
Behind Mark Pincus's Bid to Save Zynga - tomkit
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324073504578116100928125228.html
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redthrowaway
I'm having a great deal of difficulty trying to scrounge up a shred of
sympathy for Mr. Pincus. A man who has made vast sums of money running an
unethical company unethically, who has screwed over users and employees at
every turn, is now suffering his comeuppance. Tragic.

His employees on the other hand, bound as they are by golden handcuffs and
seeing their stocks plummet, are far more deserving of our sympathy and good
will. I'm far more willing to extend my understanding to those caught in the
machine than to he who operates it.

Hopefully, Zynga will soon be a footnote in history, Pincus will retire with
whatever he stashed away from the IPO, and his employees will find gainful
employment doing something less shady and banal.

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firefoxman1
It's amazing how far humans have progressed in 150 years isn't it? A century
ago you had a right to complain about working conditions if, for example, you
lost a limb in a meat factory. In the 1880s 1 in 7 steel workers would die
while at work each year. Industrialists were considered "exploiting" the
workers when they paid them $1 a day, hardly a liveable wage, and young
children worked for even less.

Contrast that with what we consider "unethical" today about a company that
makes cartoon games on a computer screen, which the user can step away from at
any time. The employees are top-notch talent that could easily find employment
elsewhere if they get tired of their in-house chef's meals.

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jiggy2011
I think the point is that a games company should be something that's actually
very difficult to run unethically, yet somehow they managed it.

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shaggyfrog
Are you kidding me? The games industry is practically founded on the broken
backs of unethical labour practices. It's been a massive challenge, especially
for the largest players, to change that.

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jiggy2011
Games jobs often have long hours and shitty pay, but at least you know what to
expect going in. Based on the press coverage of Zynga it's almost like they
are trying to mistreat people as a matter of course.

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fatbird
Pincus is getting excoriated in the trade press for his aggressive tactics,
his Bagdad Bob enthusiasm, and his macho indifference to common sense and good
taste.

What about Kleiner Perkins? What about Bing Gordon? Why, when a turd like
Zynga goes up like a rocket and comes down as hard, don't the VCs encouraging
a CEO like Pincus get hammered twice as hard? Aren't they supposed to function
as gatekeepers, as elder statesmen of startups? Isn't it basically their job
to sort the wheat from the chaff in exactly this situation?

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jessedhillon
There are not many people in the world who can take an idea and generate
$billions with it. Even if they crash, you don't just throw those people under
the bus. You can debate whether or not they conform to some specific ideals of
success, but I'd hardly call him "chaff."

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fatbird
You make fair points, but what I'm really questioning is why Pincus alone
seems to bear the brunt of the backlash against him and Zynga, when he was
enthusiastically enabled by a variety of investors. Why aren't they receiving
the same criticism for failing to perform? Why aren't they receiving more,
given that Pincus has only his own experience, while it's the basic job of the
VCs to look at a hundred Pincus's and choose the three worth betting on?

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nikcub
> why Pincus alone seems to bear the brunt of the backlash against him and
> Zynga

Because that is how Zynga was presented to the world - as Pincus' company
where he runs everything. Pincus and Zynga can't be separated, he is the
public face and persona of the company.

It was the same with Jobs and Apple, and is the same with Zuck and Facebook.
With success the founder is praised, but the downside of making a single
founder the focal point is that when things go wrong they are completely
associated with the faults of that single person.

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damian2000
to avoid the paywall ...

[http://www.google.com/url?q=http://online.wsj.com/article/SB...](http://www.google.com/url?q=http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324073504578116100928125228.html)

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joeblau
Thank you!

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nikcub
as a bookmarklet:

    
    
        javascript:(function()%7Bwindow.location.href='http://www.google.com/url?q='+document.URL;%7D)()

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Symbol
The following two things trouble me:

1) Employee morale is low. One problem cited is that they are unsure about the
direction of the company.

2) The attempted fix to the moral problem was with an options grant.

