Zynga’s Mark Pincus: I got kicked out of some of the best companies in America

I wish he had another 20 or 30 minutes to talk. When the "5 minute warning" was flashed, I think everyone was genuinely surprised that that much time had already gone. He had some fascination stories & information to share.

I think I need to see the video. The transcript seems to be quite a bit rambling and hard to consume.

Although the sound quality is not ideal, here's an archive of his talk on justin.tv: http://www.justin.tv/clip/4df4ad14c58b6ed6

I thought he said he had $80,000 in savings not just $8,000.

I have a huge amount of respect for Mark Pincus. He's really been through the trenches and has done a great job growing Zynga. Mark followed two points of pg's advice in "What Startups Are Really Like" that set him up for success. Here's what I've seen that have made Mark great.

In 2007, it was myself and Shervin Pishevar who set out to directly compete against Mark in the gaming space on Facebook. We set our sights directly on Zynga - we used the absolutely best PR company and our huge stacks of VC cash to make sure that we were always one step ahead. From the media's standpoint, it was a two-horse race with SGN taking a commanding lead over Zynga. Mark, however, decided to ignore his competitors. While we were too busy reading the headlines, he kept iterating on his core strategy. He was spending every day polishing his secret sauce to make his games the largest and most profitable on Facebook. Then Mafia Wars launched, ultimately validating his strategy. The rest is history.

Mark certainly had plenty of opportunities to give up. The app acquisition race was costly to all companies involved. While bleeding that cash, Mark was constantly fighting to maintain the profitability of Poker in the midst of massive fraud. Mark's dog, Zynga's namesake, also passed away in this time. Despite all of this, he stayed persistent and stuck through to the end.

I've butted heads with Mark in the past on panels and in the news, but I can tell you without a doubt that Mark Pincus demands some serious respect for the company he's built and the work he's done to get there.