Darren [00:00:01]:

Hi, everyone. Welcome to another episode of One of One. I’m your host, Darren Gold, CEO of the Trium Group. My guest today is Mark Pincus. Mark is the founder and former CEO of Zynga and one of the most distinctive founders and product builders of the past three decades. He has written a remarkable new book called Life at the Speed of Play. Most people assume that the willingness to stand for what you know to be true, even when the world is calling you crazy, is a quality common to all founders. In my experience, it isn’t. It is rare. And Mark possesses it in a form I’ve encountered in very few leaders. Mark is also a man doing the harder, quieter, inner work, asking what his soul actually needs, sitting in what he calls the abyss, examining the relationship between the conviction that built his companies and the integrity he is now bringing to the rest of his life. We talk about where that conviction came from, the moral contract he made with the people who built Zynga and. And what it means at 60 to keep showing up in pursuit of something your soul still needs you to build. Please enjoy my wonderful conversation with Mark Pincus. 

 

Mark, it’s wonderful to be in this conversation. I’ve been looking forward to it now for several. Several weeks, in part because you were kind enough to share an advanced copy of your new book, which I can’t wait to dive into. And it’s. I think I’ve shared this with you already. It’s an awesome book.

 

Mark [00:01:23]:

Thank you.

 

Darren [00:01:24]:

But I wanted to start in a place that I think maybe is a good place to start, and that is. It was so obvious in the first few minutes the first time I met you, and I think it’s revealed clearly in the book itself that you are someone with this rare ability to know what’s true and have the courage and conviction to stand by that, even when the rest of the world may call you crazy. And I think most people mistakenly believe that’s a trait common to founders. I would disagree. I think it’s actually unique, even to founders. And it’s. The thing I like was so most drawn to you was that actual trait. So I’d love to start there. Just. Am I right? Where did it come from? And, like, how has it evolved? And I think that will inevitably lead us to all sorts of conversations, including the book itself, which I’m looking forward to doing.

 

Mark [00:02:17]:

Sure. Well, where did it come from? Probably my dad, who my dad was, had a lot of chutzpah and was a rule breaker and kind of enjoyed saying what he thought, being somewhat controversial sometimes and I think I took that further. And I wouldn’t say I’ve changed. I think as we get older, we just become more of who we really are. And my high school quote that your friends or peers, not necessarily friends, write for you was, some people have tact, and others tell the truth. And I don’t think I’ve veered very far. And it’s funny how something can be like your Achilles heel, and it can be like your kryptonite, and it can be your superpower. And that’s definitely been the case for me. And early on, in my 20s, I landed some great jobs, and I would do really well in them, but I didn’t stay in them very long. And I was what I like to call an expert witness. And I think a lot of people are in their 20s, and some people are stuck that way for a lot of their career. And it’s the person who’s closest to the data. They’re closest to the right answer, what they believe is the right answer and furthest from the decision. And in your 20s, you’re the expert witness. You’re called to the stand by the grownups. You present passionately what you think is the right answer, and then they make a decision, and then you have to clean up the mess, usually because you at least probably believe they made a wrong decision. And I think the beauty of becoming a founder and the thing that I try to coach others so much on, is you did this because you were in some form an expert witness. And now don’t sell yourself short. Like, now you need to go and listen to your instincts. It’s not a license to be a jerk, but it is a license to do things that other people don’t agree with or believe in, because you do. And you have a chance to be right or not. And that is an opportunity. It’s a hill you might die on, but it’s your hill. And that’s the point. To me, so much of the point of being a founder, it’s not. You know, for years, I’ve had some quote that’s been retweeted, like, know your goal or suffer death by a thousand compromises. And so much of my early career, even as a founder, was making all these compromises to try to get to the next level in this company. And it was, well, I really want to hire this engineer. And they insist on something weird. Working from home or having this title or whatever, or, I want this investor. And you chop it up so many different ways that I like to say, you wake up one day and you didn’t build a house that you want to live in. And so really think. So much of being a founder is thinking that through and think, well, what’s a house I want to live in? Because a lot of founders wake up and they’ve made so many compromises. You’re no longer at a company you want to work for and you’re probably the most valuable employee and so you’re the only person you weren’t thinking about. And now you’re like, well, I guess I’ll go do something else. And that’s a loss, you know, most likely a loss to the company. So yeah, I’d say a through line in my career, my spotty career, working for other people, very short lived stints and then my career as a founder and CEO has been really tuning into, you know, what are my instincts and being a bit unapologetic about the that and sorry to go on so long winded about this, but the other thing that’s so key and I didn’t learn until Zynga, which was my fifth company, is alignment. And you can be whoever. Someone said to me when Zynga went public, you can have whatever style you want. And if your style is, you don’t wanna ever meet with investors, just get on with yourself, it’s fine, but you have to be consistent. And I think that applies across the board to how you are as a founder and CEO is that no one’s gonna think you’re mean or a jerk if they think that’s your style. Unless, you know, you still need to be nice to people on the margin. But if you’re tough on everybody in the same way, or you know, however you are, if it’s consistent and it’s not, no one feels like it’s personal. I think it just becomes like that’s your style. And this point about build a house you want to live in and alignment of incentives. I didn’t think about it until Zynga and I wish I had thought about it earlier and I would. I don’t even know if I talk about this in the book, but it’s so important because if you’re really intentional and upfront with people, and I was with Zynga and I said here’s what this is going to be and I said it to investors and I said it to employees and then they can take it or not. And if after you’ve said this is what it’s going to be, they sign on, they’re not going to get any surprises when they see you act in alignment with that. So I said to investors, and I was a little more. I was 41 and I was a little edgier about it and more in people’s face than I needed to be. I’ll own that. But I might have told you this when we met that I and Zynga was crushing it. I mean, we didn’t ever need to raise money. We were in a unique position. We were cash flow positive. I didn’t know if we’d have a future because Facebook could have turned us off at any time. But we didn’t need capital in the short term. We were making a lot of money. And I wasn’t desperate, which is helpful when you’re raising money to not need it. But I went as far as to say to investors, I would screen them really quickly on the phone and I’d say, let me tell you the top 10 reasons you’re not going to want to invest in my company. And if you still want to talk, cool. And I’d say, number one, I’m going to keep control to protect you and the other investors from yourselves. Because if you were really good at running and building companies, you’d be doing that. You wouldn’t be investors. And it’s not your job to run a company and to make operating decisions. And you can be a sounding board when I need you and not when I don’t. And I said, I don’t need training wheels anymore. And I’m not sure it was ever helpful. And so a lot of investors don’t like hearing that. And they’re like, cool, thank you for not wasting my time. I don’t need to talk anymore. And that was most investors I talked to. But the ones who went past that knew, okay, I’m betting on the pinkest train here. And I, I gotta want that or not. And this isn’t gonna be. I’m not gonna be able to switch leaders, you know, switch engines, pulling this train. This is the one engine.

