Zynga Founder's shocking first encounter with Mark Zuckerberg

[00:05] Players. Uh, I'm really excited uh for my next guest because all of this feels right. Zinga and Yahoo and Yahoo Finance. In the same uh interview, I got Zinga founder uh Mark Pink is here and he's the author of a new book uh life at

[00:20] the speed of play. Mark, it's good to see you. I still remember listening to you on earnings calls as a young video game stock analyst. Um, we never connected before, but I assure you I was on those earnings calls.

[00:33] >> Oh, well, thank you for being there. And I I want to say I spared you some pain because I switched to the letter instead of reading out the Kabuki theater script. I appreciate we trust me, we appreciated

[00:46] that. Um, you know, I was dating I'm dating myself. Farmville, like I going to get into the book, but holy cow, it feels like yesterday to me I was playing this. What does it feel like to you?

[01:00] Yeah, it's it's uh I guess it's it's been a few lifetimes, but I'd say I I been a few lifetimes, but I'd say I I miss being in the mix of this weekly

[01:12] miss being in the mix of this weekly iteration of, you know, innovating, ideulating, putting it out to our users, seeing metrics like like running, I'd say being inside at that time, running not just

[01:25] inside at that time, running not just Farmville, but 14 studios was like the ultimate video game. [laughter] >> Um, so let's look at this book. Uh, life at the speed of play. What does that exactly mean?

[01:38] exactly mean? >> Well, for me, life at the speed of play >> Well, for me, life at the speed of play is a mindset, and it is a mindset. How to approach life itself. Uh, I think we all want to, uh, live our lives in more

[01:52] playful ways. But in the context of this book, I really mean it's a product book, I really mean it's a product mindset. It's it's a way that we can approach making products, iterating fast, and really going for um the

[02:10] biggest hits with with the least consequences. And I'd say that probably every one of your listeners has some idea that may have haunted them for a while and they've wondered if I should go do it. A smaller number will actually

[02:25] go do it. And the odds of them succeeding feels close to zero. And I put this book out to give people a cheat code to say the odds are not the same for everybody. If you take a fundamentally different approach, if you

[02:40] commit to a lot of the principles in this book, I believe that you can four or 5x your odds of success. >> You know, I must give credit where credit's due. Um, you know, for those newer viewers and listeners to this

[02:54] podcast, even the next, you know, the younger generation, I know Mark as a a true internet pioneer. Um, I what he created Zingga was off the charts. Mark, for those not familiar with your story, take us back to like why you why you

[03:08] founded Zinga and what what were what were you hoping to achieve? >> Sure. And and I remember uh spending time with your CEO, Jim Lanzone, in that period of time just before I started Zingga and

[03:21] >> Hopefully he's listening right now to your show right in his office. Um, and I'd say, you know, if you go back to that era of 2006, 2007,

[03:33] um, consumer similar in some ways to today, it felt not like it wasn't investable. And it was because distribution was broken or non-existent. And the the amount you had to invest

[03:47] just to even get up to the plate and take a swing was huge. You needed venture capital. It wasn't like today. And I I founded Zingga because of the

[03:59] failure of tribe.net. I should say it doesn't one does not go without the other. I managed to start one of the first three social networks and fail. first three social networks and fail. Okay. At a time when probably there was

[04:11] 10 social networks launched and eight succeeded in some way. There was Bibo, Tagged, Fster, MySpace, you know, more than we can remember. We definitely don't remember Tribe.net. So, I managed to be one of like the two out of 10 that

[04:25] failed. And that was like an act of of willpower. And it was the painful willpower. And it was the painful lessons of that of taking three worldchanging instincts, right? One became a $1.6 trillion company today. Uh

[04:42] three really winning, deeply winning instincts and combining them with one losing idea and and sticking with that. And so I was so determined to change my approach after that that when Facebook and MySpace they opened up their APIs

[04:59] and I saw a way that I could skip a lot of what required all the venture capital to to build the infrastructure and I've got immediate access to distribution. I said, "Okay, this time I'm going to take a fundamentally different approach." And

