From my perspective, this sort of thing scares me away from companies, because they might do it again in the future.
There's no way that this actually turns out to be a net positive for the Company. It's going to make it significantly harder to hire actual talent, it's going to cause morale decay and revolt from within the company, and it erodes Zynga's brand. Literally the only benefit here is that the execs end up with more stock when the IPO happens.
This is EXACTLY what is happening - anyone who thinks otherwise is deluded or plain stupid.
When Lockheed bought Savi technology, the RFID company, there were massive stock bonuses given out to the the Savi execs just prior to the sale.
Then they told all the employees who had been there less than 18 months they would get NOTHING for the shares they were hired on with as incentive.
All the other employees were given 15% of what the company had been claiming the street price of the options were.
PLUS they held some significant % of the stock value in an escrow account for some number of months should there be a legal backlash and Lockheed were sues - they were to use the escrow share money on that case...
Pincus is a very very VERY shady character.
Yet another IPO that I would never touch purely on principal alone.
Who wants to be Goldman will be taking this IPO?
Any examples of this? Not that I don't believe you, but just curious
Tells his team to steal game ideas, makes millions in the process then shafts the people who made it happen for him.
Would love to hear from someone who can paint him in a better light than the horrible individual I have in mind at the moment.
Someone is here only for the money multiplication factor. Sales, advertising, marketing and your usual MBA subjects are all about that. That is, not to care about what you are selling, but to create an illusion which gives an opportunity to amplify that seed investment. That is the time to cash on and move on.
You fucking suck.
I am not clear if youare advocating these actions or not - but let me make it very clear to you; if you are a proponent of such behavior - lets make sure we never cross paths.
This is NOT OK.
People like this are CANCER.
Sure - many instances of CEOs end up in the position of a Pincus - but it DOES NOT make it ok.
Pincus is a detriment not a person to be idolized.
And it's perfectly fine to tell people with questionable moral values to go and fuck themselves. Even though it's not always the most strategically sound way to make sure they get what they got coming in a world that is indeed not a very nice place at all.
Replying "you fucking suck" to someone taking the position that it's actually OK to go and do a job without having passion and unicorns and rainbows flow out of your ass all day is not the opposite of "taking it like a cabbage", it's the opposite of civilized discourse.
You guys are behaving disgracefully.
Now whether someone who has that specific goal in mind is better at generating profit than someone who's not soulless is a separate question. But at the end of the day it's hard to blame an individual when it's a systematic problem.
Sorry about that. I am, however, still passionate that the actions of Pincus and other executives like him are deplorable and in no way should they be seen as OK - even if "everyone else is doing it".
Seems likely. Zynga is an obvious build-to-flip. Now is the time to cash it in at peak. The original push in social gaming was based on scaling, but people are starting to demand quality and that's where Zynga is going to die.
Precisely why "trust" should never be a part of an equity negotiation. When millions are on the table people will do whatever they can get away with. Zynga doesn't want another "google chef", but they took full advantage of the "google chef" when promising equity to early employees.
No, but they probably will be promising employees something - and now, everyone knows that unless that promise is in writing, in an iron-clad contract peered over by Hell's best lawyers, it's worthless at best.
Moreover, Zynga execs' move was likely intended to increase the total worth of their shares; if they manage to claw 20% more shares, but destroy 30% of each share's value, they've hurt themselves even in the short term (figures made up for illustration, obviously).
Actually, Groupon's execs are widely perceived as crooks.
Their sales teams are apparently very aggressive but that doesn't make them crooks.
They are basically in for cashing on pre-IPO gold rush.
For me this is more than sufficient to be cautious before working at any start up again.