5 ms·

So releasing employees from their ahem employ is mistreatment? These kids need to stick their noses back in their schoolwork.

codewright 14y ago
More likely this is a build-up of many offenses, like Pincus' past threatening to fire employees if they didn't surrender their stock. Pincus is a scum-bag of the first order and is ruining startup employee confidence in the value of their equity. He's poisoning the well for the rest of us. Anonymous is silly in their own way, but you shouldn't be so quick to dismiss things or actions you don't understand.
- nextstep 14y ago
  >you shouldn't be so quick to dismiss things or actions you don't understand. Instead you should offer more speculation on top of what You don't understand?
  - rhizome 14y ago
    Which part of his response was speculation, that Zynga is poisoned from the top?
- h123b 14y ago
  Actually, you don't understand Zynga since you're relying on rumor and hearsay. I've worked as Zynga. Things aren't as black and white as you think they are.
  - georgemcbay 14y ago
    I don't think he has to have worked at Zynga to understand the problem. Zynga is hardly the only one, but they are one of the biggest of the new crop of startups that grew huge and IPOed to the benefit of very few employees. Back in the "old days", even when you move the "old days" up to include Google's IPO, a company with such a massive liquidity event could be expected to result in a lot of wealth spread out among early employees. Even receptionists, chefs, etc could cash out big paydays. With the way things are now, companies are often structured such that unless you're a founder with an ironclad paper trail of equity ownership, you probably aren't going to be walking away with much more money than what you'd get from a particularly good yearly bonus at a large company, and that's absolutely best-case. More likely is that a liquidity event will occur where nobody but preferred stock owners will see a single dime. This perception is absolutely a problem for the overall startup ecosystem and plays into why everyone involved wants to be a founder and not just an early employee and this in turn plays into why all these startups all these founders are founding are having massive problems hiring non-founder employees. As a potential startup employee, your biggest concern shouldn't be whether the company fails spectacularly. Failure sucks, but that's easy enough to get past psychologically. Your biggest concern should be what if the company is extremely successful and you get screwed anyway. Because while this is statistically less likely than spectacular failure, it is much harder to deal with and more common than a lot of people think.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- JohnHaugeland 14y ago
  Mob vigilante acts are not excusable. Not even if you dislike Pincus.
matthewowen 14y ago
Well, in many countries it is illegal. I'm not really looking to debate the rights or wrongs of at will employment, but it's pretty common in Europe that sacking a worker requires going through a lot of legal hoops (broadly speaking, unless they've committed gross misconduct, you have to show that you've made efforts to help them improve, that you've provided guidance, and that you've given clear and explicit warnings). Laying them off in Zynga's circumstances involves statutory redundancy regulations (including minimum redundancy payouts according to length of service etc etc). So I think that it is somewhat unfair to say that their position is fundamentally juvenile or under-informed - agree with it or not, laws based on the principle that you can't sack employees at will are very well entrenched and popular in a number of countries.
- cremnob 14y ago
  And this is one of the reasons unemployment in certain Eurozone countries is so high. It's better not to hire when you're unsure about future demand because you're sure as hell not going to be able to fire them.
  - mweibel 14y ago
    This is plain wrong. Unemployment in Eurozone is so high because of a lot of other Problems. Switzerland has also quite a lot of laws which protect employees and the rate is lower than in a lot of countries.
    - cmccabe 14y ago
      Please read what economists have written before you add your opinion. One analysis of Europe's inflexible labor market is here, by the IMF: http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2000/06/soltwede.htm http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2000/06/soltwede.h... Europe's ridiculous labor regulations do more to strangle startups in the crib than almost anything else. Zynga may have done some unethical things, but firing employees they didn't need was not one of them.
      - 14y ago
vacri 14y ago
I like how you phrased it so that losing your job sounds beneficial.
- kookiekrak 14y ago
  earning 3 months severance and easily finding another job is pretty beneficial if you ask me
  - jrockway 14y ago
    Indeed. You'd have to try pretty hard to not find another programming job in three months. Everyone is desperate to hire programmers.

