Name the Founder of This Rancid Tech IPO -- Hint: Doesn't Play Well With Others

by YCharts Staff August 10, 2012

Someone call Andrew Sorkin, we may have another troubled soul in the tech world: Mark Pincus, chief executive of Zynga (ZNGA).

Pincus, a 46-year-old Chicago native, seems to be having trouble maintaining relationships. First Pincus lost Owen Van Natta, who had worked at Amazon (AMZN) and Facebook (FB) and left Zynga just weeks before its IPO.

Then, this week, COO John Schappert, formerly of Electronic Arts (EA), quit after less than 18 months, not long after Pincus took over some of his duties. It appears that Pincus, who controls 50.5% of Zynga shares, blamed Schappert for this:

ZNGA data by YCharts

An analyst told Bloomberg he considered that a mistake, as Schappert represented some "adult supervision" at the company. Zynga's leadership team is depicted on its website as cartoon characters. (The Schappert character seems to have been erased immediately.)

The king of tortured tech souls is, of course, Mark Zuckerburg. Facebook and Zynga have a close relationship, being as Zynga users play its games like Farmville on Facebook. But now Pincus is trying to expand more into mobile and depend less on Facebook. That could potentially strain his relationship with Zuckerburg, too.

Poor Pincus. Maybe Zynga should roll out a version of solitaire.

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