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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

#191

Post by tatsuke95 »

gm wrote: post #118
dkrich wrote: post #106

I'm surprised to see so many people suggesting that Zynga's problems are purely moral. I think that gives them too much credit. I personally have no problem with their business practices from a strictly moral point of view. Caveat Emptor. No, for me the problem is much simpler. Its a shitty business run by very poor business minds. That may sound dramatic and sensational, but let's consider the facts: they paid $250…

I'm gonna call bullshit on your friend's claim of all expense paid trip purely as a one year anniversary gift from Zynga. Here is when you get such perks at Zynga: - You win some sort of company-wide award at the quarterly meeting. You (or your team) did something awesome and you are getting rewarded. - You get a big quarter-end cash bonus and you spend it on your trip. - It's not actually a vacation. You are on a bu…

>"I call bullshit on that as well. People like that do not get the type of funding that Zynga got."

I think we should measure the executives "fitness" based on the fact that the stock is below book value less than one year after the IPO, rather than the fact that they managed to attract some cool people to the board.

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

#192

Post by tatsuke95 »

001sky wrote: post #141
alaskamiller wrote: post #82

The irony of all this is that just less than 3 years ago Mark Pincus and Zynga was riding high. Pincus was voted as the CEO of the Year at the Crunchies. He was chosen to be the closer to Startup School, he projected Zynga as a place for people to want to go to there: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1041758 This is a story parallel to Lance Armstrong's own rise and fall. About how if you were to drill down, reall…

This is a story parallel to Lance Armstrong's own rise and fall. About how if you were to drill down, really drill down, to find the next ethical, justifiable company that used Facebook to great benefit for humanity you're going to be looking for the 27th, 28th, 29th place organizations. -- Interesting. If you look at the data, from 1996-2005 (10 Years) > source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/othersports/cycling/l…

>"You know you have a problem when you are on the wrong side of the 80 /20 rule, as an entire field."

Or, you can not care that these athletes are using science to perform optimally at their sport. That's what I do, but that's another argument.

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

#193

Post by tatsuke95 »

dave1619 wrote: post #64

It seems to me that Zynga's biggest mistake was 1) not expecting that social gaming craze to take a dive and 2) not figuring out early enough what to do next when the social gaming craze died down ... those two things are related. So rather than predicting and pre-empting the dive in social gaming, Zynga is in a tough situation where they're facing the harsh reality as it comes. As a result, they're stuck with a huge…

>"So rather than predicting and pre-empting the dive in social gaming"

I agree with your post, outside of this.

They most definitely predicted it, and cashed out their stock to benefit from it. How else do you explain them cashing out so much, so early? That's the hard part for me to get over.

Other than the shadiness of the VCs and execs, Zynga was a decent idea that didn't work out, like so many before it.

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

#194

Post by ericabiz »

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?

Add some contact information and details to your HN profile. :)

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

#195

Post by tatsuke95 »

DanHulton wrote: post #153
bduerst wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not what a ponzi scheme is.

Word. Awful, Zynga is. A ponzi scheme, it is not. Let's keep our criticisms to what is correct - there's so much of that to go around already.

While I agree "Ponzi scheme" is tossed around a bit too liberally, Zynga is pretty close:

A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment operation that pays returns to its investors from their own money or the money paid by subsequent investors, rather than from profit earned by the individual or organization running the operation. (Wiki)

The fact that the early investors cashed out like kings from the IPO, and later investors shouldered all the losses and may not even recover the liquidation value of the assets is pretty close to the definition. All that is missing is the "fraud" part, but that's a bold accusation and hard to prove. Then again, this story isn't over.

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

#196

Post by dkrich »

potatolicious wrote: post #143
dkrich wrote: post #106

I'm surprised to see so many people suggesting that Zynga's problems are purely moral. I think that gives them too much credit. I personally have no problem with their business practices from a strictly moral point of view. Caveat Emptor. No, for me the problem is much simpler. Its a shitty business run by very poor business minds. That may sound dramatic and sensational, but let's consider the facts: they paid $250…

> "No, for me the problem is much simpler. Its a shitty business run by very poor business minds." Or maybe they were very shrewd business minds. After all, you have a business that was very much a fad - and any insider would be able to tell you that, but yet somehow you've convinced the wider world that this was a sustainable new trend, and to pour unimaginable amounts of money into your company. So, tons of funding…

Fair enough, but I still think my point stands. I suppose if their goal was to make a quick-hit and get rich very quickly while making a lot of people's lives much worse, then they succeeded. I believe that gives them too much credit. I don't believe that they knew this was coming and loaded their pockets while everybody else was confused.

Either way I still say good riddance.

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

#197

Post by Cacti »

rooshdi wrote: post #187
mkramlich wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You're missing the point.

The point is that FU money is the point at which you have enough that you can walk away from situations that you don't agree with without that impacting the rest of your financial life in any manner.

In other words, it's retirement but at a younger age.

It's not to say you don't walk away from situations you don't agree with before you have FU money. It's just that you're at a point where it won't impact the rest of your financial life.

I don't really see why it has such a negative connotation.

/edit I should add this term is usually used in terms of someone who has spent 20+ years in a career (and typically the same company) and is at loggerheads with upper management in an unresolvable situation and is about to get forced out over the situation. i.e., upper mgmt is doing something that person believe is wrong, unethical, etc.

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

#198

Post by rprospero »

tatsuke95 wrote: post #192
001sky wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a story parallel to Lance Armstrong's own rise and fall. About how if you were to drill down, really drill down, to find the next ethical, justifiable company that used Facebook to great benefit for humanity you're going to be looking for the 27th, 28th, 29th place organizations. -- Interesting. If you look at the data, from 1996-2005 (10 Years) > source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/othersports/cycling/l…

> "You know you have a problem when you are on the wrong side of the 80 /20 rule, as an entire field." Or, you can not care that these athletes are using science to perform optimally at their sport. That's what I do, but that's another argument.

If a racer was going to use science to perform optimally, why didn't he just buy a motorcycle? 19th century thermodynamics would push him far past anything he could achieve with 21st century biology.

You might argue that it's against the rules to ride a motorcycle, but so was doping. It's also against the spirit of the sport, but so was doping.

If the objective was to use the best available science to compete at the highest level, then they failed horribly.

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

#199

Post by bduerst »

tatsuke95 wrote: post #195
DanHulton wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Word. Awful, Zynga is. A ponzi scheme, it is not. Let's keep our criticisms to what is correct - there's so much of that to go around already.

While I agree "Ponzi scheme" is tossed around a bit too liberally, Zynga is pretty close: A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment operation that pays returns to its investors from their own money or the money paid by subsequent investors, rather than from profit earned by the individual or organization running the operation. (Wiki) The fact that the early investors cashed out like kings from the IPO, and later inve…

Cashing out at an IPO isn't a ponzi scheme - it's selling assets directly to new investors.

Just because the new investors were not smart in their investment does not make it a ponzi scheme.

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

#200

Post by nandemo »

Retric wrote: post #188
nandemo wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That might make sense, but perhaps the securities agency considers that preventing insider trading and market manipulation outweighs letting employees hedge their companies' stock. Besides, in Japanese companies non-execs typically don't get stock options anyway.
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