codewright 14y ago

More likely this is a build-up of many offenses, like Pincus' past threatening to fire employees if they didn't surrender their stock. Pincus is a scum-bag of the first order and is ruining startup employee confidence in the value of their equity. He's poisoning the well for the rest of us. Anonymous is silly in their own way, but you shouldn't be so quick to dismiss things or actions you don't understand.

nextstep 14y ago
>you shouldn't be so quick to dismiss things or actions you don't understand. Instead you should offer more speculation on top of what You don't understand?
- rhizome 14y ago
  Which part of his response was speculation, that Zynga is poisoned from the top?
h123b 14y ago
Actually, you don't understand Zynga since you're relying on rumor and hearsay. I've worked as Zynga. Things aren't as black and white as you think they are.
- georgemcbay 14y ago
  I don't think he has to have worked at Zynga to understand the problem. Zynga is hardly the only one, but they are one of the biggest of the new crop of startups that grew huge and IPOed to the benefit of very few employees. Back in the "old days", even when you move the "old days" up to include Google's IPO, a company with such a massive liquidity event could be expected to result in a lot of wealth spread out among early employees. Even receptionists, chefs, etc could cash out big paydays. With the way things are now, companies are often structured such that unless you're a founder with an ironclad paper trail of equity ownership, you probably aren't going to be walking away with much more money than what you'd get from a particularly good yearly bonus at a large company, and that's absolutely best-case. More likely is that a liquidity event will occur where nobody but preferred stock owners will see a single dime. This perception is absolutely a problem for the overall startup ecosystem and plays into why everyone involved wants to be a founder and not just an early employee and this in turn plays into why all these startups all these founders are founding are having massive problems hiring non-founder employees. As a potential startup employee, your biggest concern shouldn't be whether the company fails spectacularly. Failure sucks, but that's easy enough to get past psychologically. Your biggest concern should be what if the company is extremely successful and you get screwed anyway. Because while this is statistically less likely than spectacular failure, it is much harder to deal with and more common than a lot of people think.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
JohnHaugeland 14y ago
Mob vigilante acts are not excusable. Not even if you dislike Pincus.

matthewowen 14y ago

Well, in many countries it is illegal. I'm not really looking to debate the rights or wrongs of at will employment, but it's pretty common in Europe that sacking a worker requires going through a lot of legal hoops (broadly speaking, unless they've committed gross misconduct, you have to show that you've made efforts to help them improve, that you've provided guidance, and that you've given clear and explicit warnings). Laying them off in Zynga's circumstances involves statutory redundancy regulations (including minimum redundancy payouts according to length of service etc etc). So I think that it is somewhat unfair to say that their position is fundamentally juvenile or under-informed - agree with it or not, laws based on the principle that you can't sack employees at will are very well entrenched and popular in a number of countries.

cremnob 14y ago
And this is one of the reasons unemployment in certain Eurozone countries is so high. It's better not to hire when you're unsure about future demand because you're sure as hell not going to be able to fire them.
- mweibel 14y ago
  This is plain wrong. Unemployment in Eurozone is so high because of a lot of other Problems. Switzerland has also quite a lot of laws which protect employees and the rate is lower than in a lot of countries.
  - cmccabe 14y ago
    Please read what economists have written before you add your opinion. One analysis of Europe's inflexible labor market is here, by the IMF: http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2000/06/soltwede.htm http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2000/06/soltwede.h... Europe's ridiculous labor regulations do more to strangle startups in the crib than almost anything else. Zynga may have done some unethical things, but firing employees they didn't need was not one of them.
    - 14y ago

vacri 14y ago

I like how you phrased it so that losing your job sounds beneficial.

kookiekrak 14y ago
earning 3 months severance and easily finding another job is pretty beneficial if you ask me
- jrockway 14y ago
  Indeed. You'd have to try pretty hard to not find another programming job in three months. Everyone is desperate to hire programmers.