I've read quite a few articles about that incident but I still don't get it. One said that it was people who had been promoted then demoted but kept their stock? Here it says they 'negotiated' to keep some stock? Isn't that what a vesting schedule is for?
In the worst case scenario it appears that Pincus and the board saw the writing on the wall that their earnings would (and did) drop after the ipo. Rather than make drastic changes or pursue new strategies rather than farmville clones (which, to be fair, while profitable, apparently have a shelf-life of around 5 years, after which the audience got tired of them and left), they decided to focus on avoiding a bad story. Their priority became stopping a google chef story from happening at the same time their earnings failed to meet expectations.
That still doesn't explain it, however. Google chef and microsoft secretarey becoming millionares is a story. Sub-par engineer/business analyst/game designer becomes millionare after ipo is not. Looking at the small number of people affected and assuming they didn't clawback much more than half the stock, there's no way they got much more than 50m back.
Then the only explanation becomes that they REALLY wanted to give the stock to attract new talent. "Come work for stock we clawed back from the last guy who already vested" is the least appealing job offer I've heard of that doesn't involve poisonous snakes.
Then the only explanation becomes that they were vindictive and did not want someone to profit a lot when they thought they contributed a little and in reality probably did a medium-quality job. Looking at some rants on quora, it seems like they spend a lot of money on a lot of unnecessary things and are just looking to scapegoat at this point.
I still don't really understand, though, and that bothers me.
In the worst case scenario it appears that Pincus and the board saw the writing on the wall that their earnings would (and did) drop after the ipo. Rather than make drastic changes or pursue new strategies rather than farmville clones (which, to be fair, while profitable, apparently have a shelf-life of around 5 years, after which the audience got tired of them and left), they decided to focus on avoiding a bad story. Their priority became stopping a google chef story from happening at the same time their earnings failed to meet expectations.
That still doesn't explain it, however. Google chef and microsoft secretarey becoming millionares is a story. Sub-par engineer/business analyst/game designer becomes millionare after ipo is not. Looking at the small number of people affected and assuming they didn't clawback much more than half the stock, there's no way they got much more than 50m back.
Then the only explanation becomes that they REALLY wanted to give the stock to attract new talent. "Come work for stock we clawed back from the last guy who already vested" is the least appealing job offer I've heard of that doesn't involve poisonous snakes.
Then the only explanation becomes that they were vindictive and did not want someone to profit a lot when they thought they contributed a little and in reality probably did a medium-quality job. Looking at some rants on quora, it seems like they spend a lot of money on a lot of unnecessary things and are just looking to scapegoat at this point.
I still don't really understand, though, and that bothers me.