Following the initial public offering of Groupon, Inc. just recently, meet the person who owns 21% of the newly made public company, Eric Lefkofsky.
Lefkofsky became a widely talked about personality behind Groupon, as his shares are three times larger than that of the company’s public face and Chief Executive Officer, Andrew Mason. It is said that Mr. Lefkofsky’s investment of a million dollars will be valued at $4 billion.
Mr. Lefkofsky is known to be an unassuming person from the Midwestern part of the country. He started making his fortune by selling carpets. He is currently the executive chairman of the company’s board of directors. He lives with his family outside Chicago, preferring to be close to suburban Michigan, where his roots are. It has been said that Mr. Lefkofsky hates flying and so only makes business trips four to six times every year. Despite his fortune, Mr. Lefkofsky does not have a vacation home under his name. He is also known for wearing a sweater vest everyday for seven months every year and then changes to button-downs when he does not wear his sweater vests.
As for his business principles, Mr. Lefkofsky believes that one should enter into businesses that have big and fast results. However, when things are not working well, he advises to change course and refer to available data in deciding the next plan of action. In an interview that he did, Mr. Lefkofsky said that being able to access information is needed in order to figure out the next plan of action.
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