[05:15] I started I I committed to what I say in the book is my framework of proven better new. My very first game, which was the first social game, Zingga Poker, which I'm happy to say is still a big successful game today, uh was not would

[05:31] not look innovative. It didn't look innovative then. it it wouldn't look innovative then. it it wouldn't look innovative today, but it was we we most to our users. We didn't reinvent the game poker, right? We we made it

[05:46] accessible to people, but we made it social. That was the one new thing. And then we put user pay in, which was at the time, now that's called inapp the time, now that's called inapp purchase. Uh pretty big business. Um, so

[05:59] purchase. Uh pretty big business. Um, so we had a few new ideas, but but we we we we had a few new ideas, but but we we we were more committed to the success, to getting to a hit than whether or not that one game or that one shot on goal

[06:13] committed to success than being respected as innovators by our peers. Why? What did you see in the market at the time, Mark, that said, we need digital games? And where did that come from? Where' that that idea come from?

[06:29] >> That's a great question. You know, I love I love mature markets. I love already have revenues. They already have user behavior established, but they're

[06:41] kind of left for dead. They're not growth markets. They're not areas that venture interested in. You know, that was the search market before Google showed up. They were the 56th search engine. The market was growing 10 or 15%

[06:55] a year. Similarly, the video game industry in 2007 was $23 billion worldwide. It was mature. It was a big niche. And my insight was

[07:07] it's not small. That's, you know, it was as big as the movie industry, by the way. But, but from a consumer standpoint, it wasn't a top 10 behavior. And I said, it's not because we don't want it. So my fundamental thesis was

[07:22] that we have a latent demand to play, but as adults, we need to give ourselves about that as one of these deep instincts I had. And I said, what if we put games in the middle of this cocktail party where everyone's hanging out and

[07:37] we make them short, make them familiar, make them social. Um, maybe that will work. And and it did. and and you know the video game industry today is $280

[07:49] >> Within that first year of building Zingga, did you have a neardeath moment? And what did you learn from that that you applied to your continued running of the company?

[08:02] >> Um, we had, believe it or not, near-death moments almost monthly cuz we were living uh, you know, on top. we were living at the at the leisure at the

[08:16] pleasure of, you know, the of Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook, you know, and Zuckerberg's Facebook, you know, and MySpace. Um, and they they could change

[08:28] uh any they they would change their homepage navigation and all a sudden we were gone. Like literally, a lot of our users only were able to get back because they had us open in a browser tab. I mean, there was no icon on your desktop

[08:43] or your phone. We were buried. And I I thought about it as like I was building this five I was on this fivetory high unicycle and I was like, should I add another story? I don't know. It's getting it's getting pretty tippy. And

[08:58] what's funny though about it is that we were profitable from our first month. We never spent a dollar of the venture capital or any of the capital that we raised through our IPO, but we kept raising more and more because we kept

[09:13] growing so much. And so our the our scope, you know, our worldwide studios, our opex kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger. Luckily, so did our and bigger. Luckily, so did our revenues. But we were very we were very

[09:26] revenues. But we were very we were very cognizant of of, you know, how fragile that relationship was. And in fact after IPO uh Facebook did change their algorithms and navigation and and the company lost a third of its traffic you

[09:40] eventually. >> Out of everything that you could have created in those early in that early going why a farmville?

