

First Zynga insider trading lawsuit filed - vtry
http://venturebeat.com/2012/07/31/first-zynga-stock-sell-off-insider-trading-lawsuit-filed/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Venturebeat+%28VentureBeat%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

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dkhenry
I don't know how much water this will hold as those gentlemen had to announce
before hand they were going to sell stock. The bigger lawsuit should be with
the fact that Zynga issued positive guidance. The officers should be held
accountable for explicitly deceiving to their shareholders.

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ChrisNorstrom
Is there anyone on HN that's actually surprised at how Zynga turned out? I
mean really shocked and surprised? Or even surprised at these accusations of
insider trading? Pincus was known for doing shady even illegal things just to
make money. Famous for saying "I did every horrible thing in the book, too,
just to get revenues right away." and I don't mean to repeat myself over and
over but let's not forget, most of Zyngas games were clones, flat out clones,
of other people's IP. [http://www.businessinsider.com/how-zynga-is-just-like-
micros...](http://www.businessinsider.com/how-zynga-is-just-like-
microsoft-2010-1?op=1) , then there was the Tiny Tower theft. The whole
company was built on screwing other people over for money. So the insider
trading accusation fits quiet well with the company culture.

Even if they're cleared of insider trading, we'll all assume it was because
they were good liars. It's hard to trust Pincus after everything's he's done
and said. Insider trading sounds exactly like something he would do.

The sad part about all this is that Mark Pincus is intelligent and capable. If
he wasn't such a bitch to green paper I think he could have built something
truly amazing and earned his place in startup history alongside Zuckerberg. He
had the intelligence but the soul of an animatronic robot. If being a
heartless, emotionless, immoral, profit-extremist worked, there'd be no need
for Human CEOs because robots programmed to be "dicks" would have taken over
companies.

Moral of the story: Money is not the goal. It's the result of achieving a
goal.

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danilocampos
Socrates rendered the lesson thus, and I agree with you both:

"I tell you that virtue is not given by money, but that from virtue comes
money and every other good of man, public as well as private."

~~~
autodidakto
I see your Socrates and raise you a Benjamin Franklin: "Do well by doing
good." In other words, make money through businesses that make people's lives
better. That really is the point/goal/aspiration of Capitalism, but some
people try to make money through the backdoor of cheating, amorality, etc.

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seiji
Let's break it down: Zynga is a company created for the sole purpose of
abusing simple people psychologically to make them part with their money.
(This does not make the entire employee pool evil. They employ hundreds of
actually good people. Most of them stay good. Some buy into the kool-aid and
become toe-the-line shadow puppets of evil though.)

If manipulating people is your primary focus day in and day out for years, it
can make you unbalanced. You begin to think you can get away with anything.
After all, you've been doing horrible things for years and nobody has stopped
you -- heck, most people don't even realize what's happening. It's a short
leap to see how they start to elevate their abuse to the level of deceiving
and manipulating public markets.

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wpietri
I'm not sure I'd call good they who profit from evil.

One of the things that really troubled me after the financial meltdown was how
much people got a pass for saying, "Oh, I didn't know." Even senior people.

I think ignorance is only a real excuse when you've tried to find out what's
going on. But as it is, our culture seems to reward people for willful
ignorance. That's a dangerous incentive.

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jlgreco
I knew a guy who got an offer there straight out of college (well, prior to
graduating by a few months, but starting afterward).

He readily admitted to not liking them before he even started; but they
offered him a percentage increase on his next highest offer...

I am sure not all employees there are like him, but the ones that are should
hardly be considered innocent.

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jiggy2011
Some of them probably think they can single handedly change the culture.

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jlgreco
Maybe so. I think your standard engineer would rather stay out of that sort of
thing, but who knows.

~~~
seiji
They hire a lot of tech oblivious people too (artists, designers, animators,
copywriters, ..., pizza delivery guys turned SEO/SEM/SMEs) who don't deserve
to be screwed over by sociopathic management.

