Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Mark Pincus Puts the Squeeze on His Investors
While Groupon’s Andrew Mason takes a drubbing, another CEO is apparently having a very good week. According to a document obtained by Bloomberg last week, the social games juggernaut Zynga has amended its stock structure to give its savvy founder and CEO Mark Pincus a stunning 70 times more voting power than people who buy the company’s shares in its eventual IPO. Bloomberg says Zynga’s board has already approved the new structure, which also gives the company’s current shareholders and pre-IPO investors seven votes per share. (Usually, if a company is going to establish separate voting rights, it is via a dual-stock structure that gives superior shares 10 votes per share, while inferior votes have one vote for share.) The company just needs the rest of its shareholders to agree to the new stock structure by tomorrow...