[09:55] fantasy. I I had a ranch fantasy. I I was like, I want to have Pinkis Valley Ranch and I want to produce our own cool organic vegetables that are served at organic vegetables that are served at Sha Penise. Um, so so I had that, but I

[10:09] Sha Penise. Um, so so I had that, but I also just thought that uh it it just fit perfectly for mass market. I wanted something that everybody could figure out how to play without any tutorial or instructions. You know, you had to be in

[10:22] instructions. You know, you had to be in it in three clicks. And you know, our our audience was middle-aged women and we were giving them their zen their hobby moment and it was a nurse who had

[10:36] hobby moment and it was a nurse who had this open in a browser tab um that [clears throat] she could come back to, you know, in between um you know, wait, you know, helping patients. Um, but she she could have a little bit of a moment

[10:51] she could have a little bit of a moment of relaxation. And and this was not a game for her. This was, you know, a hobby or pastime. And it was also like hobby or pastime. And it was also like an etch a sketch that uh she could she

[11:05] could feel creative. You know, she could just um change the crops, the layout, the decorating all the time. And and we we tried to give what she did meaning. And it we called it invest and express. So, um, her friends would see what she

[11:20] did, you know, and comment on it. So, it it fit everything that we were looking for at the time. The video game industry said, "This isn't even a game. We're never going to give you an award." And I said, "That's cool." Like, I don't I

[11:33] don't need your respect. I'm okay. >> How did you know you had a hit? Was there a metric that you saw at your HQ taking off? You're like, "Well, I better order more servers." >> Well, it's funny. we had that that team

[11:47] went rogue and they were the first team in the company actually that just went and started using AWS and not our own internal uh data centers and our internal team had told Farmville we can't give you any servers for 6 months

[12:02] and so you you got to delay your launch and they said can we just go to AWS and use our credit card I said go for it and it was lucky because they did need more servers you know by the day how do you know it's a

[12:16] You know, it's kind of like uh you know, finding your partner and your true love know it was love?" Like, "What was the sign? What was the metric?" You know, when it's when you hit true signal and you have a hit, everything says yes.

[12:32] It's it's not there was one, you know, sneaky little metric that told us. In the case of Farmville, we turned it on on a Sunday. Um, I think it it hit

[12:44] on a Sunday. Um, I think it it hit 171,000 installs the first day just 171,000 installs the first day just through virality. Um, and and was doing a million installs a day by the end of the first week. And it so it was viral.

[12:58] It was the servers were just kind of hot and the metrics were lighting up on every front. And and you know the other side of it was that it was so even though we built it fast, it was so

[13:12] though we built it fast, it was so polished and fun. I was addicted to it. Everyone I showed it to. So yeah, it's unfortunately I'd say you know that if you're not sure if it's hit and you're looking for the metric, it's not. How

[13:27] did you how during that time where you have this these this title uh going viral and and everyone is heaping praise on you uh externally and I'm sure to some extent internally. How did you as a founder handle success and what advice

[13:44] would you give to other entrepreneurs that are that are dealing with that that moment today? One of my mantras that I started saying even before we launched Farmville is make sure you spend as much time

[14:00] planning for what if everything goes right to if everything goes wrong. Um because there's you know we can be in a place of hope okay which is not good. All right we all know kind of kill hope before hope kills you. So hope is not a

[14:15] before hope kills you. So hope is not a strategy but neither is you know pessimism right? neither is planning for, you know, um what do I do after this? What are all my contingencies? And so I can't say that we had planned

[14:29] enough for the level of hit that Farmville was going to have and then Farmville was going to have and then social gaming, but it's it's it's an amazing time and I wish I wish that for every one of the founders listening. Um

[14:44] you know, I have a chapter in the book that I'll say is called Fcale. Um, I had >> Oh, I'm just gonna say it's it's scale. I was excited to even bring that up. Oh, we're doing a podcast. We can do whatever we want.

[14:57] >> Oh, great. This is like pirate Okay. [laughter] So, my my favorite chapter in the book to write was scale. And it was just because we so much of you know people talk about founder mode and and so much of that is

[15:12] founder mode and and so much of that is about giving ourselves permission and about giving ourselves permission and having the confidence to be our our own kind of found our own kind of product maker and not looking for approval from

[15:27] our board or even from our teams. And it's not a license to be a jerk, but but it does mean that if you're the best player on the field, you ought to try to

[15:39] play every position until you can't anymore. And then you should try to figure out how do you make sure everyone else plays that position, maybe not the exact way that you would, but at least with the same effectiveness and

