As some of you may know, I’m an advisor to Tracks.by, a startup founded by my longtime friends Matt Schlicht and Mazy Kazerooni. They’re building an awesome social platform for artists to launch their content and reach millions of fans.
One of the biggest artists using their platform is Lil Wayne (you can see Tracks.by live on Lil Wayne’s Facebook page). And yesterday, they took him out skating at a skate park in Silicon Valley.
To say I’m jealous is an understatement. Their pictures with them are simply badass.
Tracks.by has quietly become one of the top 200 apps on the Facebook platform. It has more than 1.6 million monthly active users after launching in private beta a month and a half ago.
Groupon, which at one point traded for more than $26 a share, has dropped to $15.24 and continues to drop in after-hours trading. That’s nearly 25% down from its $20 IPO strike price.
At $26, Groupon was worth around $18 billion. At $20, it was worth $12.7 billion. And at $15.24, it’s worth just $9.72 billion.
This is a freefall that’s feeding upon itself. It’s going to stop at some point… the question is at what price.
The New York Times published a great article this weekend on the “tough culture” within Zynga, the creator of FarmVille, CityVille and dozens of other social games. I’m not surprised by the report — more than a few employees have told me that Zynga isn’t exactly the easiest or happiest place to work.
From Evelyn Rusli’s NYT piece:
“Led by the hard-charging Mr. Pincus, the company operates like a federation of city-states, with autonomous teams for each game, like FarmVille and CityVille. At times, it can be a messy and ruthless war. Employees log long hours, managers relentlessly track progress, and the weak links are demoted or let go.
But that culture, which has been at the root of Zynga’s success, could become a serious liability, warn several former senior employees who agreed to speak on the condition of anonymity because of fear of reprisals.
As the discord increases, the situation may jeopardize the company’s ability to retain top talent at a time when Silicon Valley start-ups are fiercely jockeying for the best executives and engineers. It could also hamper deal-making, a critical growth engine for Zynga, which has spent about $119 million on acquisitions in the last two years.”
Zynga has a relentless culture that is, like Google, focused on data. The numbers need to be up for you to keep your job. The result is an IPO that could be worth north of $20 billion.
However, that same culture is clearly at its breaking point. Without big changes, Zynga could experience an exodus that could seriously damage the bottom line. I’ve been told things are getting better though, and that the culture isn’t as unforgiving as it once was.
Understanding Mark Pincus
To understand the culture at Zynga, you need to understand its unquestioned leader, Mark Pincus.
He’s a unique character to Silicon Valley. He’s a business guy, not an engineer. He got a degree in Economics from UPenn and an MBA from Harvard. He worked in finance for many years.
The result: Pincus lives and breathes numbers and data — it is his comfort zone. It’s no wonder Zynga is so data-driven.
By his own admission, he also didn’t fit in with a lot of these places. “I found that I couldn’t be successful in anyone else’s company,” Pincus told a group of entrepreneurs at the 2009 Y Combinator Startup School. “So I got kicked out of some of the best companies in America.”
(by the way, I’ve embedded the video of that talk above. If you really want to understand Pincus, watch it.)
The man follows his own vision, and it rubs a lot of people the wrong way. He’s also incredibly intense about it. It’s made Zynga relentless in its quest to be #1, but its rank-and-file have definitely paid a high price for it.
Understanding Zynga’s Culture
Why is Zynga so data-obsessed? Why is it so intense that countless employees are simply burning out?
The answer should be obvious: it all stems from Mark Pincus and his personality. His intensity and obsession with data are fundamental to his nature, and thus they are fundamental to Zynga. Those traits made Zynga into a multi-billion dollar company.
However, I think Pincus is finally realizing that his level of intensity and his style of leadership aren’t something most people can sustain for long periods of time. That’s why Zynga’s doing more to ease workloads and make its employees happier.
Zynga is in a period of transition. It’s about to turn into a public company, and it will no longer be able to use the promise of pre-IPO stock to retain talent. It will have use other weapons, such as perks and keeping employees happy, to stay on top.
Zynga’s culture will have to adapt if the company expects to continue growing.
So Google aired an ad for Google+ today during the Packers-Detroit game. (side note: will someone please beat the Packers already?)
The G+ ad is part of a long line of TV ads Google has been running, mostly for Chrome and web-based products like YouTube. The structure of the ad is unique, though. It doesn’t clearly state what G+ actually is. Instead, it’s designed to be an introduction to Google+ so that, when Google explains it to the everyday consumer, they get it.
I agree with Andy Beal though: the ad will just confuse consumers. They probably tuned out as they were pounding that fourth beer with their families.
I’m really not sure what Google was trying to accomplish with this ad, but at least it’s trying to make G+ more relevant. You may have also noticed that Google’s Thanksgiving Day doodle included a G+ share button.
