The 2011 TIME 100 Poll

Cast your votes for the leaders, artists, innovators, icons and heroes that you think are the most influential people in the world. Though official voting for inclusion on the TIME 100 list has now closed (with Rain as the 2011 readers' choice), users can continue to vote for their favorites until the final list, selected by our editors, is revealed on Thursday, April 21st

TIME 100 Candidates

Andrew Mason

By TIME StaffMonday, Apr. 04, 2011
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Noah Berger / Bloomberg / Getty Images

Age: 30
Occupation: Founder and CEO of Groupon
Previous TIME 100 appearances: 0

Andrew Mason is the king of social commerce, the Web's hottest new segment. Groupon offers its passionate subscribers discounts on goods and services if a critical mass of people agree to buy the deals that are e-mailed to them each day. Mason is so confident in Groupon's growth potential that he turned down a $6 billion buyout offer from Google late last year. A competitor, LivingSocial, is threatening to steal some of Groupon's business. But Mason, a music major in college who also started a site that organized collective action around charitable causes — ThePoint.com failed to turn a profit but spawned the Groupon model — says Groupon may not even be his best idea.

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