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Zynga to employees: Give back our stock or you'll be fired

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Re: Zynga to employees: Give back our stock or you'll be fired

#201

Post by api »

philwelch wrote: post #109
cageface wrote: post #9

Is it just me or is tech particularly sleazy right now?

I went to Startup School in 2009 and 2010, but not this year. In 2009, Mark Pincus was one of the speakers. In 2010, Andrew Mason was one of the speakers. It looks like Pincus spoke again this year. If a seemingly honest man like pg can't arrange a nice little startup conference without having at least one speaker every year who turns out to be some sort of con man, then yes, I'd have to say tech is particularly slea…

I would fault the Startup School organizers for this. They are creating a community that is catering largely to people who are young, talented, but not experienced. They need to be educating people about how to avoid the pitfalls and scams of the startup world as well as about how to succeed.

Instead, they bring scummy fast talkers and put these people up on the stage as ideals. Not only is that teaching the next generation of entrepreneurs to be scummy fast talkers, but it's setting up these kids (and many of them are kids) to look up to and follow people like this. It's setting them up to be taken advantage of, or to become abusers themselves.

Like any guru, pg only pimps the upside. He has a lot of good things to say, but at the end of the day it's basically self-help, water cooler wisdom, and motivational speaking for beginning entrepreneurs. He's not going to tell you about the filthy underbelly.

He's not going to tell you that a good 20% of the people in the startup world have a diagnosable psychosis. Psychopathy, narcissistic personality disorder, and bipolar disorder are the most common. He's not going to tell you that startup stock is basically worthless, and that if you're about to vest you are probably about to be fired unless you are in the "inner circle." He's not going to tell you that the game is rigged hugely in favor of the already-connected.

Re: Zynga to employees: Give back our stock or you'll be fired

#203

Post by byrneseyeview »

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3221693

This is a very relevant alternative view. Money quote:

At Zynga, however, Mark Pincus apparently likes to do things a bit differently. Rather than simply firing under-performing employees and handing unvested options over to the replacement, Pincus often likes to find another position within Zynga where the employee might still be able to contribute. But because that new position was often lower down the corporate totem poll, Pincus basically wanted to cut the person's compensation by reducing his or her number of unvested options (vested options were not touched).

Re: Zynga to employees: Give back our stock or you'll be fired

#205

Post by georgieporgie »

alex_c wrote: post #176
_delirium wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can believe we get a skewed view of anecdotes at HN, but stories about how employees got screwed out of equity by investors/founders when an exit loomed do seem like the norm around here. People even routinely give the advice that you should treat equity grants as having cash value ~$0 if you aren't a founder or maybe one of the first few key hires, because apart from the risk of the equity becoming worthless if th…

>stories about how employees got screwed out of equity by investors/founders when an exit loomed do seem like the norm around here. Well, "everything went as planned" doesn't make for a very interesting story.

On the contrary, I think HN would respond pretty well to stories of IPOs that went well, and employees who succeeded. They would likely have a lot of good advice.

Personally, I can think of three people I've met who did well at startups. One was at Google, one was at Amazon, and the third was at a company I don't remember. But I can think of an awful lot of stories of public and pre-IPO companies screwing over their employees, including myself being shafted at least three times by employers.

Re: Zynga to employees: Give back our stock or you'll be fired

#206

Post by sliverstorm »

danilocampos wrote: post #126
raganwald wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am shocked. Don’t you mean “Shocked, shocked to find shady business going on in here?” Your winnings, sir.

It's surely a testament to the quality of Casablanca's writing that its resulting cliches are still so satisfying after all this time.

I'm sure the actors had a hand in making them resonate.

Re: Zynga to employees: Give back our stock or you'll be fired

#207

Post by joshAg »

johngalt wrote: post #86
joshAg wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

as an executive, do you think that zynga's executive team gave any thought to the bad press this might generate and the talent that this might scare away? From my perspective, this sort of thing scares me away from companies, because they might do it again in the future.

It's not like Zynga will have another IPO in the future, or will need to promise future employees equity. 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.

Sure, there's only one IPO. But what about things like vacation time, bonuses, raises, and promotions? As someone else said, unless I've got it written down in a contract that (at least) a couple lawyers have told me is basically unbreakable, I'm going to be worrying about them deciding that I don't deserve what we've previously agreed to just to save/hoard some money.

Re: Zynga to employees: Give back our stock or you'll be fired

#208

Post by api »

Tangurena wrote: post #200
cageface wrote: post #9

Is it just me or is tech particularly sleazy right now?

Tech all over. Earlier this year, one such sociopath latched onto my sister and she convinced me to get involved. As soon as the project looked like it was going to get released, the sociopath tried to dilute my sister's and my shares from 1/3 each to 1/20th each. He wanted to bring in partners that he had previously screwed over to make something up to them by screwing us.

"He wanted to bring in partners that he had previously screwed over..."

That is so classic. It really does get kind of Monty Python-ish.

Like I said in my post above, I have a lot of stories. If I ever wrote a book about it, I'd have to tame them down quite a bit to make them believable.

Re: Zynga to employees: Give back our stock or you'll be fired

#209

Post by rhizome »

Androsynth wrote: post #196
ootachi wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The company didn't hire you to work as a 4-share employee, they hired you to work as a 4-share employee with significant upside potential . That is how early startup employees are compensated for the increased risk and lesser salary they take on.

Yes, you and your sibling threads are all correct, but it's not extortion. It's immoral and will certainly hurt them in the future, but it's not extortion. I am simply trying to explain why this is a moral issue and not a legal issue. This is the equivalent of saying: 'your gonna have to take a pay cut or were gonna have to let you go'. It is morally repugnant and goes against everything we believe in the startup com…

You don't know whether or not it's a legal issue.

Re: Zynga to employees: Give back our stock or you'll be fired

#210

Post by jiggy2011 »

rayiner wrote: post #174
brk wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IANAL. They are talking about unvested shares. The employees do not own them or have a right to exercise them yet. Every standard contract I've ever seen also includes a clause that shares stop vesting upon employment termination for any reason. So, they are basically saying "give up unvested shares, or else we'll make you give them up by firing you".

Law student about to graduate, but not yet admitted to the bar/not giving legal advice/etc: The law does draw distinctions based on the circumstances surrounding a termination, even in an at-will state. The employee does not yet own the unvested shares, but they do have a contractual right to them. Terminating someone just to screw them out of a contractual right you agreed to in a contract is going to give someone a…

Interesting, in that case would it not be wise for all of the disgruntled employees who are about to be screwed over to just refuse to give back the stock, get themselves fired and then start a lawsuit and assuming they win use all the money from selling the IPOd stock to start a business that directly competes with their previous employer?
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