Mark Pincus
Mark Pincus | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | February 13, 1966 Chicago |
| Alma mater | University of Pennsylvania's Wharton business School / Harvard Business School (MBA) |
| Occupation(s) | CEO at Zynga |
Mark Pincus (February 13, 1966)[1] is an Internet entrepreneur best known as the co-founder of Zynga, which makes online social games. Pincus also founded Freeloader, Inc., Tribe Networks, and SupportSoft.[2]
Early life and background
Pincus was born in Chicago and raised in the tiny neighborhood of Chicago’s Lincoln Park He attended Francis W. Parker School from kindergarten through 12th grade and graduated in 1984.[3]
Pincus holds a Bachelors of Science in Economics from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from Harvard Business School.[4]
Career
Before he became an entrepreneur, Pincus worked in venture capital and financial services for six years. Pincus spent two years as a financial analyst for Lazard Freres & Co. after graduating from Wharton. After that, he moved to Hong Kong where he served as a vice president for Asian Capital Partners for two years.
He returned to the States to attend business school and spent a summer as an associate for Bain & Co. in 1992.[5]
After Pincus graduated from Harvard Business School, he took a job as a manager of corporate development at Tele-Communications, Inc, now AT&T Cable. A year later, he joined Columbia Capital as a vice president where he led investments in new media and software startups for a year in Washington, DC.
In 1995, Pincus launched his first startup, Freeloader, Inc., a web-based push technology service that was acquired seven months later by Individual, Inc. for $38 million.[6]
He then started his second company, Support.com, in August 1997. As chairman and CEO, Pincus built the company into a leading provider for service and support automation software. The company went public in July 2000. [7]
In 2003, at age 37, Pincus founded his third startup, Tribe.net, one of the first social networks[dubious – discuss]. Tribe.net partnered with major local newspapers and was backed by The Washington Post, Knight Ridder Digital, and Mayfield Fund. In 2007, Cisco Systems acquired the core technology assets of Tribe.net to develop a social networking platform for its digital media services group. [8]
In 2003, Pincus and Reid Hoffman purchased a broad sweeping patent that describes a social network service that is the heart of social networks from the extinct sixdegrees company for ($700,000). [9]
Zynga
Pincus cofounded his fourth company, Zynga Game Network, Inc., in January 2007. Pincus is the CEO of Zynga. [10]
Scamming users was part of Zynga’s business model from the start. And it was all caught on video. In a video posted November 9, 2009, Zynga CEO Mark Pincus says "I did every horrible thing in the book too, just to get revenues right away. I mean we gave our users poker chips if they downloaded this Zwinky toolbar which was like, I don't know, I downloaded it once and couldn't get rid of it,".[11] Michael Arrington of TechCrunch
External links
References
- ^ "So What Do You Do, Mark Pincus, CEO of Zynga?". mediabistro.com. 16 September 2009. Retrieved 23 June 2010.
- ^ Miguel Helft (July 24, 2010). "Will Zynga Become the Google of Games?". New York Times. Retrieved 2010-07-24.
A serial entrepreneur, he sold his first company, Freeloader, an early Internet broadcast service, for $38 million, and took public his second, a business software maker called Support.com.
{{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - ^ "Corner Office Are You CEO of Something?". The New York Times. Jan. 30, 2010.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ "BusinessWeek Executive Profile Mark Pincus". BusinessWeek. Retrieved 23 June 2010.
- ^ "Mark Pincus Background". Mark Pincus Blog. Retrieved 15-07-2010.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|accessdate=(help) - ^ "Mark Pincus". startup2startup. Retrieved 15-07-2010.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|accessdate=(help) - ^ "SUPPORT COM INC S-1 Filing". Edgar. Retrieved 15-07-2010.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|accessdate=(help) - ^ Stone, Brad (March 3, 2007). "Social Networking's Next Phase". New York Times.
- ^ Kirkpatrick, David (2010). The Facebook Effect: The Inside Story of the Company That Is Connecting the World. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 1439102112.
- ^ "About-Team". Zynga. Retrieved 15-07-2010.
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