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Perversely, I enjoyed reading this memo. Mark Pincus is a classic psychopath and it's always educational to observe how people like him attempt to justify thems

Perversely, I enjoyed reading this memo. Mark Pincus is a classic psychopath and it's always educational to observe how people like him attempt to justify themselves. The psychopath's language is usually a caricature (sometimes to the point of absurdity) of going assumptions of the culture in which he's trying to win acceptance. Though they have no values, they are skilled at picking up others' values and using them to make their actions seem acceptable. In Pincus's case, he's taking the noble concept of meritocracy and twisting it into bizarre shapes, refusing to stop even at outright fraud. Oh, and if I understand Mr. Pinkus right, people who work with food don't deserve to make money. Fucker. Judging his attitudes from his writing and actions, he'd be a natural fit for the Tea Party. Since the Tea Party and Zynga are the two malefactors most responsible for insufferable activity on Facebook, this is a natural transition for Mr. Pincus. To the screwed: sorry to hear it, but I guess this is what you get when you work for a company whose name sounds like 4th-grade anatomical slang.

protomyth 15y ago
I was with you until the Tea Party comment. You are completely wrong about the motivations of the people who show up at Tea Party events. The Tea Party definitely in no way resembles the actions of Mr. Pincus. I really wish people would keep politics out of a non-political discussion especially in a way that characterizes people unfairly.
- michaelochurch 15y ago
  The Tea Partiers are high on this idea that the country consists of "water carriers" and "water drinkers" and that society is essentially zero-sum, with cracking down on the "water drinkers" being the only solution to society's problems. Pincus's bullshit "meritocracy" justification is eerily similar. He's trying to deprive people of equity now that it's worth something, and when people point out that this is scummy, he points his finger and whines, "but they aren't pulling their weight!" That's the similarity I was trying to point out, though maybe I justified it poorly in the grandparent post.
  - protomyth 15y ago
    Wow, whatever you are watching or reading doesn't even come close. No one in the Tea Party I've met believes it is a zero-sum game. Quite the opposite (heck, farmers can show the counter examples). The Tea Party believes the government is wasteful with its spending and is more into power grabs then helping people. The only cracking down wanted is on government foolishness and waste. Helping people is a deep belief out here in the heartland.
    - potatolicious 15y ago
      It's not really that simple, though I agree the Tea Party has nothing to do with this. The problem with the Tea Party is pretty much identical to the problem with the Occupy movement - it's ill-defined. The purists would claim that Tea Party is about small government, like the Occupy movement purist would claim that it's about restoring bank regulation. But at this point both movements, being more or less leaderless, have grown wildly beyond the confines of the people that started it. Like #Occupy, the Tea Party IMO has become an easy label and an easy rallying cry for whatever ails you. What started as a movement for small government has also attracted economic reformers, people who don't like taxes, freedom of speech activists, McCarthyan anti-communists, social darwinists, and yes, plenty of racists too who just aren't very happy about that black guy. Go look at what people are carrying and yelling at Tea Party rallies, and you'll see plenty of all of the above. Similarly, go look at an Occupy rally and you'd have trouble telling what they stand for, even approximately. We have economic reformists, anarchists, environmentalists, black bloc hooligans, people who want to lynch all bankers, anti-corporate types, militant anti-corporate types... Some people want corporate power reigned in, an equally large contingent seem to just want the end of capitalism. Both movements are really just a sea of disparate interests groups trying to pretend they represent some kind of unified voice.
  - tlear 15y ago
    To be honest the only thing I could get from that piece of the post is that you hate Tea Party. Still confused as to how two are related. Pincus is a psychopath on that part we do agree.
  - 15y ago
- cookiecaper 15y ago
  I upvoted you accidentally. I meant to downvote you. I was just going to downvote and not comment but now that I upvoted I have to tell you why I meant to downvote you. We should keep this political squabbling off of HN, it floods every other venue right now and it's definitely off-topic. If someone makes a passing political mention, it's best to let it slide, lest we stop talking about "Hacker News".
  - lhnn 15y ago
    I'm not going to downvote you, I'll just correct your logic.Your parent is someone who was doing what you're doing now: calling people out on HN etiquette. The OP making fun of the tea party is the true culprit here.
    - cookiecaper 15y ago
      I disagree. OP mentioned Tea Party ill-advisedly. Tea Partier got upset and felt like he had to defend the Tea Party before saying not to bring political arguments up on HN. If you don't want to see political arguments on HN, don't participate in them.
      - protomyth 15y ago
        I said "I really wish people would keep politics out of a non-political discussion especially in a way that characterizes people unfairly" which is not the same as "saying not to bring political arguments up on HN". It irked me someone would take a cheap shot in a discussion about rightful compensation. Particularly when we are talking about a company not honoring the spirit of a contract with a worker then basically mischaracterizing a group's motives to put them in the same category when they are among the antithesis of that position.
cookiecaper 15y ago
I've heard several times in these threads that Pincus is a sociopath. Can you provide some more detail on that? A quick once-over his WP page doesn't seem to indicate anything particularly shady. Although I don't think that Zynga has the most ethical business goals out there, I don't think it's bad enough to qualify someone as a sociopath. I'm sure there's a lot of history I don't know about so if you could give me the scoop that'd be great. It will hopefully help other readers engaged in the same search.
- johnyzee 15y ago
  Psychopath, sociopath, they are terms that get thrown around and there is an industry promoting these classifications where possibly none exist, just a sliding scale of individual morality. 'The Psychopath Test' is a good read on this subject.
- protomyth 15y ago
  Normally I would say it is hyperbole, but if you are classifying someone by the textbook (in this case DSM-IV) definition, his behavior feels and awful lot like it fits the criteria[1][2] to the people affected and quite a few people here. That all being said, the DSM-IV is a pretty scary book. It has expanded quite a bit of previous editions and become a little more broad to allow for a larger billing footprint. When I used to work in those circles, I had psychologist friends who thought anyone could be categorized as some type of disorder. [1] http://www.mcafee.cc/Bin/sb.html http://www.mcafee.cc/Bin/sb.html [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisocial_personality_disorder http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisocial_personality_disorder
pavel_lishin 15y ago
I wish you'd broken your comment into two parts; one about his sociopathy, and one about politics, so I could downvote only the political one.

