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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

#201

Post by gm »

dkrich wrote: post #140
gm wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 think if that's the only point in all that which you find fault with, then my point is pretty well proven. Oh, and you can point at the board of directors and all of their past successes as if that somehow proves that the company is well run. I can point at the balance sheet and stock price. Facts are stubborn things.

At the end of the day critics are a dime a dozen. This is not the forum nor do I have the time nor do I care enough to argue, so I won't bother to poke holes in your logic.

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

#202

Post by mtrimpe »

gdulli wrote: post #129
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.

Correct. A developer with a full brain would know better than to extrapolate a few examples to an entire industry.

Or you would identify the most likely underlying cause of the stereotype: that the games industry is an industry of love, just like fashion, music, theater or art.

That means that there is a much more abundant supply of labour and that the demand side is exploiting this by offering lower wages, worse working environment, crazier hours etc.

The main difference between fashion, music and art is that the discrepancy is much more poignant in the games industry because there's an abundant supply of well-paying cushy jobs just around the corner which involve almost the exact same skill-set to compare against.

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

#203

Post by mtrimpe »

gdulli wrote: post #129
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.

Correct. A developer with a full brain would know better than to extrapolate a few examples to an entire industry.

Or you would identify the most likely underlying cause of the stereotype.

The games industry is an industry of love; just like fashion, music and theater are for example.

That means that there is a much more abundant supply of labour and that the demand side is exploiting this by offering lower wages, worse working environment, crazier hours etc.

The main difference between market industries like fashion, music and art is that the discrepancy is much more poignant in games because there's an abundant supply of well-paying cushy jobs which involve almost the exact same skill-set to compare against.

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

#204

Post by Aloisius »

pud wrote: post #39
MartinCron wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people think games are frivolous. They're not I love games and don't think they are frivolous for a moment. I'm not sure what that has to do with a discussion of Zynga, though.

Zynga is a company that makes online games. And people often criticize Zynga for making games (online games, Flash games, Facebook games, casual games, etc.)

Games can be won. Zynga mostly makes toys.

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

#205

Post by tatsuke95 »

bduerst wrote: post #199
tatsuke95 wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

A Ponzi scheme inolves paying returns to investors out of the investment capital of subsequent investors. That's the definition.

The executives and VCs of Zynga built up a product and took their returns from the public by selling the public shares, which is a right to the future profits of the company[1]. Only, it turns out that those with the best knowledge of the inner working of the company probably knew there were no profits to be had, nor any on the horizon. This is made evident by the inside selling and relatively fast decline of the the company's share price.

So, while I don't go around claiming Zynga (or any such bust up) is akin to Madoff, I don't think the difference is as large as you think. It's all about intent, and we'll never really know. The rest of the pieces are there.

By the way, I'm long Zynga January 2014 calls. They may have been the recipient of loose SV money, and as such got lazy, but there is demand for this product if they can get it together. There's a real business here, so I guess I'm in the non-Ponzi crowd.

[1]If you aren't investing with the intent on earning the future profits of the company, but instead are looking to sell at a higher price, you are speculating, not investing. I don't feel sorry for speculators, it's the nature of that zero sum game.

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

#206

Post by freyr »

w1ntermute wrote: post #176
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…

> 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.

> whom I helped manage out of the organization

I haven't heard this expression before, but it sounds like he had the guy fired. He didn't like the guy, or felt that the guy wasn't functioning well in his position at Sun.

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

#207

Post by tb303 »

I just can't believe that my tweet launched the entire story. That was insane.

My friend IM'ed me at 11:27a PST yesterday saying "Dude, my whole studio just got laid off. We have 2 hrs to vacate. Can you email someone?" Hit twitter, and it was off like a rocket.

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

#208

Post by [deleted] »

tatsuke95 wrote: post #205
bduerst wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

A Ponzi scheme inolves paying returns to investors out of the investment capital of subsequent investors. That's the definition. The executives and VCs of Zynga built up a product and took their returns from the public by selling the public shares, which is a right to the future profits of the company[1]. Only, it turns out that those with the best knowledge of the inner working of the company probably knew there wer…

[deleted]

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

#209

Post by bduerst »

tatsuke95 wrote: post #205
bduerst wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

A Ponzi scheme inolves paying returns to investors out of the investment capital of subsequent investors. That's the definition. The executives and VCs of Zynga built up a product and took their returns from the public by selling the public shares, which is a right to the future profits of the company[1]. Only, it turns out that those with the best knowledge of the inner working of the company probably knew there wer…

By your convoluted logic, the entire stock market is a ponzi scheme.

Buying a share does not give you the right to future profits in a company. It gives you ownership and control over a percentage of the corporation, and does not guarantee a dividend.

By selling shares to the public, the shareholders are trading control of the company for money with the public investor. Whether or not they bought a lemon is the fault of the public investor.

It is _not_ a ponzi scheme, it is the exchange of assets.

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

#210

Post by mercurial »

edash wrote: post #79

Hey Zynga people, we're based in Austin and hiring for front-end. And our culture is pretty much the anti-Zynga: bootstrapped, slow growth, sane hours, no deadlines, strong design focus, and respect for our team and our customers. Let's get coffee at the downtown Medici: http://www.paperlesspipeline.com/jobs

Nice job page. Would be better if clicking on the checkboxes themselves worked (not working in Iceweasel 15.0).
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