In a frantic plea sent to Vertical Media yesterday at 1:32pm, a senior Groupon manager issued several attacks against the coupon franchise along with the leak of two internal emails from Groupon’s Eastern European CEO Daniel Glasner (the last of which was sent just hours before the insider reached out).
VentureVillage has since received an official statement from Glasner, reporting that the complaints “in no manner mirror the daily working routine at Groupon.” The emails appear to have been written by Glasner, and both are addressed to the same recipients: namely, four city managers and and their responsible overseer, also a Groupon CEO. Glasner did not deny the source.
The whistleblower begins his email by describing the dire situation immediately ahead. Unless he and his colleagues are able to reach unfeasible demands by the end of Friday (today), their titles are at risk, he reports.
The email begins on behalf of the threatened individuals (all quoted emails are translated from German):
I must remain anonymous otherwise I will face serious issues. Here I send you something that has bothered us for days, weeks, months, on a regular daily basis at Groupon. Strong pressure, breaches of contractually agreed bonuses with subsequent penalties. Now our titles are supposed to be changed – we will be degraded – if we do not acquire our Dreamlist partners.





The leaked email calls Groupon CEOs ‘slavedrivers’


The “Dreamlist” is a term that the sender mentions several times, referring to specific and reportedly unrealistic demands on the cc’d individuals (all city managers) to acquire high-tier clients (restauraunts, spas, etc) or otherwise face irreparable consequences. Issuing these demands are two senior Groupon executives, whose expertise the sender directly targets:
Phillip Magin and Daniel Glasner have zero experience in Sales, and behave like slavedrivers. 

The sender then goes on to confess that he and the majority of his colleagues are searching for jobs elsewhere due...