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Comment by Gaussian | Hacker News Reader

Pincus is attempting to make it sound as if he wants to claw back equity from employees who don't do their jobs. But if they aren't doing their jobs, why not fire them?

No, it seems to me that Pincus is looking at some people, perhaps they're middle-level employees, and saying, "you know, that guy might be doing his job, but he isn't worth $50 million."

Yeah, no shit he's not worth $50M. Few people are. But that's how the fucking game works. The fact that a Google chef got $20M -- why is that bad? It's not bad; it's cool. How many Microsoft stories are there about secretaries that made off with $10 million? Those aren't bad stories; those are good stories.

I'm sorry that Pincus fails to see things that way. And I'm sorry that he's decided to shit on a paradigm that's helped build Silicon Valley.

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The truth is that that middle manager really isn't worth that $50mil. Its not about what he's actually worth. Its the back side of the fact that when he came to work at Zynga, it wasn't worth working for.

Its like the gas station attendant who sold you your lottery ticket showing up on your front lawn demanding it back once it turned out that it was a winner.

You can say hypothetical middle manager got lucky, but it isn't. We will never know whether Zynga would have succeeded without hypothetical middle manager or the other 'undeserving employees'.

This is just dickish behavior from Pincus. Given his past record, no one should be surprised. What you are saying here is just part of the process known as 'rationalization' and then 'accepting' this behaviour. You can stop - wildly successful entrepreneurs are not saints. I think Steve Jobs is an even clearer example of this.

And I am glad to see the employees affected taking legal action. There's no point in reinforcing dickish behavior by quietly accepting it.

>>You can stop - wildly successful entrepreneurs are not saints. I think Steve Jobs is an even clearer example of this.

This is a very valid point. In fact there is a statement from Steve Jobs's biography, that he wasn't too much for loyalty in fact more like he was anti loyalty. There is nothing great about this thing.

Screwing people just because they can, for absolutely no mistake of theirs has often been the quality of a lot of people with power. This sort of a attitude comes because they think they are invincible, powerful and can do anything they can and get away with it.

And we are responsible for some extent too. We keep idolizing bad boys so much. Ultimately being bad begins to look cool.

What this is getting at is that start-up world is run on 'winner takes all economics' (look it up).

Companies that win rarely have products and marketing that are 1000x better than those that fail. But the difference in the payouts can easily be in that range. Incidentally this is why it is worth it for people in a startup environment to work seemingly crazy hours.

The founders and equity owning employees of the winning team are getting an incredibly high payout for being slightly better, or slightly more lucky.

We as a society accept this trade-off as being a necessity for innovation and overall economic growth.

In short: If the chef on the winning pirate ship doesn't deserve his share of the loot then neither does the captain.

It's more like being a member of a lottery syndicate, and paying your share, then when some numbers come up (and no-one knows who originally picked them) the syndicate organizer deciding she wants the whole lot for herself.

Bad metaphor. Joining a young start-up involves risk that company will fold fast, and also taking home less income than joining a more established company. A gas station attendant selling lottery ticket has no such risk.

Umm, no. The gas station attendant isn't the one joining, he's the founder. You give him a little money now in the form of a lesser salary and no benefits and you get a ticket that might be a winner and is probably a loser.

Its worse than that. You actually bust your ass to make your ticket a winner.

The ticket wasn't his property. He wouldn't have gotten anything after not selling it to you. Nor out of selling it to anyone else instead.

Ok, so it was like a pool, see and there was this guy and he bought this lottery ticket, but he walked around the office, and people chipped in and then he bought it, but there were lawyers and everyone had to work a little to get the claim settled and then and then...

It was an over simplified simile more about attitude than lining up every detail with perfect allegory.

I'm on the fence on this one. Other startups that went this route simply fired these employees to get back unvested shares or options. To Pincus' credit, he at least gives them the opportunity to renegociate. On the other hand, I agree the fact he may want to keep them instead of firing them sounds fishy.

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