How Leaders Lead with David Novak · Oct 1, 2026 · 1h 9m · 60m saved
With Mark Pincus, founder and former CEO of Zynga
Mark Pincus built Zynga into FarmVille, Words With Friends and Zynga Poker on a gut feeling that adults wanted to play games on their phones, and four years later the company had more than a billion users.
Most founders chase the next new idea; Pincus says the instinct is almost always right and the idea built around it is almost always wrong, which is why he now runs every product through a framework he calls "proven, better, new" before he lets anyone build it.
"Your number one job as founder and CEO is to be right, not to be liked, not to even have this investor ever want to back you again." — Mark Pincus
Pincus has started five companies, taken two public, been named one of Fortune's worst CEOs in America, and sold Zynga for close to $14 billion — a number he told the host, on air, should have been bigger.
The full interview is covered here so you can skip it. 1 hour 9 minutes of audio, 9 minutes of reading.
Here are the 10 lessons that matter.
Key Takeaways
Adults need permission to play, and games that connect to real life earn it; most games are "empty calories"
The Zynga name came from his dog, misspelled on purpose so the trademark would clear
He tried for years to buy the correctly-spelled domain and couldn't; a rival company owned it
Scaling past 120 to 150 people broke his personality-driven management style and forced him to build real process
He hires for a "broken resume": people with a chip on their shoulder who know the answer but have never been listened to
Intellectual honesty is his top cultural value: the most junior person in the room wins if they have the right answer
At support.com, he overruled his entire staff and every investor on a product pivot, because a founder's job is to be right, not liked
His "proven, better, new" framework stops founders from failing for the wrong reasons by isolating what's actually new
Being named one of America's five worst CEOs, and watching the stock fall to $1.75, was freeing: nobody was paying attention anymore
He fired his own CFO's bid to become COO, then wrote an unusually honest investor letter about it: "I'm going to write the truth"
Zynga sold for close to $14 billion, which Pincus still calls underperforming for the opportunity the company had
1. Why He Only Plays Chess
The host opened by noting that the man who built some of the biggest games of the early internet now plays only chess.
Pincus says most video games are "empty calories" because they offer nothing back in real life
"I don't want this to feel like work. I want it to always feel like play." — Mark Pincus
He said chess is different because the skill it builds, reading an opponent, staying competitive, transfers directly to real relationships, including with his own daughter.
"A lot, the majority of video games don't offer you any value in your real life and they're empty calories." — Mark Pincus
