7 ms·

First Zynga insider trading lawsuit filed

36 points by vtry 14y ago

stevejabs 14y ago
Perhaps I'm overreacting here, but I think I would receive a lot of joy over the SEC investigating this and Marc Pincus landing his ass in jail. I don't blame everyone that works there for the evil that I consider Zynga, but damn, that dude is just pure slime. He even admits as much. Karma is a bitch. He deserves anything that comes his way at this point.
dkhenry 14y ago
I don't know how much water this will hold as those gentlemen had to announce before hand they were going to sell stock. The bigger lawsuit should be with the fact that Zynga issued positive guidance. The officers should be held accountable for explicitly deceiving to their shareholders.
ChrisNorstrom 14y ago
Is there anyone on HN that's actually surprised at how Zynga turned out? I mean really shocked and surprised? Or even surprised at these accusations of insider trading? Pincus was known for doing shady even illegal things just to make money. Famous for saying "I did every horrible thing in the book, too, just to get revenues right away." and I don't mean to repeat myself over and over but let's not forget, most of Zyngas games were clones, flat out clones, of other people's IP. http://www.businessinsider.com/how-zynga-is-just-like-microsoft-2010-1?op=1 http://www.businessinsider.com/how-zynga-is-just-like-micros... , then there was the Tiny Tower theft. The whole company was built on screwing other people over for money. So the insider trading accusation fits quiet well with the company culture. Even if they're cleared of insider trading, we'll all assume it was because they were good liars. It's hard to trust Pincus after everything's he's done and said. Insider trading sounds exactly like something he would do. The sad part about all this is that Mark Pincus is intelligent and capable. If he wasn't such a bitch to green paper I think he could have built something truly amazing and earned his place in startup history alongside Zuckerberg. He had the intelligence but the soul of an animatronic robot. If being a heartless, emotionless, immoral, profit-extremist worked, there'd be no need for Human CEOs because robots programmed to be "dicks" would have taken over companies. Moral of the story: Money is not the goal. It's the result of achieving a goal.
- danilocampos 14y ago
  Socrates rendered the lesson thus, and I agree with you both: "I tell you that virtue is not given by money, but that from virtue comes money and every other good of man, public as well as private."
  - autodidakto 14y ago
    I see your Socrates and raise you a Benjamin Franklin: "Do well by doing good." In other words, make money through businesses that make people's lives better. That really is the point/goal/aspiration of Capitalism, but some people try to make money through the backdoor of cheating, amorality, etc.
- r00fus 14y ago
  > Moral of the story: Money is not the goal. It's the result of achieving a goal. There is a theory that luck (openness to opportunity) has a bigger hand in who makes a fortune than anything else. There are those (Pincus) who feel that you make your own luck, and are willing to cut corners... after all, history books are written by the winners, and all. About robots - what do you think HFT algorithms are?
seiji 14y ago
Let's break it down: Zynga is a company created for the sole purpose of abusing simple people psychologically to make them part with their money. (This does not make the entire employee pool evil. They employ hundreds of actually good people. Most of them stay good. Some buy into the kool-aid and become toe-the-line shadow puppets of evil though.) If manipulating people is your primary focus day in and day out for years, it can make you unbalanced. You begin to think you can get away with anything. After all, you've been doing horrible things for years and nobody has stopped you -- heck, most people don't even realize what's happening. It's a short leap to see how they start to elevate their abuse to the level of deceiving and manipulating public markets.
- wpietri 14y ago
  I'm not sure I'd call good they who profit from evil. One of the things that really troubled me after the financial meltdown was how much people got a pass for saying, "Oh, I didn't know." Even senior people. I think ignorance is only a real excuse when you've tried to find out what's going on. But as it is, our culture seems to reward people for willful ignorance. That's a dangerous incentive.
  - jlgreco 14y ago
    I knew a guy who got an offer there straight out of college (well, prior to graduating by a few months, but starting afterward). He readily admitted to not liking them before he even started; but they offered him a percentage increase on his next highest offer... I am sure not all employees there are like him, but the ones that are should hardly be considered innocent.
    - jiggy2011 14y ago
      Some of them probably think they can single handedly change the culture.
      - jlgreco 14y ago
        Maybe so. I think your standard engineer would rather stay out of that sort of thing, but who knows.

