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Zynga May Have Just Laid Off 100+ Employees From Its Austin Office

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Re: Zynga May Have Just Laid Off 100+ Employees From Its Austin Office

#161

Post by wilfra »

Spoom wrote: post #53
TimGebhardt wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because other companies don't announce news on Friday at 4:00pm... Or because the White House doesn't make important news announcements on Christmas Eve when nobody's paying attention... I don't think this is a Zynga dick-move. I think this is a typical company move to bury a non-flattering story.

The fact that other organizations also make dick moves does not negate this dick move.

Is it a 'dick move' that Apple releases their products at a time calculated to get maximum media exposure? Or that every other smart company in the World also times bad news?

There are many things one might accurately criticize Zynga for, but this is not one of them. If they hadn't done it this way investors would have yet another reason to sell the stock, it would be evidence the company is run by idiots.

Re: Zynga May Have Just Laid Off 100+ Employees From Its Austin Office

#162

Post by rooshdi »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #100
danilocampos wrote: post #23

Conceptually, I love every bit of bad Zynga news. I like to be reassured that a company will, in the long term, fail when its products are cynically designed to manipulate. That a company will fail when their strategy assumes it's okay to blatantly, consistently, continuously lift design from other firms and products. Practically, though, bad Zynga news feels terrible . Because the guys who architected this repugnant…

I get mixed emotions. Yes, companies that do 'bad things' ideally are corrected out of existence by the market. I never like to see anyone lose their jobs, because at some level the rank and file of the company is the blood coursing through its veins. And as Marissa Meyer and others have re-iterated over the last few months, companies don't do thing people do things. So people who are getting things done and fighting…

Money may be good when allocated fairly and productively, but "FU money" implies a sense of no obligation to society and in many respects is the motivating influence behind much of the ill greed rampant today. F FU money.

Re: Zynga May Have Just Laid Off 100+ Employees From Its Austin Office

#163

Post by unavoidable »

chucknelson wrote: post #122
hkmurakami wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget good apples like Valve :(

I would love to see the average hours worked for a Valve employee. Probably more than 8-10...

But not likely due to company policy or pressure. By all accounts, Valve employees work on things they enjoy doing and end up spending more time if only to pursue things they find interesting.

Re: Zynga May Have Just Laid Off 100+ Employees From Its Austin Office

#164

Post by ChuckMcM »

rooshdi wrote: post #162
ChuckMcM wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get mixed emotions. Yes, companies that do 'bad things' ideally are corrected out of existence by the market. I never like to see anyone lose their jobs, because at some level the rank and file of the company is the blood coursing through its veins. And as Marissa Meyer and others have re-iterated over the last few months, companies don't do thing people do things. So people who are getting things done and fighting…

Money may be good when allocated fairly and productively, but "FU money" implies a sense of no obligation to society and in many respects is the motivating influence behind much of the ill greed rampant today. F FU money.

I believe the motivations behind things like the MacArthur 'genius' grants, the Nobel Prize, and Jefferson awards are a way to decouple a need to earn an income, from the work product. The theory goes that folks who don't have to 'work' for a living are more able to pursue their ideas, their art, and their passion. While it is true that for some folks that means they stop contributing to society at all, for others it opens up a tremendous opportunity to do great things.

Because of that I don't share your interpretation that "FU money" is correlated at all with the sense of obligation. In my world view that obligation is intrinsic in the person and not affected by the source of income. When I see the good that the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation is doing, the Lucille Packard Children's hospital, and others, I think that is pretty cool.

[1] http://www.macfound.org/programs/fellows/

[2] http://www.nobelprize.org/

[3] http://www.jeffersonawards.org/

Re: Zynga May Have Just Laid Off 100+ Employees From Its Austin Office

#165

Post by bdonlan »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #100
danilocampos wrote: post #23

Conceptually, I love every bit of bad Zynga news. I like to be reassured that a company will, in the long term, fail when its products are cynically designed to manipulate. That a company will fail when their strategy assumes it's okay to blatantly, consistently, continuously lift design from other firms and products. Practically, though, bad Zynga news feels terrible . Because the guys who architected this repugnant…

I get mixed emotions. Yes, companies that do 'bad things' ideally are corrected out of existence by the market. I never like to see anyone lose their jobs, because at some level the rank and file of the company is the blood coursing through its veins. And as Marissa Meyer and others have re-iterated over the last few months, companies don't do thing people do things. So people who are getting things done and fighting…

I don't know about your company, but where I work shorting my employer's stock is explicitly against company stock policy. It really does make sense though, you don't want allegations of insider trading going around when employees start shorting stock...

