old fashiond but that just bugs me. And hats off to PrivCo or any other media/research firm that calls companies out (esp private ones you can't even short sell...they took all their time prepping their research and went out ona limn for what? Bunch of blog posts criticizing em b/c CEO who has no more credibility IMO just says so, and he's the son in law of the CEO of the Washington Post, so he can say whatever the f'k he wants and we're all just supposed to take it all at face value. Obv PrivCo made every effort to get the facts right - they just even outed the sr. exec at Living Social to prove they didn't make up quotes: http://www.privco.com/livingsocial-receives-emergency-110m-cash-infusion-from-existing-investors-to-avoid-bankruptcy http://www.privco.com/livingsocial-receives-emergency-110m-c... (at the bottom) - nobody even the NYTImes bats 1,000, but this LIvingSocial CEO's arrogant dishonesty to those 4,000 employees while he cuts a side deal i'm sure so he gets some millions no matter how badly it tanks....well I just don't like it and I don't trust him one bit. It's drip drip drip with this guy. Spit it out: we basically borrowed money, we were almost out of cash, we call it equity but it has interest, loan's due in 4 yrs, we call it a "VC round" but look we had to do it. Now we need a new strategy and streamline.