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Zynga Chief Seeks to Claw Back Stock

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Re: Zynga Chief Seeks to Claw Back Stock

#111

Post by gujk »

3am wrote: post #17
sbov wrote: post #14

How much of Pincus' stock is getting clawed back? If this really is a problem, isn't it afterall, his fault in the first place? So shouldn't he suffer?

He's an enormous holder - the article cites almost 20%, and almost double that in voting rights. It's hard to believe his contribution is worth $4B (1/2 of what Steve Job's net worth was) if the $20B valuation holds up in the IPO. Disgraceful.

Why? Zynga hit the (hypothetical) $20B in far less time and employees than Apple did. That is far more return on invested capital.

Re: Zynga Chief Seeks to Claw Back Stock

#112

Post by gm »

ootachi wrote: post #99
ohashi wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Viewed from an employers' point of view, the cliff means you've got to put in some real sweat into it before the shares become worth anything. How long do you think it takes for a new employee to be truly adding value? Perhaps it's not a year, but I suspect many eat a lot of time and slow things down for a while until they get comfortable. I think the cliff is just a balancing of those interests. The last round+dolla…

Founders only need to exit once. There is surprisingly little incentive for a founder to avoid screwing over employees.

Spoken like a true non-founder... Reputation is everything.

If a founder ever wants to start a company again, screwing over employees will haunt him in the long term much worse than any legal repercussion that can be fixed with money.

So I wager there is a lot preventing founders from screwing employees, specially in startups, where people are hyper connected.

The comments in this story are running rampant with hearsay and people who have no involvement making up facts and jumping to uninformed conclusions. Zynga employees cannot comment on anything anywhere because of the quiet period.

Re: Zynga Chief Seeks to Claw Back Stock

#113

Post by Daniel_Newby »

ootachi wrote: post #99
ohashi wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Viewed from an employers' point of view, the cliff means you've got to put in some real sweat into it before the shares become worth anything. How long do you think it takes for a new employee to be truly adding value? Perhaps it's not a year, but I suspect many eat a lot of time and slow things down for a while until they get comfortable. I think the cliff is just a balancing of those interests. The last round+dolla…

Founders only need to exit once. There is surprisingly little incentive for a founder to avoid screwing over employees.

> There is surprisingly little incentive for a founder to avoid screwing over employees.

Other than being treated like toxic waste by every prospective VC and business partner until the end of time.

Re: Zynga Chief Seeks to Claw Back Stock

#114

Post by aprrrr »

goodweeds wrote: post #109

A rich man who made his money any way he could, ethics be damned, is trying to steal money from the people who helped make him incredibly wealthy. Is this really shocking?

"It made him sick to have to turn money over to the guys who stole it. He'd rather whack 'em." -Goodfellas

Re: Zynga Chief Seeks to Claw Back Stock

#115

Post by herbivore »

lawnchair_larry wrote: post #95
earl wrote: post #33

Mark Pincus, the scum king of lead gen [1:5], is behaving in an unethical manner? I'm shocked. Shocked! Is it rude to think these employees laid down with dogs and are bitching about fleas? [1] http://techcrunch.com/2009/10/31/scamville-the-social-gaming... [2] http://techcrunch.com/2009/11/07/horrible-things-slink-back-... [3] http://cdixon.org/2009/09/28/the-new-economy/ [4] http://techcrunch.com/2009/11/08/zynga-t…

I'm surprised that anyone is surprised. It's Zynga . Their business model has always been slimey, and they add no value to society. Net negative, actually.

Not only do they add no value to society, one could argue they are responsible for decreased productivity of employees who waste their work day playing Zynga games or come back to work tired after wasting 2 hours at night planting cucumbers on FarmVille.

Re: Zynga Chief Seeks to Claw Back Stock

#116

Post by brown9-2 »

ww520 wrote: post #68
jamiequint wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thats what put options are for.

You cannot buy put options during the lockout period. It's specifically spelled out in the option agreement. It's pretty airtight.

Typically employees of a public company have to agree to never trade in options involving the company for the duration of their employment.

Re: Zynga Chief Seeks to Claw Back Stock

#117

Post by jellicle »

staunch wrote: post #41
gergles wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have to respectfully disagree with your logic. If you read the article, what is actually happening is they are retroactively trying to reduce restricted stock grants that were already made . So, if I say "come work for me for free, and in exchange I will give you 10,000 RSU that vest over 4 years", then 3 years down the line say "just kidding, you don't get these last 2,500, but you get to keep working here", that…

Look at it from his perspective. He knows what the IPO is going to value the company at now. He's looking at some low-performing employees and calculating that they're simply not worth keeping around if it means giving them $20 million (or whatever) in the IPO. If it's ethical to fire these people (in which case they lose all unvested shares) then it stands to reason it would be ethical to renegotiate a deal that bot…

No. If he was looking at low-performing employees he would fire them.

He's looking at some high-performing employees in a terrible labor market, and calculating that their BATNA is not very good, so he's deciding to find a way to screw them.

Re: Zynga Chief Seeks to Claw Back Stock

#118

Post by Silhouette »

gm wrote: post #112
ootachi wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Founders only need to exit once. There is surprisingly little incentive for a founder to avoid screwing over employees.

Spoken like a true non-founder... Reputation is everything. If a founder ever wants to start a company again, screwing over employees will haunt him in the long term much worse than any legal repercussion that can be fixed with money. So I wager there is a lot preventing founders from screwing employees, specially in startups, where people are hyper connected. The comments in this story are running rampant with hears…

> Reputation is everything.

Not if you, as founder, really are in it for the money and your first exit sets you up for life. Can anyone think of a company that might be relevant to this discussion where such a description might apply?

> Zynga employees cannot comment on anything anywhere because of the quiet period.

I can't believe no-one is going to sue over this, given the amounts of money presumably involved, and I doubt a judge is going to seal the records in such a case. I'm sure we'll find out the details soon enough.

Re: Zynga Chief Seeks to Claw Back Stock

#119

Post by jellicle »

rmc wrote: post #86
smokinn wrote: post #10

Wow this should be straight up illegal and yet: "One lawyer said that over the past year, he has heard executives of three social-media sites discuss the possibility of clawing back equity from some employees. Another lawyer, who has handled stock-compensation issues with technology companies for decades, said he never saw a company try to take equity from employees until about two years ago, but has since seen three…

or you're fired and lose it all Take note white collar workers & high paying professional programmers, at-will employment and lack of employee rights can screw you too. If it was illegal to fire someone "for no reason", then it would be much harder for a company to screw employees like this.

Yeah, honestly this whole situation feels like a "come to Jesus" moment for HN. This type of screwage by corporations happens all the time to people across the U.S., whether it is pay cuts for the peons, unpaid overtime, layoffs where you have to do twice the job for the same pay, whatever. And HN has always danced right over them: "Sucks to be you, suckers! If you were really smart, you'd have joined a startup!! LOLOLOLOLOLOL!!!11!!"

Now that it's HN's ox being gored, there's a different feeling about it. Labor rights aren't just for farmhands and Walmart workers.

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