[15:53] outcomes. And so the there's too often that founders are not ready for this, you know, rocket ship and scale and they turn to experts. They hire someone who was at a scalable company like an Amazon or a Google. That is I know so many

[16:08] or a Google. That is I know so many founders who have gone through painful, you know, disasters that way and come out on the other side because nobody can come in and teach your organization to scale. every single organization is

[16:23] going to scale in a different way. Yahoo, I saw I was at Yahoo when they had 35 employees, you know, I I counted the phone list and Yahoo scaled in its own way and that's beautiful and so did Amazon. So you you can't bring that DNA

[16:41] in. You've got to unfortunately develop it. And so I would say learn from the outside, find best practices and then test them you know inside your own organization. And some of I love this idea that uh someone who worked close

[16:57] with me said spreading my vampire blood. So I would I would use these nonscalable ways to scale. I would pick someone from the ranks who was like me. They were the ranks who was like me. They were this kind of expert witness. They talked

[17:12] thought they had all the right answers and sometimes they did. And I would make them my tech assistant and I would have them follow me around, learn everything I did, and then I would give them a really big responsibility and see if

[17:26] they, you know, sank or swam. Um, I like to overpromote people. That's a great me game mechanic because if you overpromote somebody to the point that they're scared, they're like, "Holy shit." They go home, they're like, "They gave me

[17:42] this whole P&L. What are they doing?" They're I guarantee you they're going to put way more time and effort into it than someone who's doing you a favor because they've been doing this with their eyes closed at Amazon. So, there's

[17:55] their eyes closed at Amazon. So, there's so many of these mechanics, but you're going to have to try them and see if they stick and reinvent them inside of your own organization. And that's beautiful. And that's what culture is.

[18:09] You know, culture isn't something that you get out of a book or you come up with out of thin air. Culture is, you know, Yahoo has a unique culture and so did Zingga and so does it, you know, does today. And it's something that that

[18:23] is earned, you know, with blood and, you know, sweat with every hill that you >> No, I tell everyone here, um, Mark, you're right on unique culture and this place is, um, this place is fabulous and very unique, you know, just staying on

[18:37] the founders perspective. What was it like like living in or living with a founders's living in or living with a founders's mindset and what toll does that or did

[18:49] mindset and what toll does that or did that take on you personally? I you know I I write in the book about you know my version of founder mode is

[19:01] you know my version of founder mode is it's there is such a level of courage and fortitude and it's not what you think. To me the courage is not standing up against your competitors or the outside world. Some of the hardest

[19:16] moments we face as founders and the loneliest moments are when we know in loneliest moments are when we know in our gut that we need to change our gut that we need to change directions and nobody agrees with us.

[19:28] Our board, our investors, our I mean this will sound silly but even writing this book I had a founder mode moment or a few but one was the title. We originally called it proven better new. That's the framework. That's what I sold

[19:42] That's the framework. That's what I sold to my publisher, Harper Collins. And late in the game, I mean, they had already come up with the title, art, you know, book, whatever, cover. I said, "Guys, it's just not right. It's it's

[19:56] life at the speed of play. That's that's the vibe of this. That's so much more important." But the world doesn't like change, especially not people who've put a lot of work into one direction. your if your team's been building this one

[20:12] product, they don't want to hear on a Monday morning that you just changed your mind in the last week, even if and and part of the battle is bringing them along. Part of the battle is realizing the speed that you need to move at and

[20:27] not losing too many soldiers on the way. But I I think that we've got to be committed to, you know, have the intellectual honesty and the commitment intellectual honesty and the commitment to the most successful

[20:41] true signal outcome, not harmony. And you've got to decide, am I am I tuning you've got to decide, am I am I tuning to harmony or am I tuning to winning? to harmony or am I tuning to winning? And can I accept the pain? I mean, I've

[20:55] been called by, you know, I've heard that venture capitalists call me a controversial CEO. I am because, you know, I I do disruptive things. And, you

