The reason is not known, but the departure seems sudden, according to the Wall Street Journal's All Things Digital blog, which first reported the move.
"Rob has added enormous value to Groupon and we'll miss having him around," Groupon CEO Andrew Mason said in an email to Crain's Tuesday evening. "He'll remain a friend and adviser to the company."
Mr. Solomon, 44, a former executive with Yahoo Inc., held the titles for about a year.
As Groupon has hurtled toward an expected IPO, Mr. Solomon's role had him racing to build the management structures and marketing strategies needed to harness its growth.
Recent reports said Groupon has discussed an IPO with banks that would give the company a value of as high as $25 billion. The move to go public has been widely seen as happening this year and would not value the company lower than $15 billion, Bloomberg Businessweek reported earlier this month, citing “two people with knowledge of the discussions.”
The company's revenue has been estimated by outsiders at about $150 million a month and continues to grow by about 25% per month. Half the revenue comes from overseas, the fastest-growing part of the business.
“When I got here, we had less than 200 people,” Mr. Solomon told Crain's last month. “Now we're over 5,000.”
Solomon joined Groupon last year after a stint at Crossover Ventures and previously spent 6 years at Yahoo overseeing its shopping site. He was widely considered to be the "adult supervision" for the young founding staff -- much like Eric Schmidt at Google.
He is apparently moving back to Woodside, the toney rural Silicon Valley location where Larry Ellison, Steve Jobs, and other tech bigwigs make their homes.
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