protomyth 15y ago

I was with you until the Tea Party comment. You are completely wrong about the motivations of the people who show up at Tea Party events. The Tea Party definitely in no way resembles the actions of Mr. Pincus. I really wish people would keep politics out of a non-political discussion especially in a way that characterizes people unfairly.

michaelochurch 15y ago
The Tea Partiers are high on this idea that the country consists of "water carriers" and "water drinkers" and that society is essentially zero-sum, with cracking down on the "water drinkers" being the only solution to society's problems. Pincus's bullshit "meritocracy" justification is eerily similar. He's trying to deprive people of equity now that it's worth something, and when people point out that this is scummy, he points his finger and whines, "but they aren't pulling their weight!" That's the similarity I was trying to point out, though maybe I justified it poorly in the grandparent post.
- protomyth 15y ago
  Wow, whatever you are watching or reading doesn't even come close. No one in the Tea Party I've met believes it is a zero-sum game. Quite the opposite (heck, farmers can show the counter examples). The Tea Party believes the government is wasteful with its spending and is more into power grabs then helping people. The only cracking down wanted is on government foolishness and waste. Helping people is a deep belief out here in the heartland.
  - potatolicious 15y ago
    It's not really that simple, though I agree the Tea Party has nothing to do with this. The problem with the Tea Party is pretty much identical to the problem with the Occupy movement - it's ill-defined. The purists would claim that Tea Party is about small government, like the Occupy movement purist would claim that it's about restoring bank regulation. But at this point both movements, being more or less leaderless, have grown wildly beyond the confines of the people that started it. Like #Occupy, the Tea Party IMO has become an easy label and an easy rallying cry for whatever ails you. What started as a movement for small government has also attracted economic reformers, people who don't like taxes, freedom of speech activists, McCarthyan anti-communists, social darwinists, and yes, plenty of racists too who just aren't very happy about that black guy. Go look at what people are carrying and yelling at Tea Party rallies, and you'll see plenty of all of the above. Similarly, go look at an Occupy rally and you'd have trouble telling what they stand for, even approximately. We have economic reformists, anarchists, environmentalists, black bloc hooligans, people who want to lynch all bankers, anti-corporate types, militant anti-corporate types... Some people want corporate power reigned in, an equally large contingent seem to just want the end of capitalism. Both movements are really just a sea of disparate interests groups trying to pretend they represent some kind of unified voice.
- tlear 15y ago
  To be honest the only thing I could get from that piece of the post is that you hate Tea Party. Still confused as to how two are related. Pincus is a psychopath on that part we do agree.
- 15y ago
cookiecaper 15y ago
I upvoted you accidentally. I meant to downvote you. I was just going to downvote and not comment but now that I upvoted I have to tell you why I meant to downvote you. We should keep this political squabbling off of HN, it floods every other venue right now and it's definitely off-topic. If someone makes a passing political mention, it's best to let it slide, lest we stop talking about "Hacker News".
- lhnn 15y ago
  I'm not going to downvote you, I'll just correct your logic.Your parent is someone who was doing what you're doing now: calling people out on HN etiquette. The OP making fun of the tea party is the true culprit here.
  - cookiecaper 15y ago
    I disagree. OP mentioned Tea Party ill-advisedly. Tea Partier got upset and felt like he had to defend the Tea Party before saying not to bring political arguments up on HN. If you don't want to see political arguments on HN, don't participate in them.
    - protomyth 15y ago
      I said "I really wish people would keep politics out of a non-political discussion especially in a way that characterizes people unfairly" which is not the same as "saying not to bring political arguments up on HN". It irked me someone would take a cheap shot in a discussion about rightful compensation. Particularly when we are talking about a company not honoring the spirit of a contract with a worker then basically mischaracterizing a group's motives to put them in the same category when they are among the antithesis of that position.

cookiecaper 15y ago

I've heard several times in these threads that Pincus is a sociopath. Can you provide some more detail on that? A quick once-over his WP page doesn't seem to indicate anything particularly shady. Although I don't think that Zynga has the most ethical business goals out there, I don't think it's bad enough to qualify someone as a sociopath. I'm sure there's a lot of history I don't know about so if you could give me the scoop that'd be great. It will hopefully help other readers engaged in the same search.

johnyzee 15y ago
Psychopath, sociopath, they are terms that get thrown around and there is an industry promoting these classifications where possibly none exist, just a sliding scale of individual morality. 'The Psychopath Test' is a good read on this subject.
protomyth 15y ago
Normally I would say it is hyperbole, but if you are classifying someone by the textbook (in this case DSM-IV) definition, his behavior feels and awful lot like it fits the criteria[1][2] to the people affected and quite a few people here. That all being said, the DSM-IV is a pretty scary book. It has expanded quite a bit of previous editions and become a little more broad to allow for a larger billing footprint. When I used to work in those circles, I had psychologist friends who thought anyone could be categorized as some type of disorder. [1] http://www.mcafee.cc/Bin/sb.html http://www.mcafee.cc/Bin/sb.html [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisocial_personality_disorder http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisocial_personality_disorder

pavel_lishin 15y ago

I wish you'd broken your comment into two parts; one about his sociopathy, and one about politics, so I could downvote only the political one.