[21:07] know, if you do disruptive things and they're wrong, well, I'd say you're controversial for a bad reason. But if if you have a high hit ratio if you're right, then that should be the kind of CEO that you know good VCs and investors

[21:24] want to back. It's just that in the moment when you're a $2 stock and you know nobody thinks what you're doing is right. It's it's hard to find anybody who believes in you and and and I think that's I think that's just the hardest

[21:40] >> Work life balance. It's not even a thing, right? >> You know, work life balance is such a funny concept. It's at Zingga when everyone was working the hardest when I

[21:54] mean literally there were times that I had to make people go home and get sleep and nobody ever brought up work life balance. It was after the IPO, after the growth had stopped, after the stock went down and it didn't feel fun that

[22:10] everybody said, "Oh, work life balance." And people started worrying about all this other stuff. And I think the answer to that is like when the fish are running, we're up all night throwing nets and it's exhilarating. And when

[22:25] they're not, it's painful to go out and fish. And so what they're really saying when they complain about work life balance is the work isn't that good anymore. It's not that fun. And and so

[22:40] now I want to balance it, >> you know, with life. >> I um just continuing on, >> I aspire to be back in that place where I have no work life balance. I think work life balance is like

[22:53] >> the abyss for a founder. >> Yeah. No, that's a good point. Um, you know, continuing the theme of, I guess, of me dating myself a little bit. Um, this generation, you know, this younger generation, I think, knows Mark

[23:05] Zuckerberg as the guy investing in AI capex and hopping on an earnings call and raising his AI capex guidance. But you were on the ground floor of this really young guy with curly hair um, building something called Facebook. What

[23:20] did you see in him in those early days? And are you surprised by how fast he is moving today when it comes to building out AI infrastructure? out AI infrastructure? >> I I saw this kid I mean this like pretty

[23:37] developed teenager um who walked in my office with Sean Parker in uh 2004 Wow. >> No, Sean Parker. Yeah. Sean worked for

[23:50] me when he was 16 and then I sent him the first check for Napster and I was lucky enough that he decided to bring Zuckerberg in my office uh when they Zuckerberg in my office uh when they were doing their very first uh preede

[24:03] today, but they raised 500k from Peter Teal and Reed Hoffman and me. and he came in and he was wearing those Hawaiian flip flops and like basketball shorts and he had his feet up on my conference table and handed me a card

[24:19] conference table and handed me a card that said C I'm CEO Um and he was that said C I'm CEO Um and he was just having fun, did not care and and was not looking to impress me in any way. And I was really impressed and I

[24:35] was like and I they pulled up the Facebook and I said, "Holy everything I've been failing at with Tribe, they were getting right." Which was trust. They because it was ededu they had

[24:49] preppy kids from Stanford putting up their mobile phone numbers and and I was having trouble like keeping mainstream people on tribe and and they at the time they were in three or four schools and they just nonchalantly said yeah you

[25:04] know we have a weight list of schools and when we turn on a new school we get 80% of the students in the first week and the other 20% the next week and then 60% sign on every single day. And and what's amazing is that metric of 60% of

[25:21] your daily users of your monthly users signing on every day. Every time I see that metric, it's what I saw with Rya. Um that is just invest with your eyes

[25:34] closed. That is the number one metric I've seen for for sustained heat. And in terms of Zuckerberg, um, he developed

[25:48] so fast. I mean, it was like faster than Fable or faster than Mythos, you know, faster than uh than we see the the the top AI today. And he just he just morphed and learned and he had a confidence in himself um that I really

[26:06] had never seen in in a young entrepreneur. and and we had an ongoing entrepreneur. and and we had an ongoing lunch about once a month. Um, and my lunch about once a month. Um, and my kind of outside role was that I would

[26:21] always tell him the truth. And he is always surrounded by some truth tellers, but a lot of sickopants. And not in a bad way, but just it just happens, you know. Um there's a lot of people that are drinking his Kool-Aid. So they don't