 

Darren [00:09:37]:

Yeah, I do remember you sharing that. It’s the one of the many things and maybe the top thing that stuck out for me because it really speaks to a couple beliefs that I hold firmly as well. And you use the word unapologetic, which I love to use, and like, it gives you the freedom to be unapologetically you. And I might even push it a little further, which is say, I think founders have a responsibility to be unapologetically them. And then the other thing I hear you saying, which I really agree with and want to make sure our listeners are really hearing is consistent and explicit. So people can opt in or opt out, whether it’s investors or employees. I think that’s, again, a rare quality, but I couldn’t agree more that it’s sort of essential to being a good founder.

 

Mark [00:10:22]:

I’m curious, though.

 

Darren [00:10:23]:

Yeah, go ahead.

 

Mark [00:10:24]:

I will add to that, though, Darren, that my chief people officer, my head of HR, Colleen McCreery, who taught me so, so much on so many fronts, she had on her wall one thing and said, don’t be a jerk. And so I would say that the counterbalance to be unapologetic, you know, be whatever your style is, go with it, Go with your instincts. And someone like you need a Colleen to remind you and everyone else, don’t be a jerk. Because it’s being unapologetic does not mean you have the right to unapologetically be a jerk to people. It just means that you’re driving this the direction you want and the way you want. And I totally agree. It’s your responsibility to go deep on that and those instincts and seek out truth. Create a culture of seeking truth and surround you with people like Colleen who challenge you on whether or not this is right. That’s good. But then at the end of the day, pick a direction and ask everyone to get behind it. And you can ask nicely, but you’re not really asking, you’re informing. Yeah, I would agree with you. It’s too many founders and CEOs are kind of lap dogs trying to work for their board or their VCs. And I came at this with Zynga, saying to my investors, I’m bringing you on as a peer, and I’ll tap you when and where I need you. And we had unique documents with our investors that said, you have the right to nominate a board member and we have the right to choose them or not, and then you can nominate another one. And so we said it’s not your right to pick who you want and put them on my board. Because I thought of the board as the DNA of the company. And I’m like, I can’t just have anybody there. I need it to be people that are going to bring the right skill set and energy and attitude that we need.

 

Darren [00:12:27]:

Yeah. You’ve added two things that I just want to note. One is this. It doesn’t give you license to be a jerk. And I think people that know you would probably say you’re not a jerk at all. But I could see where that would be a risk even for the most well intended person. And second, that some element of structural integrity to this is important. I’m curious though, what is your version of quintessentially Mark that you made explicit and consistent and said this is the deal. We heard a little bit with investors. But imagine you’re recruiting people in the early days of Zyngo. What were they told by you? How explicit were you? What was the contract that you were entering into?

 

Mark [00:13:09]:

