Zynga Inc (ZNGA)’s Mark Pincus Is What’s Wrong With Silicon Valley

Look around the landscape of well-known young tech companies, those around Zynga’s age or a bit younger. What do you see? What strikes me isn’t so much that most of these companies have gotten so big so quickly, but that many of them have done it in such a cynical way. Pincus has taken a lot of flak from the tech and gaming communities for his claims of “[doing] every horrible thing in the book just to get revenues” and his demands that his developers “just copy what [competitors] do and do it until you get their numbers,” but these aren’t exactly shocking statements from a Silicon Valley CEO — sneaky tricks and copycatting are pretty popular strategies in the tech world. You hear a lot of optimistic gibberish about transformation and revolution from most of Zynga’s peers, but the reality is closer to what Pincus says when he doesn’t think the whole world is listening.

A year ago, I wrote about the problem with rewarding mediocrity and incrementalism in Silicon Valley and elsewhere in the American economy, and nothing’s really changed. The high-profile decline of Zynga and other once-hot companies — whose only purpose seems to lie in exploiting psychological weakness to drive ad clicks and virtual tractor sales — may be a good start in highlighting the shortcomings of this cynical incrementalism. However, as long as investors at all stages continue to find more value in fast-growing frivolity than in real and lasting transformation, we’ll keep seeing more Zyngas helmed by other Mark Pincuses rise and fall in the future, while big ideas wait on the sidelines.

The article Zynga’s Mark Pincus Is What’s Wrong With Silicon Valley originally appeared on Fool.com and is written by Alex Planes.

Fool contributor Alex Planes holds no financial position in any company mentioned here. Add him on Google+ or follow him on Twitter, @TMFBiggles, for more insight into markets, history, and technology.The Motley Fool recommends Cisco Systems, Facebook, and LinkedIn and owns shares of Facebook and LinkedIn.

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