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Zynga To Employees: Surrender Pre-IPO Shares Or You're Fired
ardmhacha writes "Zynga seem to think they were overly generous handing out stock to early employees. Fearing a 'Google Chef' situation they are leaning on some employees to hand back their unvested stock or face termination. From the article: 'Zynga's demand for the return of shares could expose the company to employment litigation—and, were the practice to catch on and spread, would erode a central pillar of Silicon Valley culture, in which start-ups with limited cash and a risk of failure dangle the possibility of stock riches in order to lure talent.'"
Is the mafia running this company or something?
.... be fired and get rich (and maybe an employer that respects me), than to be forced to sell the valuable stocks that I personally contributed success to.
In truth, those with pre-IPO stocks are the foundation of the success for the company; what we are seeing is absolute disrespect to those who are responsible for the success.
Fearing a Google Chef situation?
What... a competent professional working at the company over a long period of time demonstrating a high level of skill, overseeing, directing and training many others, and earning the respect of his colleagues?
Is this kind of thing bad now?
Coming from a company with stellar ethics like Zynga, what do you expect?
Unfortunately, these slimeballs are smart enough to figure out ways to screw their employees, their customers, and in fact anyone with a dollar in their pocket.
Too bad for the honest hard working startups that are prepared to do the hard yards and get their just rewards. This will definitely have ripples of distrust that permeate deeply.
Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
I can't imagine how an action like this can be legal in terms of anyone wanting to take it to court - surely the employee would win hands down, but I can't also see how it would be beneficial in the long run. Srely if you took your employer to court like this (and assuming you won) and went back to work - surely the culture there after that must be very antagonistic. Wouldn't the employer then be looking for any excuse and going through all the hoops to have that person leave the company anyhow.
The only way I can imagine to pursue this would be to take them to court, win (I assume quite easily) and then start looking for another job as the workplace has become hostile - which sort of leads to where they are going in the first place... "Give it back or you are fired" OR "Ha, I won, now I need to find other work...". It just seems to be a half dozen here and six there.
Moved to http://soylentnews.org/. You are invited to join us too!
Next thing you know, their employees would be asked to pay back portions of their salaries that management thought are undeserved.
Totally true, they have a very strange history, from their funding coming from the Russian mafia, to the events of today.
The place itself is supposedly a real grid to work in, so it is likely all these employees deserve their options. However, management always holds the power in situations like this, and more importantly, the investors that control management. If they are indeed controlled by the Russian mafia, isn't it better that these programmers give up their stock options rather than lose fingers?
I think it is class prejudice in the modern world. I don't think there is a problem with the chef in Google, but other executives look at a working class man who risked his career with a start-up and received a very large reward and think that should not be right. To them, working people should stay in their class where they belong and not become multi-millionaires regardless of the risk and hard work they took or did.
It sounds to me like those people who give lottery tickets as a gift and then sue the recipient for a share when the tickets turned out to be big winners - because they say they did not mean to give so much to the recipient.
Truly bizarre and illogical in my view.
So let's not be quick in judging him. ok ?
a quick googling of "zynga ethics" will allow you to make a quick judgement of what we're dealing with here. Pincus is setting new standards in rapacious business practices. This is nothing to shrug off, somehow this guy needs to be spanked.
look sig is kool
FarmVille, etc. I already boycott based on lack of interest in the product.
"Son, in life or business, always remember, you dance with the person you brought".
This is a basic point of honor - you keep to the commitments you made.
More expensive than you thought it would be? Tough, honor it.
Harder than you thought? Tough, honor it.
See something else that's better? Tough, honor it.
Yes, I know, business isn't about honor, it's about profit. I simply feel there is no profit in being dishonorable, no matter how much money you can make. No Sir, "Greed is good" in not in my orison. You know the good companies in your life. Go look at their mission statement. Top one is "To serve our customers/community". You also know who the bad companies are. Look at their mission statements. The honest ones list "Increase shareholder value" as first. The dishonest ones say "To serve our customers/community". In the end, it isn't about what someone says, it's what they do. Actions don't lie. Words can.
That is why I will listen closely to what someone says, but I pay more attention to what they do.
In a perfect world, someone would whisper this in Sony's, RIAA's, MPAA's, ASCAP, AT&T's, and many others ears:
"Honor is a lasting value.
Try it.
For a change."
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
If you quit, you can't collect unemployment. If you refuse, then they have to decide to fire you ... and either way, you've still go the shares.
Also, this could be interpreted as constructive dismissal, in which case you can tear up that non-compete you signed, since they have broken the terms first.
I'm not making this up! They seriously said this:
Although Zynga's decision might be met with some criticism, the firm's executives reportedly justified their strategy by saying it was best for the company. With the unvested shares, the executives believed they could attract more top talent with the promise of stock.
Who in their right mind would trust their upper management to actually deliver?
"Hey! We lured in our initial staff with some stock options, but then we strongarmed it back from them once it looked like it might be worth something. They took the gamble and we got the payoff. Now we would like to offer it to you! No, really, honest - we wouldn't do that to you! Just the people we initially hired. Hey...wait...where are you going?"
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Up until 2006 or so, I used to get mod points regularly, every week.
Then suddenly I stopped getting mod points. That was about 5 YEARS ago.
*Nothing* for 5 YEARS.
Then, suddenly, yesterday, I got some again.
What the hell kind of algorithm can lead to a 5 YEAR hiatus in mod point allocation?