Sure. And I like that you say contract because I think that when you are recruiting your, I like to call it your founding team, everybody who joined zynga in the first year, the first 35 people I called founding team. And so you will run into 35 people walking the earth who will tell you they’re a co founder of Zynga and they’re not wrong. And I like that level of buy in that’s important for those people. But also if you get to be a big company for your 2020 first employee, it is a moral contract. I really think of it and I especially think of it with your engineers. And I built my career on partnering with great engineers. And in so many companies, the engineers get screwed, especially enterprise software companies. And they get asked to do so much hard work. They are the most hours, they’re the ones really working all night to take this hill and then they get kind of sold down the river because it’s easy for the sales team or the CEO to say, oh, we don’t need that anymore. We changed directions. And I really have this sense that you’re going to battle with these people and you owe them something for that work. And if you want them to do that again, they need a feedback loop that you honored that work and that you really did something with it and that you didn’t just. It’s not just another feature and you’re ready to just. Their time is expendable. And that’s been important to me my whole career to build that trust and moral contract. So I’ll just say that in terms of anyone joining the company, especially early on, I said I want to build a special company. And people say that, but I meant it and they felt it. And I said I want us to build a house that we want to live in. I did some weird things which now don’t sound weird, now they actually sound trite. And that happens so often. I did things that make no economic sense and I love the things that founders do that make no economic sense. I bought a whole building 18 months before I started the company and I said for me to start a Great company. I need a great building in space. And I spent a year remodeling this old potato chip factory. And it was kind of a great triple entendre that we called it the Chip factory because it was originally the Williams potato chip company and now we were making and selling virtual poker chips. And we were built on a microchip. So I thought it was at least a double entendre. And what did I do? When we were 18 people, I put in a restaurant kitchen and I said, I want to live better than our VCs. When they come visit, I want them to be irritated at how good it is here. And all my previous companies, we’ve been eating out of pizza boxes in dusty rooms. And literally like with Tribe, the company right before it, and I was like, I don’t. I go to Kleiner Perkins and they have like a beautiful catered lunch and it’s quiet and it’s fancy, but it is just catered. At the end of the day, it’s catered from some restaurant and they’re eating out of a tin thing. I’m like, I could beat that. So I put in a restaurant kitchen and it was actually really cheap. I just bought from like used restaurant supplies. And I walked across the street around the block, and we were around the block from the Culinary Institute of America, like a cooking school. And I was there with my dog, Zynga, our namesake. And I yelled out, does anyone want a job? And there was a bunch of people there smoking cigarettes, which isn’t the best. And a bunch of people said, sure. And this woman, Amelia, who was this like really energetic, really fun woman, like was like the front of the pack. And we hired 18 part time chefs from the cooking school to serve 18 employees. So we had a one to one ratio, which I loved. And I basically wanted to have a chef there whenever there were employees there. And they would make meals, but they would also just be on demand. So it’s like 11 o’ clock and you’re having a long, tough night and you want an omelet. Cool. So I wanted it to just feel homey, but it wasn’t. There was nothing. It was a house I wanted to live in. It wasn’t what it became later of Perk Fest and oh, you’re trying to do everything to keep them from ever going home. And it was just like, no, we’re there because there’s so much we have to do and we’re trying to do. We might as well make this a great experience. And so it was great. And VCs would come to meet us and I’d say, oh, well, give your order to Amelia, whatever you want that she’s got in the kitchen. And Amelia would tell you what fresh vegetables and things she had that day and make it to order anyway. I love that. But back to your question about this moral contract. The moral contract and the contract was we’re here to build a special company and we’re going to go for it this time. And if you’re going to go on this mission with me, we’re either going to build a big company, a meaningful company, or nothing. And we’re never selling. And you just have to realize that. So if you want to have a high likelihood that your stock is worth a lot and whatever, this probably isn’t the place for you. We wanted to be the biggest gaming company in the world from the beginning. I had a chart on my wall of how to get there and so said, we are ambitious. If you’re coming here and you’re not gonna have any work life balance, I didn’t say be ready to just have no life and work. But my attitude that I said to everyone else is when the fish are running, we’re up all night throwing nets and we don’t go home. And that’s just what it is. And when the fish aren’t running, yeah, don’t come in early. But the funny thing about work life balance is that no one ever complained about work life balance. When we had no work life balance when we were working all the time. It was after we went public and the growth slowed down and stopped and it wasn’t as much fun and people were writing mean articles about us and our stock was under attack. Then people started saying, I need my work life balance, that I don’t have that. I personally think that if you are worried about work life balance, it’s probably because the work isn’t great, you’re not passionate about it, it’s not that fun. But so I tried to get these out to people and we eventually we said we had a mission from the beginning, connecting the world through games. We had an important social mission. We’re not here to build video games or entertainment. We’re not here to make the coolest tank explosion. We’re here to connect people. And we’re going to measure our success in a lot of ways by whether we improved people’s relationships in our games. If we hit that, it’s going to be way more fulfilling than being at a game company. And so that meant something to people. I really Gave them ownership. I made people feel like this was theirs. I mean, they. Colleen said everyone. You know, people said they bleed Zynga red. And we had these values that we earned in blood and sweat, and we wrote them down and put them on the wall after we lived that experience and earned them. And so people also came into that more and more to that culture. And it was very much like, work hard, play hard. And the other thing, I’ll just say, not every company has this, but because we got a daily report card, we had total transparency of data. Every day. There was a DAU and metric report that went out to everyone in the company, and everyone could see everyone else’s game. DAUs, revenues, retention. And if you had good growth week over week, you’re up 5% week over week, people would high five you in the hallways. And if you had a bad day or week, you’d kind of like stare at the floor and not want to make eye contact with people. So there was that. That kind of was pressure that I didn’t really even have to create uptown. It just was there. But, yeah, and I’ll also just add on this moral contract that I had this, I don’t know, policy approach of I said it was really important that you meet the CEO of the company, ideally in the first week that you’re there. And I continued that all the way through us going public and being a much bigger company. And eventually it became like once a month, and sometimes it was 20 or 30 people. And some people were on Zoom or whatever Zoom was used back then, but from around the world. And I called it a coffee talk with the CEO. And it was originally a coffee talk of me and, like, two people. But I tried to really get through to them and I tried to convince them that we’re not a normal company and we’re not gonna be another notch in your resume whatever bad malaprop I’m gonna use. But I tried to do all I could to say, if you’re going to make this sacrifice, this is not probably the first choice what to do with your time. If you had all the money you wanted, you’d probably be with your family or surfing or exploring the world. So this wouldn’t be your top pick. So you’re here making a sacrifice. If you’re going to do that, you might as well make this the best experience of your life. You might as well. And you might as well give it all. And I get that you’ve been burned, like I have, by so many companies and so many CEOs where you gave it all and it was not appreciated or recognized. I said, we intend to be an extreme meritocracy. We were so extreme that I took a lot of shit for it. But hold me to that. Accountable to that. Hold your, whoever hired you accountable to that. You deserve to know what killing it looks like. And if you take that hill, you deserve to be promoted forever until whatever job, including mine, you can do, you deserve to be compensated for the value that you’re generating and you deserve open highway. And that’s our job. And if we’re not doing that, email me, like email me directly.

 

Darren [00:24:01]:

Did you get emails?

 

Mark [00:24:02]:

Yeah, all the time. And, and I responded to every single email all the way up to being thousands of employees. And it was important to me to do that, to just have that level of access and accountability. And that was part of the moral contract that. And I said, you probably have a shitty boss because we’ve over promoted people. We make battlefield promotions, we don’t have time to teach anyone management. And I’m not a big believer in management. So you probably, I’m telling you now, this is also setting your expectations that you probably have a shitty boss. And you will probably become a shitty boss too at some point because we’ll, if you do a great job, we’ll over promote you or we’ll promote rapidly. Promote you much part of the moral contract was we had a culture of leveling up. So if you take hills here, there is no, I don’t believe in paying dues. We’re gonna promote you. I had a product manager who I promoted twice in one quarter and he became a GM. You know, my head of all product was 26 and he first joined out of BCG, this kid, John Tien. And nobody would even use him as a PM on their games. And within two years he was our head of product. So I loved that, like seeing people crush it, get promoted, but they also didn’t have time to learn management. And so that was another expectation setting. And I said, and I’m not here to be your great manager either. Like that’s not my number one job. My job that Jeff Bezos said and I agreed is to be right. Like the number one job I had as CEO is to be right, not to be the best manager. You could pick between being right or being the best manager. I’ll take be right because at least someone’s steering the ship to the right place. And you can complain about their management, but on a ship that’s thriving or they could be spending all their time being a great manager and steer to a losing place and then it doesn’t really matter. So yeah, I.

