The New York Times did a deep dive into employee sentiment and concluded that the social/viral game company could be facing a big talent drain in the near future. I looked at it more simply: man, it looks like it sucks to work there. The Times says it obtained dozens of internal emails that spoke to growing employee frustration over long hours and intense working conditions. It says CEO Mark Pincus held a meeting and read from some of the more strongly worded emails but then said he needs employee help to fix these problems.
Would you be the first one to raise your hand? I wouldn’t. I would find my shoes very interesting right at that point.
Led by the hard-charging Mr. Pincus, the company operates like a federation of city-states, with autonomous teams for each game, like FarmVille and CityVille. At times, it can be a messy and ruthless war. Employees log long hours, managers relentlessly track progress, and the weak links are demoted or let go.
This comes to light, of course, right when Zynga is preparing its IPO. If it can’t hold on to good people and loses them to Google, Facebook, or Apple, suddenly the company gets a lot less attractive to investors as well as job candidates.
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