Startups are hard. Even big startups are hard. Zynga is startupy, even though they're public. There's a lot of schadenfreude on HN when it comes to Zynga. Articles about Zynga's problems regularly make it to the top of HN. Some people think games are frivolous. They're not. Entertainment is (almost) a basic human need. Some people think Zynga players are somehow being tricked. They're not. They're being entertained.…
> The other 1% should know that everyone steals from everyone. This is an absurd justification for the kind of outright theft Zynga has built an entire public corporation on.
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…
> There was a guy at Sun whom I helped manage out of the organization, he landed a job at a start up that two months later got bought with a full vesting of everyone. He walked away with several million dollars. It took a lot of thinking about that series of events to let it sit in my head without pissing me off. Why did that piss you off? Sounds like it was a win-win situation for you and that guy.
Because he's a normal functioning human being that can feel jealousy
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.
Hiding information is worse than spreading information, yes.
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…
You might want to read up on the tax avoidance and political lobbying which the Gates foundation is involved in.
It means that their mentality is significantly different from other game companies, which means that generalizations of gaming companies drawn from their work culture are much more tenuous.
Or it means their handbook doesn't entirely line up with the actuality.
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.
That's not what the term meant. It meant you had enough money that if you had a job you could say "Fuck you!" to your boss, his boss, the CEO, etc. and then just walk out, never come back, and live pretty well the rest of your life. (Approximately speaking.) That you didn't have to worry about your resume anymore, career, networking, keeping skills up-to-date, you never had to say yes to anything to make a buck only if it interested you, etc. It did not necessarily mean you were saying that to your neighborhood, society, country, family, etc. Indeed it could enable to give more time and energy to those things. Now, what precisely that money amount is varies of course by person, depending on their needs and desires and situation.
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.
That's not what the term meant. It meant you had enough money that if you had a job you could say "Fuck you!" to your boss, his boss, the CEO, etc. and then just walk out, never come back, and live pretty well the rest of your life. (Approximately speaking.) That you didn't have to worry about your resume anymore, career, networking, keeping skills up-to-date, you never had to say yes to anything to make a buck only…
If it takes money to say fuck you to your boss, money's already fucked you.
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.
That seems extreme. If I have the option to buy shares in 6 months at price X and the stock is worth X + 10 then buying the option to sell at X + 5 in six months is simply managing risk. It's a good hedge regardless of what I think is going to happen to the company.
Well, if it makes you feel better, I had a conversation with a Zynga employee last night, who is pretty happy about leaving the company. In particular, he wants to go do something he believes in, and to quote him, "and i don't hugely believe in selling virtual cows" So - to some degree, the crash and possible termination of Zynga's business model, enables these people to escape the company. If the stock had value, th…
When i worked for a company that was acquired by Lockheed Martin, immediately upon the announcement of acquisition, several employees resigned saying they could not knowing work for a war monger. Their conviction was greater than the potential wealth and very commendable. Your comment insinuates that these employees had no morals and were freed by the failure. This is actually a fucked up position. There are many fac…
I don't agree with your reading of the comment, but I guess it was better suited for a rant, so fuck me.
What if the Zynga employee/s in question had not a moral objection to virtual cow trade, but a mild distaste?
You can work in an industry that you think is kind of stupid, but not morally offensive.
This is totally separate from the issue of working for a company that steals other people's work as a matter of course, which was not addressed here.
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…
You might want to read up on the tax avoidance and political lobbying which the Gates foundation is involved in. See: http://techrights.org/wiki/index.php/Gates_Foundation_Critiq...
>"tax avoidance and political lobbying"
So with his vast fortune Gates ensures that he pays the minimum required in taxes (which may support policies he disagrees with), and instead spends money on policies he supports.