 

Darren [00:26:09]:

There’s so much I love in what you’re sharing and if I were to synthesize it, it’s a very clear contract that you’re asking and going demand demand of people a lot. And you’re setting very clear expectations for what Zynga is going to be and not going to be. And some of those expectations could, you know, be considered pretty controversial and unconventional, which I love too. And in return your like your mark’s promise back has is that this is gonna be the most rewarding chapter of your professional career and I have your back and I’m gonna deliver on that promise.

 

Mark [00:26:43]:

Exactly. And I also would say I challenge this culture in Silicon Valley of entitlement, of oh my God, you’re employee number 65 at Google. You are employee number 35 at Zynga. You’re this entitled class that gets a level of equity compensation and maybe responsibility that is untouchable by someone who’s employee number 2021. And I would say when you show up at whatever point, you should have the same opportunity to crush it, to take on huge responsibility and huge compensation as that employee number 35 do. I think you have a special status because you were there in the founding team and you know, we had a kid who was 18 who was on his mother’s couch, Justin Waldron, who joined and became founding team member and made huge compensation and equity and that’s great and he deserved it. But you, you reach a point where you, you made someone a VP when you were 40 people and now they’re, they’re actually an individual contributor and it’s awkward. And what do you do with them? And that’s a problem if you grow really fast. I’m sure that’s going on Inside anthropic and OpenAI and other rocket ships today. And I took a pretty controversial stance and I said we’re going to look at your unvested for compensation and title and say are you deserving of that? And we’re not going to be precise but, but we gotta be in a ballpark because I’ve gotta be able to say to the new employee coming in, hey, I’m gonna give you founder level compensation if you deliver founder level value. And so it also meant firing people. And in some case I demoted people. And then I got this reputation that I was clawing back stock which I don’t wanna spend a lot of time on. Maybe we’ll even Delete it from this, like stepping in mud. But the point is that I was so deeply committed to that meritocracy. And I’ll also just add one more thing which I know you and I talked about, which is it’s good to have sound bites as CEO that are easier to remember and repeat, especially when they relate to these contracts. And one that I said to my C staff and my E staff and eventually the whole company was that this is a democratic dictatorship and it’s basically how we all run our families. I don’t want to say everybody, but I’ll bet if you have kids, you know, I’ll bet that that’s pretty much how you run your family. And a good parent, you, you give your kids a channel for feedback, you let them voice their preferences, but then you make the decision. You don’t have a vote. Right. Families don’t have a vote, and companies don’t have a vote and shouldn’t have a vote either. And your management team shouldn’t have a vote. They should have a voice, but that’s different than a vote. And so I call it a democratic dictatorship, which is I want you to passionately make your case for which way we should go. And I will give it a complete hearing and a fair hearing. And I want this intense debate and battle for the truth, for intellectual honesty, and I want us to challenge each other. And then I’m just going to decide on what it is, and then I’m going to ask everybody to completely get behind it. It’s like disagree and commit has become a soundbite. But that’s hard for a lot of people. And we’re moving back to that in Silicon Valley and Founder Mode and other things. And there’s been brave kind of public emails and essays by people like Brian Armstrong, and companies pulled it back and said, hey, we’re not a political place. And if we have any political stances, it’s probably something to do with our company. Like, if you’re coinbase, you’re maybe taking a political stance on crypto regulation or something, but. But you’re not going to. You shouldn’t have a stance on Democrats versus Republicans or any of the other big hot topics. And it’s, I think, pulling that back and saying, if you want to do that, do it outside the walls of our company, I think was really a healthy reminder that, you know, and I would loved, I loved when I saw Google, they had employees in New York that were marching or boycotting or something, and they said, I think they fired them or Something I’m like, to me, that’s not union busing. That’s part of the democratic dictatorship too. It’s saying, here’s what we’re going to do and not going to do inside our company. And you please feel free to opt out. Yeah.

 

Darren [00:31:50]:

And not to go down a rabbit hole here. I think that’s also. I agree with everything you’ve just said, or at least the spirit of it. And I think it’s also a consequence of not being explicit and consistent up front. You suffer the consequences of a workforce that’s given their life energy against an unclear set of expectations. So back to this idea of like setting expectations just for a moment and just in the last 10 or 15 minutes, if we synthesized everything, I think we get pretty close to the kinds of, you know, expectations you were setting. And I could see that really working. When you’re 50 employees, you’re 100 employees, where everyone’s in the room with Mark all the time. Even if you’re writing some of this down and you’ve got email access, there’s something in the transmission of that to people when you’re at that size at some point, and I’ve seen this in my own experience, that begins to break. And I know in the book you write about this idea of like, you scale by making sure people are doing the right thing when you’re not in the room. Right. That’s your line in the book. I’d love to go into that territory. So take us to the. The next phase of growth where this becomes less easy to do. It’s less easy to know what the expectations are. How did you continue to make that clear? Where did you not weren’t able to do it. And I’d love that. And then maybe we get to the place where you’re public as another sort of demarcation.

 

Mark [00:33:16]:

