Zynga Insiders cashed out at exactly the right time.
Adam Rifkin stashed this in Zynga!
Stashed in: Ethics
Here are some of the selling shareholders 4 months ago, when the stock was $12 a share. It's now at $3/share.
Marc Pincus, Zynga's CEO, sold 16.5 million shares for $200 million
Institutional Venture Partners, a Zynga investor, sold 5.8 million shares for $70 million
Union Square Ventures, a Zynga investor, sold 5.2 million shares for $62 million
Google, a Zynga investor, sold 4 million shares for $48 million
Silver Lake Partners, a Zynga investor, sold 4 million shares for $48 million
Reid Hoffman, a Zynga investor, sold 688,000 shares for $8.2 million
David Wehner, Zynga's CFO, sold 386,000 shares for $4.6 million
John Schappert, Zynga's COO, sold 322,000 shares for $3.9 million
Reginald Davis, Zynga's general counsel, sold 315,000 shares for $3.8 million
And so on ...
Fewer people are playing Facebook games: http://www.businessinsider.com/a-six-word-explainer-for-zyngas-disastrous-second-quarter-2012-7
Is Zynga a buy at $3/share? http://www.businessinsider.com/so-is-zynga-finally-a-buy-at-3-2012-7
How does Silicon Valley claim moral superiority over Wall Street? This is heartbreaking: http://www.quora.com/Zynga/How-do-Zynga-employees-feel-about-the-companys-summer-2012-stock-price-drop
I worked for Zynga for a year when my startup was acquired. Within a few months, we were putting in brisk 10 hour days as we started our new project. Six months in a launch date was handed down from above and we shifted to 11 hour days six days a week.
People willing to play the politics game were given 'rockstar' status, quarterly bonuses and promotions. Project direction and goals shifted daily, innovation of any kind was difficult - we were constantly forced to hew our game closer to the Farmville/Cityville playbook. Six weeks before shipping the studio was flown out to San Francisco to launch our game - 12 hour days seven days a week, free of the distraction of friends, wives and girlfriends. I watched alcoholism and substance abuse skyrocket, relationships crumble (including my own), people slept on office couches, two developers got divorced, one nervous breakdown. They attempted to smooth this over with more stock, free food and t-shirts. Free food doesn't do you much good when you've lost fifteen pounds from not eating.
Our game shipped and performed rather dismally, so the bonuses, raises, promotions and rest we were promised didn't materialize. With a now completely exhausted team, we were expected to work even harder to improve key metrics. Management would divert blame when these unrealistic metrics could not be hit. Our studio manager, possibly the only person who knew how the company was actually performing on a macro level, quit unexpectedly a few weeks after the IPO.
But it was all going to be ok, just hang in there, we'd all be rich in a matter of months.
We were told point blank in one studio-wide meeting that we would IPO "around $20 a share", and could expect $100 a share within a year if we "launched one or two more successful titles". A quick analysis of the company fundamentals placed it closer to $10. It now sits at $2.90.
How does it feel? To spend years being worked into the ground, putting your life on hold and being egged along so top brass can cash out millions at $12 a share while the rank and file employees are in a 'lockout period'?
I'll second 'devastating'.Suggest Edits
Just like the folks on wall street -- exceptionally well.pincus has 200m reasons to sleep well. No matter what happens to his company,he is set for life.
But he has to pay for massive security now because him enriching himself at the expense of his employees has made him alone and paranoid.
See: http://pandawhale.com/convo/910/zynga-spent-137-million-to-protect-its-ceo-wsjcom
Lockheed Martin = defense contractor; makes sense.
I have no doubt he works hard; but man...
2:17 AM Jul 27 2012