141–150 of 160 posts
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Reverse split doesn't screw employees, it just changes the math (10000 shares at $1/share is no better than 1000 shares at $10/share).
> Reverse split doesn't screw employees It absolutely screws the employees when the common is reverse split, but the preferred-to-common conversion factor remains the same.
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Has there ever even been a "talent acquisition" in the (say) mid-8 digits? Since, say, 2006? Definition of a talent acquisition: you buy a company, and none of its offerings are available 18 months later under any brand. (The true definition would be "and all the members of the team are reassigned to a different project", but that's hard to know from the outside).
I don't think THIS was a talent acquisition so much as a super successful game, so successful Zynga couldn't rip it off and kill it, but there are definitely large talent acquisitions in recent history: * Powerset. ~$100mm, July 2008, to Microsoft. * Friendfeed, ~$50mm, August 2009, to Facebook. * Slide, $228mmm August 2010, to Google. (Takeaway: sell your company in the summer.)
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I don't think THIS was a talent acquisition so much as a super successful game, so successful Zynga couldn't rip it off and kill it, but there are definitely large talent acquisitions in recent history: * Powerset. ~$100mm, July 2008, to Microsoft. * Friendfeed, ~$50mm, August 2009, to Facebook. * Slide, $228mmm August 2010, to Google. (Takeaway: sell your company in the summer.)
I dispute that $50m number :)
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I guess I heard about that Tiny Tower thing... my takeaway is that nearly everybody borrows ideas from one another. Ideas are cheap, it's the implementation that really matters. Zynga has the means to move on things faster than a lot of competitors. >>Here's a quote from Mark Pincus, "I am proud of the ethical and fair way that we've built this company.". That's what makes Zynga despicable. That Mark Pincus claims hi…
This isn't "borrowing". This is IP theft. And these aren't "ideas" these are full blown products. "Ideas are cheap, it's the implementation that really matters." The games that Zynga copies were not "ideas" they were IP. And Zynga wasn't inspired by them. Zynga flat out, straight up, cloned them. When you work your ass off, sacrifice time with your family, your savings, and invest it into building a profitable flash…
In China, the big players crush small startups by cloning them within a few days of them getting popular, and in some cases deploy dirty tactics against them (I'm thinking of an antivirus being interfered with on users' computers because it was removing part of a giant's software - was Tencent involved?). The point is that in China, everything gets cloned really quickly and the big players keep winning the market by pushing the new services out to their existing users, who don't seem to care that much about not letting one company dominate. It's a horrible model that I believe is entrenched by the big boys having influence with those in power.
How come this doesn't happen in the US, where copying does take place, but less directly and quickly? It's not like quickly copying a startup idea is illegal, and anyone can claim they've been working on something similar to a new idea for a while. Is it perhaps because there's a diversity of channels and forums by which new startups can market themselves, whereas in China everyone uses Baidu/QQ/Renren/Weibo and some of those sites possibly block out competitors' marketing?
I don't know, just thinking out loud and looking for more-informed opinions.
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Has there ever even been a "talent acquisition" in the (say) mid-8 digits? Since, say, 2006? Definition of a talent acquisition: you buy a company, and none of its offerings are available 18 months later under any brand. (The true definition would be "and all the members of the team are reassigned to a different project", but that's hard to know from the outside).
I don't think THIS was a talent acquisition so much as a super successful game, so successful Zynga couldn't rip it off and kill it, but there are definitely large talent acquisitions in recent history: * Powerset. ~$100mm, July 2008, to Microsoft. * Friendfeed, ~$50mm, August 2009, to Facebook. * Slide, $228mmm August 2010, to Google. (Takeaway: sell your company in the summer.)
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I guess I heard about that Tiny Tower thing... my takeaway is that nearly everybody borrows ideas from one another. Ideas are cheap, it's the implementation that really matters. Zynga has the means to move on things faster than a lot of competitors. >>Here's a quote from Mark Pincus, "I am proud of the ethical and fair way that we've built this company.". That's what makes Zynga despicable. That Mark Pincus claims hi…
This isn't "borrowing". This is IP theft. And these aren't "ideas" these are full blown products. "Ideas are cheap, it's the implementation that really matters." The games that Zynga copies were not "ideas" they were IP. And Zynga wasn't inspired by them. Zynga flat out, straight up, cloned them. When you work your ass off, sacrifice time with your family, your savings, and invest it into building a profitable flash…
In light of pg's recent article amounting to "information wants to be free" and there's nothing we can do about it...
How, exactly, is what Zynga is doing different from pirating films, music, or software? In both cases, it seems to me that the original creator hasn't lost anything. They still have their game. They still get to say "they" made it. Etc.
Are we really only against pirating when it helps big companies and not when it hurts them?
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Yes, I would pay $200mm for a game that nets $250k/day or $91.25mm/year. Assuming Zynga does nothing but maintain the revenue, it will make back it's investment in a little over 2 years. How many investments opportunities are out there that net you a ~40% yield!? Of course there is risk with an investment like this, but this is after all, their core business and they are probably very good at mitigating those risks.
Ha, right. And in related news, at its height, the Pet Rock was netting a million dollars a day. At that rate, why didn't somebody pay $700 million to acquire the company? They could have made their money back in two years.
- Cross promotion
- platform leverage
- historical performance of similar games
- and all of this operating in a market segment (mobile gaming) that is exploding not contracting.
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This isn't "borrowing". This is IP theft. And these aren't "ideas" these are full blown products. "Ideas are cheap, it's the implementation that really matters." The games that Zynga copies were not "ideas" they were IP. And Zynga wasn't inspired by them. Zynga flat out, straight up, cloned them. When you work your ass off, sacrifice time with your family, your savings, and invest it into building a profitable flash…
Google didn't buy YouTube because they didn't want to build YouTube, they bought it because everybody was on it and they couldn't gain traction with G Video. Same with Microsoft and Skype. Same with most acquisitions, including Draw Something. Big companies clone each others IP all the time. What do you think Bing, Android and Google+ are? They are just clones of other peoples IP... Zynga isn't buying this for the IP…
What you reference are not clones. They are services in the same space with utterly different UI/UX/features and an /attempt/ at differing value props.
ZYNGA MAKES EXACT CLONES - there is a difference. If you are not familiar with the topic, don't comment as though you're having some new profound insight.
I don't understand what people are missing about Zynga. I feel like I am talking to people who have about zero historical context of shit that has been happening in Silicon Valley.
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This isn't "borrowing". This is IP theft. And these aren't "ideas" these are full blown products. "Ideas are cheap, it's the implementation that really matters." The games that Zynga copies were not "ideas" they were IP. And Zynga wasn't inspired by them. Zynga flat out, straight up, cloned them. When you work your ass off, sacrifice time with your family, your savings, and invest it into building a profitable flash…
I am curious about a certain point. In China, the big players crush small startups by cloning them within a few days of them getting popular, and in some cases deploy dirty tactics against them (I'm thinking of an antivirus being interfered with on users' computers because it was removing part of a giant's software - was Tencent involved?). The point is that in China, everything gets cloned really quickly and the big…
What's personally depressed me about all these mobile games and their companies is they're all just circle-jerking and ripping off the same games that came out 10-20 years ago as well as digitalizing games that have been around for hundreds of years, and many of them I think "I could clone at least 90% of that in a weekend"... I don't think there's anything morally wrong with them, but it's not my cup of tea for what I want to play or how I would want to make money and I do sense a lack of "taste". I think OMGPOP got their payday, leave them alone. But I also think if you're in the business of what can be easily duplicated in terms of effort, as opposed to flat out copying files, prepare for the big companies to win.