
Zynga CEO Mark Pincus Confirms Layoffs: 5% of Workforce - nikunjk
http://techcrunch.com/2012/10/23/zynga-ceo-mark-pincus-confirms-layoffs-5-of-workforce-potential-closures-for-u-k-japan-offices/
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w1ntermute
No matter how Pincus might try to spin it, announcing this the same day as the
iPad Mini event just shows once again how much of a sleazeball he really is.

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andrewljohnson
You can lay a lot of sleaziness at Pincus's feet, but announcing your bad news
on a Friday, when it gets mixed with other bad and important news, is just
good strategy. If the news will get the least play on that day, he even owes
it to the shareholders to do it that way.

What exactly is the ethical way to announce layoffs?

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mikeash
I may be missing your point, but today is Tuesday.

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jackowayed
His point is that there's no great time to announce layoffs, and it's
perfectly acceptable to announce it or any other bad news at a time when it
will get the minimum media attention. Everyone does it, and it's in the best
interest of the company.

Besides, whom does it really help for the news of layoffs to get lots of play?
If there's a salient case for this move being sleazy, it only holds up if he's
actually wronging some party in the process.

The only argument I can really think of is that the more other employers that
hear about it, the easier time the laid-off have finding jobs, but that's a
very tenuous argument to make

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stevencorona
Zynga has almost 3000 employees? Jeez. That's more than Twitter.

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bunderbunder
Zynga's got a lot more products to support than Twitter does. Their homepage
lists 18 games.

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mkenyon
There's over 40 games.

Source: I (still) work here.

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salemh
Any thoughts without any sort of backlash?

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trifilij
And I just got an email in my MIT email about Zynga interviews..

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ChuckMcM
Any good company continually looks for new talent, even when they have to let
go some of the existing talent. I had the weird experience of coming to work
for NetApp the Monday after their first layoff in history the previous Friday.
Youch!

Having been at Intel when they were both laying people off and hiring, it is
sometimes a function of corporate strategy shift, where the people you have
can't fill the jobs that you want to have and their jobs are becoming
irrelevant. Intel decided to get out of the DRAM business in '84 and those
folks who did DRAM weren't the same kind as the ones who do CPUs apparently.

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duiker101
I wouldn't call Zynga a good company.

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purplelobster
I'm surprised they had 2000 employees.