The article goes on to talk about the quibble around who got what options, but
this is all a tempest in a teapot. If the very people who make your products,
who are the engine of your company, do not understand how you are going to
continue to remain in business, then stock grants are, literally, worthless.
You cannot get rich off a company that makes no revenue. I'm appalled that
this was Pincus' (or whoever acted in his stead's) idea. You could actually, I
don't know, _TALK_ to your employees, elevate their ideas, and produce
something of value. Hell, you could even talk to your customers and discover
what they like, to try and help you drive some innovation.

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shaggyfrog
> 2) The attempted fix to the moral problem was with an options grant.

Because we're talking about Zynga, I found that typo oddly appropriate.

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jval
I wonder if he had tears in his eyes when cashed out?

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bond
Tears of joy...

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chris_wot
Actually, an employee threw a stock option at his eye...

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robryan
One of Zyngas big problems is that they can only really continue to make these
same types of game. They could try and make better games that more people
would consider fun but I doubt that will really push their valuation back up.
They only really got so overinflated taking advantage of psychology and
addiction and pushing low quality but high return offers at their players.

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jessedhillon
Please change the link to use damian2000's Google referral link.

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bryne
_Mr. Pincus also filled his calendar with product meetings, something he had
previously scaled back on. And he switched his main phone from a BlackBerry to
iPhone, the device preferred by Zynga's users._

I don't think anyone was under the impression that Pincus was personally
invested in any of his company's products, but I think this is still a telling
anecdote, similar to cultural problems most recently corrected by Marissa
Mayer at Yahoo, for example.

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grantph
Is it really worth saving?

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alexpenny
No. they shouldn't have IPO'd, their products are mind draining, they
shouldn't even be a company. This whole thing is a big mess.

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pxlpshr
Funny thing is a lot of the baby boomers said the same thing about Mario
Brothers.

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ghshephard
Except Nintendo's primary revenue stream was not derived from ripping off
other people's hard work, and slapping on their own artwork and calling it
their own.

Nintendo created/creates a novel hardware platform, enabling other people to
deliver great and compelling entertainment.

Have you ever listened to John Siracusa's Hypercritical Podcast when he
remises about Nintendo, Nintendo hardware, and Nintendo games?

I do not expect anyone ever has, or ever will, wax on enthusiastically about
any of the addictive little feedback loops that Zynga has sucked people into
engaging. None of my friends who work there are particularly proud about the
company they work for.

Zynga is one of the few (non toxin/polluting) companies in the world that I
can't wait to see walk off the stage. The sooner the better.

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jessedhillon
While I agree with your analysis, I would add that the sheer entrepreneurial
will and effort required to take Zynga from zero to IPO is incredible. Yes, a
lot of stars had to line up in just the right way, but let's not discount the
motivation of a person like Pincus, no matter how misdirected we think it is.

For that reason, I would not consider it a foregone conclusion that Zynga will
disappear. To the extent that a rise-from-the-ashes is fueled by grit and
determination, he has what it takes to do it. Despite the stock option
clawback efforts, I don't buy the story that he's a soulless leech. He's still
in it to win.

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ghshephard
I agree with you pretty much on everything you're saying here. I haven't met
Pincus, or spoken with him, so it's unclear to me whether he saw the
intervening period of Zynga's "Let's get everyone hooked on addictive little
feedback games, and let's speed up our product delivery (and justify our
massive valuation) by rebranding other people's games" as anything more than a
step to something truly great.

But, I can't judge Zynga on what, or who, Pincus might be, I can only judge
them on their actions and behavior.

Who knows, maybe Zynga will go down in flames, but Pincus arises from the
ashes to go off and do great things elsewewhere...

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dkroy
I hate that someone linked this in an article in the hopes that we would pay
for the whole thing, by the way thanks for linking the full article in the
comments whoever did that.

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ghshephard
Those of us with a subscription to the WSJ can't always remember that not all
of the articles are available to non-subscribers.

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chris_wot
So stop posting wsj articles full stop then.

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saosebastiao
I would never, in a million years, work for this guy. I just have to wonder,
is it possible to short sell stock options?

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Prufrock1
Is anyone going long on Zynga and picking up some stock for $2 a share?

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stevewillows
is there any reason they haven't ditched facebook and focused on games for
mobile phones?

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abhimir
they have recently launched some of their online games on mobile. I am sure
that is a strategy going forward.

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bitops
The best way for Mark Pincus to save Zynga?

Quit.