Re: Zynga May Have Just Laid Off 100+ Employees From Its Austin Office

#166

Post by rglovejoy »

diffeomorph wrote: post #138
ericabiz wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Come to some meetups here in Austin. I can't get through a meetup here without a company announcing that they are hiring. Especially the more niche meetups like the Python Web Meetup: http://www.meetup.com/austinwebpythonusergroup/events/880678... My startup is based out of Capital Factory, and if you even just walked in the door during Friday happy hour and announced that you were a developer here in Austin looking…

I'm a developer looking for a job that wants to move to Austin. What's a good place to start?

If you want to work on mobile apps, Mutual Mobile is looking for people.

Re: Zynga May Have Just Laid Off 100+ Employees From Its Austin Office

#167

Post by dcpdx »

thecosas wrote: post #126
w1ntermute wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any developer with half a brain should know that the game industry should be avoided like the plague. Long working hours, abusive management, racism (the Kixeye debacle), the issues just go on and on. Take patio11's advice and go into B2B, you'll make money hand over fist with much more manageable working hours.

Riot Games is also a standout of a great place to work from what I've heard.

My brother works there as a QA, and he's enjoyed every minute of it. There is a reverence and appreciation for their users that trickles down from the CEO into the rest of the company that seems to be the exact opposite of the situation at Zynga.

Re: Zynga May Have Just Laid Off 100+ Employees From Its Austin Office

#168

Post by nandemo »

bdonlan wrote: post #165
ChuckMcM wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get mixed emotions. Yes, companies that do 'bad things' ideally are corrected out of existence by the market. I never like to see anyone lose their jobs, because at some level the rank and file of the company is the blood coursing through its veins. And as Marissa Meyer and others have re-iterated over the last few months, companies don't do thing people do things. So people who are getting things done and fighting…

I don't know about your company, but where I work shorting my employer's stock is explicitly against company stock policy. It really does make sense though, you don't want allegations of insider trading going around when employees start shorting stock...

In Japan it's actually illegal. Your broker won't even let you do it.

Re: Zynga May Have Just Laid Off 100+ Employees From Its Austin Office

#169

Post by ChuckMcM »

bdonlan wrote: post #165
ChuckMcM wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get mixed emotions. Yes, companies that do 'bad things' ideally are corrected out of existence by the market. I never like to see anyone lose their jobs, because at some level the rank and file of the company is the blood coursing through its veins. And as Marissa Meyer and others have re-iterated over the last few months, companies don't do thing people do things. So people who are getting things done and fighting…

I don't know about your company, but where I work shorting my employer's stock is explicitly against company stock policy. It really does make sense though, you don't want allegations of insider trading going around when employees start shorting stock...

Oh it absolutely was against policy to short your own stock for just those reasons. At the time I had a restricted stock grant (pre-owned but you 'vest' over time) and ISO options, also vesting. If I had a been a bit more clever I could have sold a 'put' option on all those shares. Not worth as much as actually selling the shares would have been of course.

But really there are two points here:

1) People with a lot of equity in a single company will sell it when they can to diversify their risk (not evil)

2) People who end up with a lot of equity in a single company that is worth a lot of money are 'lucky' not necessarily 'good', 'smart', or 'evil.'

I certainly felt it raised eye brows when Pincus and other officers dumped big chunks of stock in a pre-arranged sale, but note that had Zynga continued to go up in value nobody would have blinked, but since it so spectacularly has crashed they are reviled. As bad as that looked I felt the Groupon folks turning down Google's $6B offer and instead selling their own stock through a private placement was a lot further down the scale toward 'poor judgement' than Zynga's moves.

Re: Zynga May Have Just Laid Off 100+ Employees From Its Austin Office

#170

Post by 727374 »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #169
bdonlan wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about your company, but where I work shorting my employer's stock is explicitly against company stock policy. It really does make sense though, you don't want allegations of insider trading going around when employees start shorting stock...

Oh it absolutely was against policy to short your own stock for just those reasons. At the time I had a restricted stock grant (pre-owned but you 'vest' over time) and ISO options, also vesting. If I had a been a bit more clever I could have sold a 'put' option on all those shares. Not worth as much as actually selling the shares would have been of course. But really there are two points here: 1) People with a lot of…

Selling a put is a long position. If you meant buying a put, I'd assume that's against policy too. Or else that's a really simple loophole.

I totally agree with point #1 though. People should be able to diversify their risk.

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