Zynga’s (NASDAQ:ZNGA) CEO Mark Pincus has a reputation as a tough boss. How tough? If you do an Internet search for his name, one of the drop-downs is “mark pincus jerk.”
Well, in light of the implosion of the stock — which has gone from $15.91 in March to $2.80 today — he must be really angry now. In fact, it appears he already has taken action to make changes in the management structure.
According to a report in Fox News, Zynga confirmed a few shuffling decisions were made last month — games management responsibility will go from chief operating officer John Schappert to the chief mobile officer David Ko and executive vice President Steve Chiang. Both will now report directly to Pincus.
This makes a lot of sense. With the rapid shift to mobile, Zynga doesn’t just need to find ways to create compelling games — it has to be able to monetize them.
Understandably, the management moves aren’t — and shouldn’t be — inspiring much confidence, with ZNGA shares losing almost 5% today.
If anything, Pincus should try to seek out an outsider to help shake things up. With the stock at new lows, it will be tough to keep some of the top engineering and creative talent. If employees do start to look for better opportunities, the resulting turnover will put even more pressure on Zynga.
Tom Taulli runs the InvestorPlace blog IPOPlaybook, a site dedicated to the hottest news and rumors about initial public offerings. He also is the author of “All About Short Selling” and “All About Commodities.” Follow him on Twitter at @ttaulli. As of this writing, he did not own a position in any of the aforementioned securities.
A long-time follower of the IPO scene, back in 1999 Tom started one of the first sites in the space called WebIPO. It was a place where investors got research as well as access to deals for the dot-com boom. Tom also wrote the top-selling book, Investing in IPOs. In it, he covers all the aspects of analyzing an IPO, such as reading the prospectus, detecting the risk factors and understanding some of the arcane regulations. But don’t worry — if that process is too intimidating for you, thankfully Tom will do the legwork for you right here in the IPO Playbook blog.
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