Pincus: Founders who compromise build companies they no longer want to run
Mark Pincus · You Don’t Need To Innovate To Be Successful | FarmVille Creator · Jun 2, 2026 · at 40:28
Mark Pincus, founder of Zynga, reflects on the pitfalls founders face when raising venture capital and compromising on board members and culture.
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“Know your goal or suffer a death by a thousand compromises, because what I had done my whole career, and most of us do, is compromise to get that next You're an engineer, CTO, investor. You put a jerk on your board because you're impressed with their firm name, and the valuation, and all your friends are gonna be impressed, and it's gonna be so much easier. We make all these compromises and contort ourselves, and eventually we wake up, and it's a company we don't want to work at.”
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