[sjsivak]

This is so incredibly wrong in so many ways. Many developers were seduced into social games because people loved them and it seemed like a new frontier and a new market with shorter development cycles and interesting challenges. It is easy to have great hindsight but a few years ago the game industry looked very different. Zynga has had a few games be reviewed quite well, but nobody ever seems to remember them.[1][2]

As a former Zynga employee that came in through acquisition, I find it repulsive that people assume we are all responsible for the poor decisions of a few at the top. Most of us worked our asses off to try to make something awesome, but ended up having to compromise in the worst possible ways to satisfy the top brass or poorly understood metrics.

[1] http://techcrunch.com/2011/05/31/zynga-channels-settlers-of-... [2] http://kotaku.com/5836588/adventure-world-is-zyngas-take-on-...

[shadowmint]

It's easy to say 'Oh sure, I work for the Evil Empire, but my division makes interesting things which people actually quite like...'

...but then you've got to be prepared to take it on the chin when someone says, "Yes, but that whole company is Evil, which, kind of by association includes you."

When you work for someone, their reputation does, absolutely, 100% reflect on you personally regardless of what your role in the company is (to some degree, obviously).

Just food for thought.

If you don't like it, don't work for people you don't want your personal reputation associated with.

[jmduke]

When you work for someone, their reputation does, absolutely, 100% reflect on you personally regardless of what your role in the company is (to some degree, obviously).

I don't understand this rationale at all. You are not your company. Calling someone evil because you dislike their company (I'm not defending Zynga, but they're the #firstworldproblems of "evil") is incredibly sophomoric.

[jlgreco]

You've basically got a very mild variation on the Wernher Von Braun thing going on here.

Engineer of prolific impact and talent, working for the worst possible people, indirectly exploiting people in the worse possible way to do shit work that is related to his pure and commendable goals and interests. The engineer feels as though he is powerless to resist the the exploitation that is demanded by his employer. Eventually the bad guy employers go down in flames to everyone's delight, but the engineer still has the technical chops to make himself valued.

The question, does the previous employer reflect poorly on the engineer?

To be honest, Von Braun is one of those ambiguous figures in history for me. I don't really know how I feel about him. However, the fact that he is ambiguous at all means that I have to admit to myself that his affiliations during the war do tarnish what I think of him. I don't think it is possible for that not to be the case.

Ex-Zynga software engineer? Obviously the ambiguity is not going to be "is this guy a war criminal or not?" But would there be any ambiguity of any sort? Yeah, I think for me there would be.

I don't think an engineer of any caliber is evaluated in a vacuum, past employers shape how we view them, for better or worse. This (particularly how I feel about Von Braun) is something I have thought about hard in the past when considering what I want to do as an engineer.

[ryguytilidie]

I know Mark Pincus is a pretty big dick, but "worst possible people"? Come on.

[jlgreco]

> very mild variation

In case your browser isn't showing it (android chrome?), there is some italicized emphasis there.

[dotBen]

com·pa·ny noun:

a : association with another

b : companions, associates

c : a group of persons or things

d : a chartered commercial organization or medieval trade guild

e : an association of persons for carrying on a commercial or industrial enterprise

You are your company. That's the very definition of the word. One might be given a dispensation to the evil-by-association if you were working at Burger King because that's the only job you could get.

But you're presumably an incredibly smart and capable (and thus sought after) tech professional who could no doubt have placed his labor wherever he chose.

[nileshtrivedi]

To be honest, "company" is an association of shareholders. I don't think this definition covers or should cover employees.

Agree with your overall point though.

[jlgreco]

If you are the company, but the company is not you (assuming other employees and shareholders), but the company is a person itself, does this mean that you and the company are conjoined siblings?

[sergiosgc]

I totally understand. Most major "evils" happen through a combination of very small steps towards the cliff. It takes a very vigilant stance, permeated through the company structure to prevent this fall into the abyss. In this light, constantly questioning the ethics of your employer company, as a whole, is healthy.

[shadowmint]

Perhaps. ...but I think you're fooling yourself if you think this doesn't happen in the real world.

[smutticus]

There's something so particularly American about gaining so much of your identity from your job. American's are so defined by what work they do.

I am not my employer. My employer pays my wage and that's it. I'm not interested in joining a cult. I'm earning a paycheck.

This is not to say I would feel comfortable working for a company like Zynga. Absolutely not. But I also don't doubt there are many people at Zynga who really do not like the company's direction. Don't blame the soldiers for the fault of the generals.

[dlitz]

It's not about your employer being your identity; It's about empathy and whether your choices improve or worsen others' lives.

> Don't blame the soldiers for the fault of the generals.

Since you apparently like military analogies, I'll quote one of the Nuremberg Principles, which---as far as I am aware---are not an American invention:

"The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him."

This is a pretty sensible principle, because it's the soldiers who enable the generals. Similarly, if you're a developer (unless you're really terrible) and you work at Zynga or any other company, you're enabling your employer.

[namdnay]

You are misinterpreting the Nuremberg Principles: They didn't charge the rank and file of the German army for the crimes committed by the various officers and SS members.

All that was decided at Nuremberg was that if you have committed a crime, the fact that you have been ordered to by your superiors does not innocent you.

So we agree that anyone who did the spammy deeds at Zynga is "evil", whether their boss asked them to or not. But that does not make everyone else in the company (from the backend developer to the cantine lady) evil.

[taigeair]

Zynga may have lost all it's glamour and has a bad reputation now but the same goes for Facebook. I don't think employees should be blamed for the decisions of their heads.

In no way, should this be regarded like military service where your job causes fatalities. For me, as long as you're doing something you enjoy with people you like and developing a skill set, that's reason enough to work at a company. Some people work at jobs they hate all their lives because they need to live and support their families. If you have a career where you can work with smart people and do what you like, you're already pretty lucky.

If the company does something you believe in, wow. You're really lucky. How many people get to do that in the world?

[arc_of_descent]

I don't think that's American at all. In all modern societies we first define an individual as which company he works for.

Picture yourself meeting new people. The first question to eventually come up will be "So, where do you work?"

[sidcool]

That's so true. In the Eastern philosophy, your work is one part of you, may be a big one, but just a part of you. Your inner being, inner peace is of greater importance. Your friends, family and love matters.

[EvilLook]

As we can see in Japan because no true Japanese person lets their work take away from their family life.

We can also see this in Foxconn assembly lines, the home of the work/life balance in China.

[fakeer]

Judge: Did you shoot the peasants?

Soldier: Yes I did, but I was following orders.

Judge: But, you could have avoided shooting the peasant, right? But you didn't.

Soldier: Yes I could, but I was following orders.

[dinkumthinkum]

I hear what you are saying but it is NOT simply hindsight. Many of us from the beginning were very critical of sort of games developed by Zynga, it is definitely not a case of looking back. This is not to say that all the developers were there to rip off previous games and create digital crack but Zynga is what it is and we did say it from the beginning.

[rhizome]

Those compromises helped this story get written:

http://www.sfgate.com/news/slideshow/Mark-Pincus-039-16M-Pac...