Well, you hit this point, hopefully in your growth. It’s kind of when you get to a place that you, you just can’t remember everyone’s name anymore. And for us, that was like 130, 150 people. And depending on what kind of business you’re running, there may or may not be areas that you can successfully outsource and not have anything to do with. So I got to this point where I. And this is driven so much by just survival. You know, it’s just the first point I got to in management, well, call management was you get so overwhelmed because you are trying to be in the room everywhere to make sure because you can’t afford early on for any side to make the wrong or bad decision. And so you just, you can’t sleep, you’re stressed. And so I started this practice. I would come in on a Monday and I would write on my whiteboard everything that I was having to manage and do. And it’d be a pretty long list. And then I’d bring in the whole team. I mean, at this point, it was like almost everyone. We were like 18, 20, 25 people, maybe half the people in my office. And I’d say, okay, guys, these are all of the things on my board. And I need to put someone’s name next to each of these to be the owner of that. And I’ll own it with you, I’ll back you up, but you own it. And I first did that actually@support.com where when we were 35 people, I made a CEO board like a white sticky note. It was before I had moving whiteboards. And I put it on the wall and I said, by the end of the week, everyone needs to write your name there and next to it what you’re CEO of. And it should be something that feels important to everybody else and clear. So we all know. And that was the beginning of management. What I would call management for me, and it’s how do we get to a point that people are gonna do the right thing when we’re not in the room and do a lot of things, not just the one task, right. And not wait for you to come back? And I went as far as I could with micromanagement and to an insane place I managed. We had people around the world and I had a standup call that probably up to like 50, 60 people. I had everyone’s name on a spreadsheet. It’d be a two hour call and I’d be like, what did you do yesterday versus what you said and what are you gonna do today? Because I was like, I can’t lose a day. And there was nowhere to hide. But like I said, when you get to 150 people, that was the breaking point for me. You do have to start to find a way to hope that work gets done that’s useful when you’re not in the room and decisions are made that you don’t regret. And so that became my everything I did around what I’ll call management was in service of that, getting people to do the right thing when I’m not in the room. First of all, I had to be in the room, so I had to know what right was. So I believe if you’re the founder and CEO, I believe in you being in the room for whatever it is. I don’t care if it’s a legal question, a marketing question, product engineering, probably. You’re connecting so many of the dots to the rest of the context that I’ll bet you’re going to make a better decision than even the domain expert in the room in the context of everything else. So, okay, first you got to figure out what right is, but then you got to say, okay, now it’s almost like experimenting. What could I do to get somebody to get to that decision without me in the room? And so you get to systems and they’re organically going to grow inside of every organization. And I lay some out in the book. We really, really doubled down on what we called the blue sheets, our product roadmaps, and had a weekly meeting that was sacred. It was like temple, it was like, it was 55 minutes, could not be late, can’t go over. There was a structure to it. There was kind of nowhere to hide in that meeting. And it was an accountability, it was a version of that stand up call of what did you say you were going to do yesterday? Did you get it done? What are you doing today and tomorrow? So I was getting to the roadmap and it was born in this daily standup call. But instead of it being like yesterday, today and tomorrow, now I expanded and said, okay, what did you commit to get done in the last two weeks and what are the expected outcomes? Did you hit it on engineering days? Did you hit it on user metrics and what are you committing in the next four weeks? And if your next four weeks didn’t add up to growth, I’d say we got to repeat the meeting again later in the week. So I’d say we got to redo your homework and come back.

 

Darren [00:38:00]:

And so can I just pause on this just for a second because I read this in your book and I was really intrigued by it and I believe every word you’re saying in terms of like its importance to Zynga. My experience working with CEOs is like none of them are able to replicate an experience like this where people are come out of it and say, wow, that was an incredibly useful period of time for us. And I know there are some unique things about Zynga. Your feedback loops are really tight and all of that. But I’m guessing there was something in the way you, you designed it, you ran it, that would be instructive to tease out of this conversation.

 

Mark [00:38:36]:

Yeah, it’s like I Said it has to be organic to your business and what I call your factory. It’s not going to work the way Zynga’s did. It could be on a totally different cadence. If it’s hardware, maybe it’s like really long cadence, right? Maybe your feedback loop is six months or a year or something, but you really want to find where’s your leverage. And in a software based business, it’s engineering days. Maybe that’s changing now with AI, but I don’t believe it is. But there’s one input which is engineering days. In a digital technology software based business that’s kind of. I called that the factory. And then you have an output which is both. Did we build what we said we were going to build in time to quality or not? And then did it have the expected outcome? And back to that idea of that moral contract with those engineers. Now they’re in the room too and they’re seeing, so do I trust this PM and this gm? Do I trust Pincus? I killed myself to get this feature done, this bold, beat this, whatever. And they had an expected outcome and they missed it. So I’m not gonna work for you anymore. I’m not going to work hard for you. I’m gonna work hard for that one because they’re delivering the goods. And so I agree it has to have a feedback loop and it’s gotta be real or it becomes fake really quickly. And the meeting could be fake. Okrs can be fake if they don’t relate to that close to the metal that where the rubber meets the road and the traction happens or doesn’t on the product build side and on the market and the product market fit or any of that, then it’s going to just be a fake meeting. And it’s managing up and everything everyone tells you why they don’t want to do it becomes true. And that’s why it’s like can you get there with an atomic unit of one first if you’re sitting down with whoever is your factory, whoever’s your marketing or pm, and if you can figure out what that cadence and feedback loop looks like and work and build that with them, then and you know it works on some level with your board, whether it’s monthly or quarterly, you have an accountability loop of your business plan. The problem is for most businesses that’s a trailing indicator of success and it’s too slow to really get to the problems early in the factory. And it’s either someone’s not defining what you’re doing right, you know, or they’re not building it right or they’re not marketing and selling it right. And it’s like, we gotta go as quickly we have to be a heat seeking missile and get to that leverage and that problem. And your job as CEO is to be as close to that as you can be. Like right next to the people who are writing the code or building the thing. And like Elon, I mean now Elon’s kind of made it cool and sleeping on the factory floor and going now it’s like things take on, they become big memes. And now I think it’s like a cool macho thing to be a CEO that’s deep in the weeds because Elon’s given air cover for that. But it’s always cool. There’s never a time that it’s not good for a CEO to go, I call it close to the metal. And the more that that CEO understands their business down to the pixel level, down to the atomic unit level, the stronger they’re going to be as CEO all the way up to finance investors. Investors want, they’re going to be more confident in you. And when you try to convince that next engineer to join and you show like you’re in that level of detail, they’re more likely to want to follow you than like the last thing you want is like a banker or consultant or someone who’s like, oh, I don’t understand engineering, that’s someone else. Or I don’t understand the market. You don’t want to hear that. But so you would have better answer for me why this doesn’t just naturally organically work inside of other organizations. But I will say sometimes I was giving some coaching to the CEO of a pretty large private social media company last week and he’s been massively successful and he has like hugely successful business without doing any of the things I’m saying. And he asked me for advice on how does he move faster because he wants to shift and be much more AI focused and he wants to be much more, he wants to get to new, much bigger growth vectors, but he doesn’t want to commit until he knows. So I said, I gave him this kind of playbook and he said, great, I want to do that. And he’s been that successful without this. It might be you’ve been really successful without doing any of this, but you could be operating at a much faster clock speed.

