

Mark Pincus Steps Down From All Operational Roles at Zynga - uptown
http://recode.net/2014/04/23/mark-pincus-steps-down-from-all-operational-roles-at-zynga-ultimately-a-ship-is-better-with-one-captain/

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pvnick
Not to speak too poorly of Mark, because he's just human and I'm sure he makes
many tough decisions under stress, but I was just thinking today about how he
represents how _not_ to found a company. Particularly his approach to equity
and trying to prevent early employees from getting rich if he felt they didn't
contribute like he wanted [1]. That is, trying to prevent a Google scenario
where the chef got a $20 million payday on ipo.

I don't know about you guys, but the chef at my old company was pretty
spectacular. If it were up to me and my company went public, it would be very
important to me that all the early guys got big paydays.

[1] [http://www.businessinsider.com/mark-pincus-to-zynga-
employee...](http://www.businessinsider.com/mark-pincus-to-zynga-employees-
you-dont-deserve-to-be-rich-2011-11)

~~~
FD3SA
Zynga is a perfect case study for everything that is wrong with the modern VC
funded, Wall Street bailed-out pyramid scheme known as a "startup".

The smart folks have realized that going public is where the money is at. And
you don't need to produce value to go public, you just need to get Wall St. to
be your evangelist and convince ignorant investors that your company's shares
will be worth more than their IPO price at some uncertain point in the future.
Does this sound familiar to anyone else? Yes indeed, its the same old "Penny
Stock" scheme that common folk fall for (see: Wolf of Wall St.). This well
oiled money printing machine evolved out of the Dot Com boom, wherein it
existed in a functional but crude state. It has since been perfected.

So, what is a start-up? Is it a vehicle to solve a problem? Or a marketing-
based ponzi scheme designed to pump and dump stock after stock in IPOs, making
the "investors" unfathomably wealthy at the expense of common folk through
zero-sum wealth transfers?

This is the real question Sam Altman and PG have to answer. Because it seems
to me for every Elon Musk, there are hundreds of Mark Pincus clones, just
itching to ride the next wave all the way to the bank.

~~~
gavanwoolery
I definitely think there is a lot of pump and dump action going on in the
software startup world, but then again a huge amount of software engineers are
guilty of riding this money wave by association. It might be an artificial
economy, which is morally bankrupt, but I can't help but think at times that
anything that keeps the blood pumping is good for the overall economy (could
very well be wrong there).

Of course, once I go down that rabbit hole I have to start patting government
contractors on the back for circulating money at the expense of taxpayers. I
guess the overall question is: is an artificial economy better than a stagnant
economy?

~~~
pfraze
Some interesting thoughts on that by Steve Randy Waldman [1]. In this snippet,
he's asking whether bubbles promote useful innovation:

    
    
      He went so far as to suggest that agency problems in
      the delegated investment process, specifically the inability 
      of career-minded fund managers to stay away from bubbles 
      regardless of any personal reservations, make an important 
      contribution to innovation. Steven Fazzari (whose work on 
      inequality this blog has featured before) described research 
      showing that R&D expenditures of young firms are constrained 
      by external finance and increase in bubblicious periods. 
      Ramana Nanda investigated whether investments made at the 
      top of bubbles were poor, and found that they were not. They 
      were just riskier. Firms funded by venture capitalists in 
      heat were unusually likely to crash and burn, sure, but they 
      were also unusually likely to succeed spectacularly.
    

1\.
[http://www.interfluidity.com/v2/5066.html](http://www.interfluidity.com/v2/5066.html)

~~~
gavanwoolery
Thanks, interesting :)

------
taude
Instead of just bashing Zynga and the fact that it went public and dumped a
bunch of stock on the public, while insiders rolled away fat with cash...let's
switch the discussion to something more interesting...

What would you do if you were given the helm of Zynga today? You had to save
the company of 2000 remaining employees (just a guess). How do you generate
another Number #1 Platinum Album in fickle market of online social gaming? Or
is there another business angle you move in to? Would you sell the company to
Facebook or Yahoo!?

~~~
georgeecollins
I would not try to sell the comapny to Yahoo or Facebook, I would sell it to
Amazon. If Amazon isn't interested I would:

\- Cut the employees from 2k to like 500 (That's just a guess. I don't know
enough about their structure to say a real number)

\- Milk their Facebook hits (and keep the staff to do so)

\- License my IP (Farmville, Mafia Wars, Draw Something) to any PC, console or
mobile developer that will not embarrass me.

\- Take a few longshot bets on FTP PC or Mobile games. Not too many so I can
stay focused, and not too expensive so I can keep trying.

~~~
debt
\- Encourage employees to work on their own games during work hours. Zynga
takes a small percentage ownership of the games and will distribute/market the
games using every available resource at it's disposal.

------
ztratar
This marks the end of an era for Zynga. It will be extremely interesting to
see what they do from here... I'm bullish on the capabilities of the org if
they can adopt the right high-level strategy.

~~~
rhizome
Pets.com had a Super Bowl commercial. Zynga is just as likely to disappear
without a trace.

------
r00fus
After-hours ZNGA has reclaimed today's loss, so I take it Wall St. likes the
news.

------
rdl
I wonder what he'll do next.

~~~
njloof
Probably find a popular company he likes and make a knock-off version on the
cheap.

~~~
ScottWhigham
I laughed. I'd guess you were downvoted by either (a) someone with no sense of
humor, or (b) someone who knows nothing about Zynga's history, or I suppose
(c) a Zynga employee.

------
FD3SA
He now has all the time he needs to enjoy the half a billion he liquidated
upon the Zynga IPO. Gotta hand it to a determined Machiavellian who is a
master of his craft.

Just goes to show folks, its not what you know, but who you can exploit.

------
vidoc
Good for him, he'll have more time to prepare his defense, because ultimately
he will face justice for insider trading.

~~~
josho
If you are going to make an allegation like that please at least provide
something to back it up.

~~~
vidoc
There you go:

[http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidthier/2012/08/01/zynga-
ceo-...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidthier/2012/08/01/zynga-ceo-mark-
pincus-and-other-execs-accused-of-insider-trading/)

~~~
josho
Thanks. The class action lawsuit was launched nearly 2 years ago and there
hasn't been much public progress since then.

------
ulfw
Not a day too early.

~~~
rhizome
Nah, justice would have him driving the company bankrupt and going down with
the ship, winding up as a product manager at Facebook or something, slugging
it out for Bay Area housing with the rest of us.

~~~
ulfw
Good point!

------
crag
It's about time.

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rhizome
He got his.

~~~
rhizome
Hmm. Someone doesn't agree that Pincus made the world net-worse for his
efforts.

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cwe
Announced during an Apple earnings call. Surprise surprise.

EDIT: same time as the earnings, not the actual call. But still.

~~~
furyofantares
I'm not sure what your theory is here, his involvement with the company has
been in decline for 10 months since he was replaced as CEO, and by all
accounts I'm aware of, the last 10 months have been full of good changes for
the company.

~~~
nhangen
Pretty sure parent is saying that it was done during the Apple call in order
to mitigate the PR onslaught.

~~~
furyofantares
In that case I am curious what makes cwe think it's bad PR rather than good
PR, and also curious if there is some unstated reasoning, other than pure
speculation, that makes cwe believe it to be timed intentionally.

~~~
cwe
Zynga has a history of timing their shady announcements like this, that's all.