[26:36] even know they're you know they and that's the danger when you're a really successful founder that people around you think if you believe it they believe you think if you believe it they believe it. And one thing I try to do for you

[26:48] know peers and you know really successful product founders is try to at least give them my deeply honest truth because I'm not sure they're getting it. And so I kept saying,"I think this thing you're doing is amazing. I think these

[27:02] things aren't." And he would take notes and it got to the point that both our organizations would kind of have ripples after we had a lunch or a dinner. Um,

[27:14] after we had a lunch or a dinner. Um, and yeah, I I'd say at at every it was like every it was like I like to say that winning these things is like a marathon made up by sprints, by heats, and you got to win every heat. and he

[27:26] keeps winning every heat and he keeps getting better with every heat and you getting better with every heat and you know I'd say that what I saw by long before he went public but by like 09 and 10 is he had such a sense of destiny of

[27:42] that company of that this is going to be an important company and it it was almost like this thing that was going to live in the third person. it wasn't his live in the third person. it wasn't his company or him and he was not going to

[27:56] let anything get in the way of that destiny and and ultimately there was a destiny and and ultimately there was a moment you know after IPO where Zingga moment you know after IPO where Zingga was just a little bit uh a little bit

[28:10] annoying for them you know they had to include us in their IPO perspectus and the risk factors because we you know when they went public Zingo was something like 20% of their page views and 10% of their revenues. And so they

[28:24] had to have a Zinga dependency uh section and you know I I think we were just like a a a gnat on their ass. Um but you know

[28:38] him or >> but we don't we don't talk that often. You know we text once in a while on on something or other. You know I I sent him the book Ready Player One. um just before he bought Oculus

[28:54] think they still give it out to their employees, but um you know, I was at his wedding. Um I was one of the the few non-f Facebook friends. And

[29:08] for me, when I've had the the small number of friends who've who've gotten, number of friends who've who've gotten, you know, uber successful, I I don't you know, uber successful, I I don't want to like be a sickopant and I want

[29:21] like I'm kind of like, okay, you're doing amazing, but I'm I don't want anything from you, so I'm not going to like, you know, I I tend to kind of move a little the other direction. Um, if I had lastly, if I had to wrap

[29:37] your career in a bow, you know, what do you what is your legacy in the world of you what is your legacy in the world of of the internet and digital? H, wow, that's a that's a big question. I'd say that what my

[29:53] I'd say that what my hopefully my my ongoing legacy is I'm I hope to build one of these internet treasures. one of these services we can't remember life before or imagine life without that make up our digital

[30:08] life stack like Yahoo is in there for a lot of people but you know Google now it's chat GPT and I would like to uh you

[30:20] know invent and take one of those services to the mass market and I think services to the mass market and I think that we we came close and some some of our games Words with Friends Zinga Poker still are important parts of people's

[30:33] still are important parts of people's lives. But but that's that's like the thing that that matters most to me in this whole thing. sounds like just listening to you. What are you doing today? Are you are you

[30:47] trying to found the next big thing? Are you an investor or are you all the above? >> I'm all the above. That's what I was when I created, you know, Zingga. I It's like a bad addiction. like I I can't

[31:02] retire and just go be an investor. I do invest and I have a lot of fun at it, invest and I have a lot of fun at it, but I love being in the hunt. I love building products. I love when you get to heat and a product that resonates

[31:16] to heat and a product that resonates with people and it even though it's not scalable and there's higher leverage things I could do with my time, that's that's what I love doing the most. And so I'm I'm still doing it. I'm I'm still

[31:31] >> Well, when that fire starts, you come to me, my friend. Uh we'll get you on here real treat to talk with you. And uh the book I I encourage everyone to read this Life at the Speed of Play by uh Zinga founder Mark Pinkis. Uh I appreciate it,

[31:45] Mark. Thanks for making time for me. >> Yeah, thanks for having me on. We'll >> All right, that's it for the latest episode of Power Players.