 

Darren [00:43:52]:

Yeah, I want to move us into a different direction, but I want to maybe just offer hypothesis here and see if it resonates, which is, I think there’s something about your ability and willingness to speak truth very directly without being a jerk. And you gave some upstream examples of the kinds of firing or demotion decisions that require a level of courage and directness that if you’ve got a set of people in the room that have opted into that kind of. I know you don’t like the word culture, that kind of DNA, organizational DNA, and you design the meeting from a first principles basis, you’ve got a really good chance of doing something sort of special. So that’s. I’m taking away. It’s the combination of those two things. You can’t just put a system into a DNA that doesn’t speak truth in really skillful, direct ways. Is that a fair.

 

Mark [00:44:42]:

Yeah, it’s like people go to military analog so often, but it’s because they work. And it’s like you’re. This is Special Forces. This is like whoever can lead should lead. This is like. But it’s. It’s a level of shared trust and competency to know that everyone around me is crushing it or focus. Everyone around me is sharing this level of intensity. Because when you get to this Mamby pamby, I just can’t be. I can’t be part of an organization that’s not like that and not pursuing intellectual honesty and deep truths and having hard conversations. Because when you get to that sharpness, there’s this competency in the room of everybody that it’s just electric. But when you allow, you know, I always like to say, I grew up playing soccer, that you’re better off with 10 players on the field than having one weak player in the 11th position because. And so many companies have to make up for some weak players. And what happens if you have a weak defender? Then you have four other players that are trying to cover that position and not theirs. And you’re better off with just knowing I got 10, eight, and they’re all in this, you know. So anyway. And I would say a tough to read book, but is worth reading. I forget if I mentioned to you is the Courage to Be Disliked.

 

Darren [00:46:12]:

I love that book. Yeah.

 

Mark [00:46:13]:

Yeah. You know it. And it’s so much of this, you know. Anyway. Yeah.

 

Darren [00:46:18]:

So I’m going to detour a little bit and we might come back and I want to talk a little bit more about you because you and I met for the first time in a. You know what I would call. I don’t know what we’d call it. I’ll let you. You name it. Right. A workshop that was really focused on Inner development. And there’s, I think, something in the book and your life’s work that speaks to almost a spiritual journey that you’ve been on. I mean, who, at age I think it was 28, starts, you know, writes something called a book of life. Right. Something maybe that was always in you. And I’d love to understand what the inner journey for you has been, what that role has played. And, like, where are you now? You’re sitting at age 60 and sort of bring us to that. Sorry to. I’m not far off, Mark.

 

Mark [00:47:05]:

And I like to say to other people, like, you’ll. You’ll hit 62. Yeah. You’ll also be 60, hopefully. No avoiding it. Well, I’d say that, yeah, for me, it’s in the book that. And there is kind of an interwoven book through this book that I call Book of Life. And that has been this spiritual growth for me. And it started when I was 28 in Temple, where I started writing notes about all the reasons my life just sucked. And I didn’t think of it as anything else. And I kind of ended up on, like, one reason that I hated myself the most, which was that I smoked cigarettes. And it was like this. It was this tangible example that I was not directing my life because I didn’t want to smoke, but I just did because I’d be at the bar and I’d have an excuse of, well, it helps if I have alcohol or if I’m staying up late or if I’ve eaten too much. There was always some reason when I try to convince people to quit smoking, I say It’s. It’s like 5,000 decisions a day that you just wiped out. And just like everyone else, once you quit, you become like the evangelist for not doing. But I would just say it’s been a through line for me that’s really helped, which is to keep coming back to my why. Why am I doing this and what really matters? And I’ve gone through what I call. I’ve been in what I call the abyss a few times. And as founders, we’re in it maybe a lot more often and for a lot more time than we like. And it’s this place that can feel pretty dark, where there’s no structure, where it doesn’t matter if you get out of bed in the morning. It’s a nice thing to have kids or pets, because that might be the only reason. But you don’t know if you’ll ever do anything useful and important in the world ever again because you’ve chosen this path of being an entrepreneur, and you’re not going to go get a job. And jobs give you structure and some amount of definition and meaning, but you’ve chosen to stick to this path as a founder. Well, it’s like surfing. You’re paddling out. You don’t know if a wave’s ever going to come again. Or was that your whole session? So, coming back to your why during your abyss, it’s a great time to really work on your why and be solidified in it. But also I’ve found things like, I’ve worked with a Life coach for 22 years, and I’ve been in a form of an abyss since Zynga. I’ve done things, lots of things, but I haven’t been pursuing my big thing. And I think of that as the abyss. And so during this time, I went to Joe Hudson’s Groundbreakers. And when I was first starting Zynga, like months before I started it, I went to Tony Robbins, unleashing the power within 5,000, mostly out of work real estate agents in a gigantic convention hall. And it’s really. It feels weird. But Tony Robbins is awesome and he’s such an amazing motivational speaker, and he has all these different exercises. And I learned so much that helped me later as a CEO. And the first thing I learned is to check your ego at the door, that it doesn’t matter who you are, everyone’s in this thing together and nobody cares, and everyone’s doing their own work. And that was the same thing, but even more intense at Groundbreakers. And then when I met you, Darren, I was starting to do some of John Wineland’s immersive men’s work. And that’s been great, especially at this point in life. But so much of what John Wineland challenges us to do is to say, what is it that your heart desires? And can you tune into that? And what does your soul need to do before you die? This is not light topics. And when you bring it up at dinner, some people get very resistant to it, but it’s so valuable. And I encourage everyone to have that conversation with your good friends, because we don’t do that enough. Not just in some men’s group or whatever group, but. But I did it around my 60th birthday with 14 really good friends. And I said, every night we’re gonna go deep with three of you on this question. And the most important is, where are you out of integrity with what your heart desires and what your soul needs? Because that’s even worse. One part of it is knowing that and being in touch with that. But what really, I think eats at us is being out of integrity with that. That knowing that I just want to build something again. I want to build something new. I don’t know if I ever will, but I’m going to fucking try. And as long as I’m trying, legitimately trying, I’m in integrity with myself. I don’t have to be successful at it to be in integrity. I just have to be pursuing this thing that I feel like my soul needs. So that’s what I’ve gotten so much of from this work with John Wineland and these other men and being around other men who are going through this in their own way. And we’re all chasing different dragons and dealing with different things, but in a lot of ways, they’re also similar. We’re all kind of lifing, you know, trying to figure this life thing out. And so, anyway, that’s been really hard and really fulfilling and terrific during this time that I’m both trying to find my way out of this abyss and back to building.

