[pkfrank]

Is it not legitimate to call out piss-poor management and cronyism without also "setting an example?" Does this mean that only people at the helm of $1b+ companies are able to criticize Zynga's pathetic ineptitude?

Not sure what your aggressive reply accomplishes; at least OP has sparked discussion to point out a major flaw and source of Zynga's downfall.

[jgross206]

Talk is cheap. It's very, very easy to criticize from afar when you have no skin in the game.

So, that type of criticism holds very little weight.

[obviouslygreen]

Bullshit. This kind of passive-ad-hominem is worse than worthless. If you disregard criticism of actions by people who aren't taking those actions, you're left listening only to people who are actually doing those things... and guess what? They're probably not exactly railing against their own paradigms.

Talk is only cheap if you're lapping it up in bulk from poor sources. If talk were always cheap, advisory boards and mentors would never, ever provide any value. So by all means, throw it away; disregard people based on who they are and not what they say. It's your own loss.

Just have the decency not to mislead people who are looking for guidance with your own cheap talk.

[larrys]

"when you have no skin in the game"

Your parent is referring to perhaps (similar to) talking heads in a way that they get on TV not knowing all the facts or reasoning and state after the fact what should be.

But even if they state "before the fact" there is not a complete record of their thoughts on everything as being vetted as correct (success has a million fathers etc.)

So you can go back and say "see I said this was a bad idea" but what about the other 20 things someone says that you don't have the same outcome? You can just cherry pick. There is a common stock ruse that works this way. You call people up and say "I'm giving you a tip don't buy now". Then next month you call back all the people that you gave "tip a" to but not failed "tip b".

That said there is much to learn from criticism no matter where it comes from or what their axe is to grind etc.

[MrMan]

that is not true. some failures are predictable, egregious, and symptomatic of cultural rot. what was easy was knowing ahead of time that Zynga was a terrible company. "skin in the game" is a meaningless cliche.

do I need skin in the game to create a histogram? to do multiple regression? to get a hunch that something is foul? judgement and critical thinking have nothing to do with skin in the game. business is not lacrosse.

[untog]

Presumably none of us are able to criticise politicians, then? Or our bosses?

[ianstallings]

You're right talk is cheap. Here's my latest startup I just built with 5 others:

http://www.brabble.com/

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/brabble/id570281083?mt=8

Edited: 5 others. Forgot the Angel.

[Fuzzwah]

On the brabble.com site the menu that pops in from the left pushes the text off the right of my browser window.

http://i.imgur.com/AcmcN53.png

While the site is responsive and making the window small so the left menu goes away fixes it, resizing to any amount larger than that results in some of the text being hidden off the right hand side.

Chrome Version 27.0.1453.94 m

[ianstallings]

Thanks! I'll send this to Randy who is in charge of the website now. I'm pretty sure we're in agreement, him and I, that the left menu is possibly a bad idea and we've struggled with it.

[ksk]

>It's very, very easy to criticize from afar when you have no skin in the game.

neither do the execs, if they get paid anyway. (which was the point)

[Ixiaus]

Criticism can be legitimate, constructive analytical criticism can be enlightening (studying what went wrong). Claiming that all of the execs made a terrible effort and implying that it is "unfair" they are being paid well (maybe they aren't being paid well!?!) is silly, unless of course he's an insider. Even if he was an insider, it would still be silly because of its emotional content which is what the commenter above you replied about: if it bothers you, go build your own company and exemplify all of the character and ideology you uphold as "ethical" or "moral".

His comment wasn't aggressive either. It was firm. Zynga's major flaw isn't "cronyism" or "leeches" as far as I can tell; its major flaw happens to be a confluence of bad choices and poor insight; I however, do not know enough to actually constructively criticize the company and its leadership.

[RHSeeger]

I know this isn't exactly a constructive post, but... https://www.google.com/search?q=why%20zynga%20sucks&hl=e... isn't exactly short on results. The company and how it is run are fairly widely considered examples of everything that can be wrong with social/mobile game development.