36 points by vtry 14y ago

Perhaps I'm overreacting here, but I think I would receive a lot of joy over the SEC investigating this and Marc Pincus landing his ass in jail. I don't blame everyone that works there for the evil that I consider Zynga, but damn, that dude is just pure slime. He even admits as much. Karma is a bitch. He deserves anything that comes his way at this point.

dkhenry 14y ago

I don't know how much water this will hold as those gentlemen had to announce before hand they were going to sell stock. The bigger lawsuit should be with the fact that Zynga issued positive guidance. The officers should be held accountable for explicitly deceiving to their shareholders.

ChrisNorstrom 14y ago

Is there anyone on HN that's actually surprised at how Zynga turned out? I mean really shocked and surprised? Or even surprised at these accusations of insider trading? Pincus was known for doing shady even illegal things just to make money. Famous for saying "I did every horrible thing in the book, too, just to get revenues right away." and I don't mean to repeat myself over and over but let's not forget, most of Zyngas games were clones, flat out clones, of other people's IP. http://www.businessinsider.com/how-zynga-is-just-like-microsoft-2010-1?op=1 http://www.businessinsider.com/how-zynga-is-just-like-micros... , then there was the Tiny Tower theft. The whole company was built on screwing other people over for money. So the insider trading accusation fits quiet well with the company culture. Even if they're cleared of insider trading, we'll all assume it was because they were good liars. It's hard to trust Pincus after everything's he's done and said. Insider trading sounds exactly like something he would do. The sad part about all this is that Mark Pincus is intelligent and capable. If he wasn't such a bitch to green paper I think he could have built something truly amazing and earned his place in startup history alongside Zuckerberg. He had the intelligence but the soul of an animatronic robot. If being a heartless, emotionless, immoral, profit-extremist worked, there'd be no need for Human CEOs because robots programmed to be "dicks" would have taken over companies. Moral of the story: Money is not the goal. It's the result of achieving a goal.

danilocampos 14y ago
Socrates rendered the lesson thus, and I agree with you both: "I tell you that virtue is not given by money, but that from virtue comes money and every other good of man, public as well as private."
- autodidakto 14y ago
  I see your Socrates and raise you a Benjamin Franklin: "Do well by doing good." In other words, make money through businesses that make people's lives better. That really is the point/goal/aspiration of Capitalism, but some people try to make money through the backdoor of cheating, amorality, etc.
r00fus 14y ago
> Moral of the story: Money is not the goal. It's the result of achieving a goal. There is a theory that luck (openness to opportunity) has a bigger hand in who makes a fortune than anything else. There are those (Pincus) who feel that you make your own luck, and are willing to cut corners... after all, history books are written by the winners, and all. About robots - what do you think HFT algorithms are?

seiji 14y ago

Let's break it down: Zynga is a company created for the sole purpose of abusing simple people psychologically to make them part with their money. (This does not make the entire employee pool evil. They employ hundreds of actually good people. Most of them stay good. Some buy into the kool-aid and become toe-the-line shadow puppets of evil though.) If manipulating people is your primary focus day in and day out for years, it can make you unbalanced. You begin to think you can get away with anything. After all, you've been doing horrible things for years and nobody has stopped you -- heck, most people don't even realize what's happening. It's a short leap to see how they start to elevate their abuse to the level of deceiving and manipulating public markets.

wpietri 14y ago
I'm not sure I'd call good they who profit from evil. One of the things that really troubled me after the financial meltdown was how much people got a pass for saying, "Oh, I didn't know." Even senior people. I think ignorance is only a real excuse when you've tried to find out what's going on. But as it is, our culture seems to reward people for willful ignorance. That's a dangerous incentive.
- jlgreco 14y ago
  I knew a guy who got an offer there straight out of college (well, prior to graduating by a few months, but starting afterward). He readily admitted to not liking them before he even started; but they offered him a percentage increase on his next highest offer... I am sure not all employees there are like him, but the ones that are should hardly be considered innocent.
  - jiggy2011 14y ago
    Some of them probably think they can single handedly change the culture.
    - jlgreco 14y ago
      Maybe so. I think your standard engineer would rather stay out of that sort of thing, but who knows.