 

Darren [00:52:47]:

So, yeah, yeah, I’m so. I so appreciate you sharing that. I think, you know, maybe we could call them death questions or maybe the most important questions to be asking. And they’re not morbid questions, they’re questions. I think if framed in the right way and taken in the right way, are the things that wake us up to the magic of being here and being alive. So I think it’s just an incredible example you’re setting for people that find themselves, whether they’re a founder or not, in some sort of abyss. And confronting the big questions and the way you framed it is like, what does the soul really need? Is a really, really powerful question. And I’m thrilled that you’re getting clarity around that for yourself.

 

Mark [00:53:31]:

I’m trying, and I think I have clarity now. I’m trying to be in integrity with that clarity.

 

Darren [00:53:36]:

Just not to be too grandiose, Mark, but I think the world needs people who are in touch with that question and are courageous enough to answer it and then live their life in, you know, in integrity with it. And so I know the world that, you know, this sort of world of business building and company formation that you and I are both in, in different ways, will benefit from you getting in touch with that question and answering it and doing everything you can to be in integrity with it.

 

Mark [00:54:07]:

And it’s. The more that we have, the more that we can have these real conversations with each other and not B.S. no one really cares what you do or I do. I mean, no one really cares how successful you’re not. What they care about is like, how are you experiencing life right now? And what are you really challenged by and scared by? And does that unlock something that they don’t feel like they’re comfortable sharing with themselves and other people? And what’s funny is my birthday I just had with my friends in Iceland. They were really resistant when I said, okay, at dinner every night we’re going to have these conversations and it was like herding cats. And then they didn’t want to stop talking about it. And then they said, mark. When they got around to me, they were like, mark, you should be a life coach because look how good you are at this. I’m like, no, no, no, no, no. That’s just because I got you to finally answer some of these questions. I’m like, I’m on my own path and it’s easier for me to talk about mine when you’re talking about yours. And so often when I’ve brought up the abyss, people are like, oh yeah, I’m actually in an abyss too. And that’s really healing in a lot of ways. To be able to admit it and put a name on it and be okay with it. And it’s like, okay, yeah, it’s less scary once we can say it. And I’m not denigrating myself or what I’m. It’s not that I don’t believe in myself. It’s. It’s just being kind of, kind of obvious. Just saying like, what’s the elephant in the room for you?

 

Darren [00:55:56]:

Yeah.

 

Mark [00:55:56]:

Because if it’s true for you, people around you probably see it too. And your lack of integrity with that makes them uncomfortable. Yeah.

 

Darren [00:56:05]:

And just maybe to bring it back to company building just for a moment and imagine extending this concept of the contract to. This becomes a place where what you do meets the needs of your soul. And I know that can sound a little far fetched, but it’s almost me planting a seed that if you do found your next company, that there’s something different that gets created at this stage of life and with this level of wisdom. And I don’t know if that resonates, but it just occurred to me as you were speaking, for sure.

 

Mark [00:56:37]:

And it’s hopefully every time you do it, it’s a chance to get it more right. And that’s what Zynga was for me because I said, I’m finally going to build a house I want to live in. And I Almost did. I didn’t 100% and I said this company is going to be independent forever until its death. And it almost was. And then eventually we felt we had to merge with a bigger company. But we had a good trying to remember, I think it was like 15 year run independent and the company’s still doing great and thriving. But. But it’s not a house I want to live in anymore. And at some point I don’t know if it was weakness on my part or just the change in the environment we’re in, but it stopped really being about social gaming and it stopped being about our mission of connecting the world through games. And it’s. I’m not, there’s nothing negative. I love the CEO Frank Jabot and I love what they’re doing. But there’s also the context changes. And we were in this context that we were on social networks embedded in them. So the opportunity to do social was much easier. And now it’s pretty brutal. And so when I think about the next company, I’m just gonna try to be more right. Like okay, what can I do? Like I’ll tell you one thing. For me, I don’t like managing people. I’d say every day you’re managing is a day of work, but it’s a necessary evil because I believe that you have to be CEO in some form to get what you want, to get the product you want, the kind of company you want. So I don’t think, I don’t know how you can outsource it. And I can’t remember if I say in the book that and sorry to people I offend in this, but I really believe that COO is a fake job. In most companies it might be a different job and you’re just calling it coo like, you know, for Zuckerberg he had Sheryl as coo. She really wasn’t like coo. He was running what he cared about and he outsourced the business side and adopts. And she was CEO of that. She really was president or CEO. You know, a CEO to me is a pass through and I think everyone should be a CEO. So I’d say you gotta be CEO, which means you have to have these people directly reporting to you. They can’t all report to another person. I don’t think so you got to be CEO. But I don’t want to manage and I think I’m going to give myself more permission for that. If I’m so lucky as to have another chance to build something, I’m going to Just say this is what matters most to me is the building part, being close to the builders in the factory. And I’m going to just try to innovate on a new way to outsource the other parts and get people to do the right thing when I’m not in the room but with the least amount of management. And I did do some things at Zynga that I got indirectly through Bezos. Bing was on my board and he was on the board of Amazon would get tell, oh, Bezos would do this. I’d say, oh, that’s brilliant, I’m going to do that. And one was, he said Bezos would never do one on ones. And he said because once you do it with one person, you got to do it with everybody. It’s taking up your time. It’s how you get politics. And he said, and if he ever was stuck in a one on one and someone complained about something, someone else, he would call them up and say, Darren Pincus is saying he hates the way you do this or he thinks you’re full of shit. You guys should talk about it. And what that does. And I did that at Zynga. And what it does is it actually tells your team you’re not going to have politics. So now you can trust that you don’t have to get my ear because nobody else does either. And if they do and they bring up something about you, I’m gonna be so transparent that I’m just gonna have you talk to them and tell you exactly what they said. And I do this with my kids too, with mixed results, but I do it. But so that also though frees you, gives you so much of your time back. If you’re not having one on ones, they’re not fun. And it’s a lot of time. And so finding tricks like that to time box the knot you do have to manage, I think those are really valuable. I’m no management guru other than don’t fucking manage. That’s my only message. The less you manage and having processes things that get you out of management, the happier I think you’ll be and the more you get your time back and the more you’re spending your time on what really matters, like close to the metal, like your product.

