CEO Forum: Zynga's Pincus talks of passion
— -- EVANSTON, Ill.
While some billionaire tech CEOs may take victory laps or calculate their megariches, Zynga CEO Mark Pincus has become reflective.
The self-effacing Pincus, whose social-gaming company helped redefine an industry and went public last year in the Internet's biggest IPO since Google in 2004, spoke of failure and hard lessons learned during the 13th USA TODAY CEO Forum in conjunction with Northwestern University and the Associated Student Government here last week.
Pincus, 46, calls Zynga, with a market valuation of $1.1 billion, his crowning achievement after a series of start-ups that were not "sustainable." With a string of hit titles such as FarmVille, CityVille and Draw Something, and its innovative use of data analytics to tweak games, Zynga appears to be a tech fixture for years to come.
In a wide-ranging hour-long interview, the Chicago-native discussed how his single-minded conviction molded Zynga, with the help of mentors such as venture-capitalist John Doerr and former Electronics Arts executive Bing Gordon. Last year, Zynga racked up $1.1 billion in revenue.
Pincus talked with USA TODAY technology reporter Jon Swartz and took questions from students about his wild ride to dot-com success after a circuitous path through investment banking on Wall Street, because he "was very focused on financial independence," to a stint at onetime cable giant TCI, where he got to view "every cool interactive opportunity in the world" to his "passion" at Zynga. The following excerpts from the conversation are edited for space and clarity.
Q: What did you learn from the first couple of companies that you were involved with? What mistakes or successes made you decide to start something like Zynga, which redefined a pretty well established market?
A: First, it's important to know what your goal is, because if you don't know what your goal is, you will definitely never achieve it. If you don't have a clear goal, you will probably make so many compromises in your career or whatever it is you're doing that you will wake up one day and forget why you chose to do what you are doing.
That was true with me. I knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur. I knew I wanted to create these break-through products. But I made so many compromises along the way, like with my company Support.com that went public. It became a company that I couldn't be at anymore, and that was very strange. One of the things I say at Zynga is that we should all make sure we are building a house we want to live in.
Q: By the time you reached the stage of Zynga, were you thinking,I'm going to go with my vision, I'm not going to try to make everybody happy?
A: It's a lot like dating. It took me a long time to learn that it is about reducing bad leads. By being really upfront about who you are and what you want and where you are going, you stop wasting time.
Q: What's your goal for Zynga?
A: I want the dog, our dog icon, which was originally my dog Zynga, I want that icon, that brand, to be what I call a dial tone for play. I want it to be more recognizable than a Nike swoosh and mean something to you. If you see that on a game, it means it's social, it means that it's going to give you back more than what you put into it.
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