This article was published on October 5, 2012

Endurance agony: Zynga’s CEO’s fortune has fallen by $4 million a day since early market highs


Endurance agony: Zynga’s CEO’s fortune has fallen by $4 million a day since early market highs

Yesterday TNW brought you the math behind Zynga’s expensive write-down of its OMGPOP acquisition. However, while that was a painful exercise, the numbers we have for you today will hurt all the more.

They concern Mark Pincus, Zynga’s CEO and now former billionaire. Analysis by CNBC lays bare the facts:

  • Mark owns 94.5 million shares of Zynga stock.
  • When Zynga was trading for $14.50 a share, Mark was worth in excess of $1.3 billion.
  • However, at its current market price, Mark’s stock is now worth under $250 million.
  • According to CNBC, that $1 billion fall in Mark’s stock’s value averages to $4 million in daily losses, or, brace yourself, around $200,000 per hour.

Most of us don’t take in $200,000 a year. Mark has lost that hourly, for months. Given Zynga’s rough day of trading today, and its continued decline in after hour trading, Mr. Pincus’s net worth is only trending down.

I don’t write this to sensationalize the losses as a form of financial pornography; instead, this issue matters as the decline in the total market value of the CEO’s stock is a simple way to demonstrate the plight of the company’s employees and early public investors.

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Zynga’s market worth is now under the $2 billion mark. The company’s fortunes – including its recently lowered financial outlook – has caused a ripple effect to Facebook, the platform that the social gaming giant has long depended; if Zynga’s is making less money, then so too might Facebook earn less in fees and other game-related revenues.

The company is currently trading at under $3 per share.

Top Image Credit: Emmanuel Huybrechts

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