 

Darren [01:01:08]:

Yeah. There’s so much we’ve covered in the book and there’s so much we haven’t covered in the book, which I think is almost by necessity and design given how much there is. And I’m glad because people really need to read your book. We haven’t even named it. But Life at the Speed of Play is the name and it’s coming out, I believe probably when this conversation airs in June. So I just wanted to encourage people and share again how much I both appreciate you writing it. Anything you. As we come to a close here, anything you want to add that we haven’t covered that’s important to you or put a finer point on that we have covered.

 

Mark [01:01:48]:

Okay, well, on the book Life at the Speed of Play, I’m really trying to not shill the book, but it is, I get it, why I’m talking more and I put a lot into it. But my goal with the book, I aspired for it to be a lot like Peter Thiel’s 0 to 1, which is a great read and it really feels like you’re having a three hour dinner with him. And I have and he really hit that note. So I wanted the book to be kind of fun and easy to read, but I also hope that it could make could be useful for kind of product experts and insiders and peers and other people have some useful thought provoking things for them and be useful for a stay at home mom in Indiana or someone who’s in a job and they’ve had an idea that they’ve wanted to pursue but they just don’t know how to do it. And should I quit my job? Do I go and mortgage my house and do this? Or how. How do I actually get from an idea to something that I’m not going to waste my time and money on and that has good odds of success? And that’s the thing that the other reason I wanted to write the book is I feel like it’s so painful to me to see so many people who have great instincts and good ideas but shoot themselves in the foot and they pursue it. In a way, I like to say that in a lot of ways what I hope the book could be for people and I hope people can build for themselves a time machine. Because if I could go back to mark in 2003 and four when he was building tribe.net and say, dude, you have three killer instincts. They’re entire industries, they’re gigantic companies. They’re bigger than you can imagine. And you have one shitty idea and don’t be so stoic and stubborn and courageous that you’re going to go down with the ship and Mark, I got good news and bad news. The bad news is this fails. The good news is I’m telling you now. And so it’s a time machine. You now can Go try other shit. The good news is social networking is much, much bigger than you ever could have imagined. Right? You’re on the right track. But this track, this dog’s not gonna fucking hunt. So do something else. Try five other ideas. You know, and that’s where I get into, like, proven better new. And, you know, it’s like, okay, you isolate that instinct that you have. That’s right. That’s why you feel it in your gut. Listen to that. But separate that from this idea that you’re packaging in it. That’s wrong. It’s highly likely to be wrong. And a B plus here is the enemy of an A. And getting a meh from people, you need to listen to that meh. It’s not that they don’t get it. It’s not that you haven’t fully built the product. It’s not that it’s not far long enough. It’s that there were, like, those dating books, they’d say, he’s just not that into you. Like, they’re just not that into this idea. Kill the fucking idea. The gestalt that I’m hoping people can get with the book is that was core to the classes I created at Stanford was these core principles of your instincts are probably right and your ideas are probably wrong. And so how do we de Risk this knowing that? How do we de risk this? One thing we’re not gonna do is we’re not gonna just build out your one idea and, like, go raise money against it. Find yourself trapped, like, in a bad relationship. It’s like you don’t even believe that much in your product anymore. But you’ve raised money and you’ve told your team and the world has expectations that you just stoically keep going on with it. It’s not gonna work. You know, and then there’s people around you, and that is happening. Why is that? Because they got a better version of that instinct or that idea than you have. So, you know, I wanna, like, give you permission to pursue your ideas, but to shoot them quickly and often in a way that you’re not attached to them. And, yeah, I just think so many people could be so much more successful, could change their odds just massively. Or they have the right idea, but they’re failing because they’ve packaged it in a lot of dumb shit. Like, you know, like Steve Jobs said that when he came back to Apple, he said, you’ve made every feature 10% better, and you’ve made the whole product 50% worse. And he was like, pick one thing if you’re gonna be about printer drivers, that’s the only thing we’re gonna do. And we’re gonna, like, make the best printer driver the world’s ever seen, and nothing else is gonna change because we don’t have time. And that’s such a core principle for me around product making, that if you talk to the masters at it people, if you talk to Brian Chesky, Brian Grazer, Jony, I’ve, like, if you talk to people who are true masters, they get that. They get that innovation comes in such smaller pieces and increments than people think, but it’s so much more polished, and it’s. It’s not about changing everything. So your product is totally different. And so that’s just been a principle that I’ve tried to get across to people.

 

Darren [01:07:31]:

Yeah, I’m so glad you added it. I mean, the distinction between instinct and idea is a powerful one. It runs through your book. There’s so much about product making and company building in the book that we didn’t have a chance to get into. So I’m glad we at least highlighted this piece of. Mark, this has been an unbelievable conversation. I’m so glad we’ve had it. I so appreciate you for being in the conversation, for all you’ve done in the world, the book, and looking forward to more conversations together.

 

Mark [01:08:00]:

Yeah, thanks. And this is good for me because this is really the first podcast I’ve talked about the book, and I probably will get better at doing it in, like, less words and less minutes.

 

Darren [01:08:11]:

It’s been great. I’m sure any improvements are just gonna be icing on the cake, so thanks.

 

Mark [01:08:16]:

Thanks, Darren.

 

Darren [01:08:22]:

What a wonderful conversation. Mark talked about building a house you want to live in, and he meant it as a principle of company building. But what occurred to me, perhaps more than anything else in our conversation, is that the same principle applies just as powerfully to the house we are building inside ourselves. As a founder, Mark designed Zynga to be a place that. That he and those who joined could live in integrity with themselves. It strikes me that Mark is now building another house, one that is internal, and the architecture is different. It might not be about winning or being right or getting the next thing built. It might just be about showing up in pursuit of what your soul is asking you to do, knowing you may fail and doing it anyway. Because the alternative, being out of integrity with what you actually need costs more than any failure ever could. That just might be the real masterpiece, not the company, the life. I look forward to being with you on the next episode of one of one. Until then, I hope you live and lead with courage, wisdom, and above all, with love.