Mark Pincus

Mark Pincus
Pincus in 2011
Born (1966-02-13) February 13, 1966 (age 58)
Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Education
Occupations
Spouse
Alison Gelb
​
​
(m. 2008; div. 2017)​
Children3

Mark Jonathan Pincus (born February 13, 1966)[3] is an American Internet entrepreneur known as the founder of Zynga, a mobile social gaming company. Pincus also founded the startups Freeloader, Inc., Tribe Networks, and Support.com.[4] Pincus served as the CEO of Zynga until July 2013, then again from 2015 to 2016.[5]

Pincus was named 2009 "CEO of the Year"[6] at The Crunchies technology awards[7] and a year later was named Founder of the Year at the 2010 ceremony.[8] Zynga is considered to be the pioneer of the social gaming industry.[9] In 2011, Zynga went public with a $1 billion IPO.[10] Pincus co-founded Reinvent Capital in 2018, an investment firm, with Reid Hoffman and hedge fund manager Michael Thompson.[11][12] He co-created the Stanford Graduate School of Business course on Product Management with Professor Amir Goldberg.[13]

  1. ^ Takahashi, Dean (March 1, 2016). "Zynga names ex-EA mobile exec Frank Gibeau as its CEO". venturebeat.com. Archived from the original on October 27, 2017. Retrieved October 27, 2017.
  2. ^ King, Rachel (April 23, 2014). "Zynga's latest unraveling: Pincus out as product chief". ZDNet. Archived from the original on April 25, 2014. Retrieved April 25, 2014.
  3. ^ "Mark Pincus". CNBC. 22 May 2012. Archived from the original on 5 December 2012. Retrieved 18 February 2024.
  4. ^ Miguel Helft (July 24, 2010). "Will Zynga Become the Google of Games?". New York Times. Archived from the original on November 10, 2016. 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.
  5. ^ Wingfield, Nick (2016-03-01). "Mark Pincus, Founder of Zynga, Is Replaced as C.E.O. Again". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on 2017-12-01. Retrieved 2018-02-05.
  6. ^ VentureBeat January 2010 Archived 2017-09-15 at the Wayback Machine[link]
  7. ^ TechCrunch January 2010 Archived 2010-11-30 at the Wayback Machine. Crunchies2009.techcrunch.com. Retrieved on 2011-11-13.
  8. ^ Congratulations Crunchies Winners! Twitter Takes Best Startup Of 2010 Archived 2017-10-18 at the Wayback Machine. TechCrunch (2011-01-21). Retrieved on 2011-11-13.
  9. ^ Kesarios, George (10 December 2012). "Can Zynga Execute In The Online Gambling Space?". Blog Post. Seeking Alpha. Archived from the original on 13 February 2013. Retrieved 4 February 2013.
  10. ^ Pepitone, Julianne (1 July 2011). "Zynga files for $1 billion IPO". CNNMoney. Archived from the original on 15 December 2012. Retrieved 4 February 2013.
  11. ^ Primack, Dan (22 January 2019). "Zynga founder Mark Pincus is raising $700 million for a new investment fund". Axios. Retrieved 2021-03-14.
  12. ^ "A New Spin on SPACs". The New York Times. 2020-09-18. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2021-03-14.
  13. ^ "Zynga and the Launch of Farmville". Stanford Graduate School of Business. Retrieved 2021-03-14.