Clearly the search giant is getting much more aggressive introducing regular consumers to G+.
The day before the Groupon IPO, a friend not in the tech industry asked me what I thought about the IPO. “Do you foresee the company’s stock going up a lot?” he asked me.
I had a four word response: “Down. Bad stock. Toxic.”
By the looks of it, my market prediction has come true.
Look: I’m rooting for Groupon to succeed. I want Chicago, my home city, to become a major tech hub. A successful Groupon would go a long way towards bringing money, innovation and talent to the Midwest. But I stand by my Social Analyst column on Groupon and the entire daily deals industry:
“There are still a lot of daily deals startups in the market right now. My day isn’t complete without at least three pitching me for a story on Mashable. But while more daily deals startups may be getting off the ground, the big players are clearly realizing that this business is being commoditized by intense competition and fatigue by consumers and local businesses. Fifty-two percent of U.S. consumers say they feel overwhelmed by the number of daily deals emails hitting their inboxes.”
Groupon Now hasn’t taken off the way the company wanted it to, and the antics of its CEO aren’t helping. I really, really hope they can mastermind a turnaround, but my prediction is that Groupon isn’t even close to the bottom yet.
(Side note: I’m not a professional stock analyst. Don’t depend on me for your stock picks.)
After my announcement this week, I received a flood emails. It was a humbling experience having so many people reach out to me with well wishes and support. Thank you, all.
One email stood out amongst the pile, though. I was stunned when I read it… speechless. I asked its author if I could share it with all of you, anonymously, and she graciously agreed.
I hope her email will inspire you as much as it has inspired me:
Ben,
I stumbled onto an article about you today. I am not tech savvy nor am I an entrepreneur. I read your article and I wanted to say I am glad you have taken your great abilities and are trying to as you put it ” make a dent in the Universe”. By the sounds of it – you have already made a dent. For some reason your comments and story hit me in such a way that I wanted to reach out in support and say “Keep going”!
I have never in my life commented on-line or reached out in such a manner but today I felt so inclined. It must have been something that you said that made me believe there is hope in the Universe when people like yourself have the ability to change it and will change it.
Thank you,
[Redacted]
I’m thankful that I have the opportunity to make this type of impact. This is why I work so hard, both as a writer and as an entrepreneur.
I’m heading to Paris next month for LeWeb 2011, Europe’s largest and most prominent technology conference. And I’m happy to announce that I will be speaking on stage this year.
Founders Loic and Geraldine Le Meur have been so gracious and supportive to me over the years — I couldn’t say no to the offer. I’m thrilled to be making my second consecutive trip to Paris. The conference takes place on December 7, 8 and 9.
If you want to meet up with me, you can hit me up at ben[at]benparr[dot]com. And as always, if you’re interested in having me speak, you can hit up my Speakergram page.
I’m looking forward to some amazing adventures in Paris.
Friday, November 18, was my last day at Mashable. I want to thank the Mashable team for 3+ amazing years. They truly have been the best years of my life.
I also want to thank everybody who has been part of my journey. Your help and kindness have been constant sources of strength. I don’t know what I would have done without you.
During my time at Mashable, I wrote 2,446 articles, explored the technology world through my column and interviewed everyone from Ashton Kutcher to Mark Zuckerberg.
But most of all, I learned so much from the thousands of entrepreneurs that I have met. I will not forget their struggles, their triumphs and their ideas. I wish I could have written more of their stories. It was a true honor.
As for what’s next: I am considering several opportunities right now and will definitely keep you all posted as to my future plans. I want to leverage the national platform that I have built and use it to help, empower and reach as many people as I can. I’m exploring options in the media world, the entertainment world, the startup world, the venture capital world and elsewhere. But as always, I’m open to suggestions.
I do intend to continue writing and commentating about the technology and entrepreneurial world, though. Therefore, I will continue my Social Analyst column on BenParr.com for now.
I remain an advisor to NerdsUnite Productions, Tracks.by, Code Academy, Women 2.0 and a few other startups. And I am always interested in working with other brilliant entrepreneurs with ambitious business ideas.
As I’ve told many people, the driving philosophy in my life is this: I have the ability and thus the responsibility to change the world for the better. I want to find a way to empower every person on the planet, so they can pursue their dreams. Today begins the next stage of my journey to fulfill that purpose.
If you want to chat, I can be reached at ben[at]benparr[dot]com. My Gchat is also ben[at]benparr[dot]com, and you can find me on Skype as ben_parr. And of course, I can be found on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+.
I'm an entrepreneur, storyteller, scuba diver, swing dancer, romantic and a man on the move. I'm an advisor to startups (NerdsUnite Productions, Tracks.by, Women 2.0 and others), and I'm a proud alumnus of Mashable. You can learn more about me here.
