曾被美国某知名公司辞退的Mark Pincus现在自己创办了效益优越的社交游戏开发公司Zynga。该公司旗下的FarmVille、FrontierVille和Mafia Wars等多款社交游戏每月吸引了全球近2亿的游戏玩家。此次采访中，Pincus谈谈为什么企业文化对公司发展十分重要？为什么每个员工都要像企业家一样思考？

Mark Pincus

Kermit Pattison：Zynga在成立后三年内就发展成为拥有1000名员工的大型公司。也就是说在这期间您要多次选拔经理人才。那么您在招聘员工时主要注重哪些方面呢？

对于管理人才，我主要注重三种素质：

一，我希望我的员工可以成为一名企业家。尤其当公司扩大规模时，我很重视那些可以完成任务，并能巧妙解决问题的职员。经过一段时间的培养，这类人将会变得更机智。他们不仅可以管理他人，更重要的是他们能够完成任务，教导和锻炼其他员工。

第二，管理人才必须善于管理人和事，即要有较高的情商。我认为一个越有自知之明，越能诚恳面对自己的人就越能培养别人的这种品质。我们十分重视谦逊。我发现谦逊的管理人员往往更能就接受别人的意见和建议，也更有亲和力。

第三，领域专业知识。我们希望在网页用户体验和游戏用户体验中展现出激情和技术。我们很重视公司中那些可以和终端用户建立联系的人才。

选择能力的重要吗？

每周经理最重要的任务就是进行各种选择。我们总是有很多新的游戏点子，每个团队都将提出10个自己满意的主意，而经理就要从中选出2到3个进行深入开发。

其中只有一小部分功能可以真的和玩家产生共鸣，取得良好的结果。而如果我们同时开发多种功能，取得的收益反而会降低。另外，公司如果可以专注发展某一项功能，久而久之玩家也会对游戏有所期待，会对游戏的进一步开发产生信心。

不论公司规模如何，我们总是会有想法枯竭的时候。如果你问微软、谷歌或雅虎等大型公司，每个产品经理都会说自己思路枯竭，因此不论在那一行工作，经理还必须善于合理分配人力资源。

您提出“让每个员工都成为CEO”的理念十分出名。这句话是什么意思呢？

在我刚刚开始工作时，我曾经感到十分挫折。上司们在会议室做出各种决策，而我却不能参与其中。我觉得自己没有被重用。我希望打破这种惯例。我希望让那些真正了解功能或问题所在的人有机会参与到决策制定中。

很少有人接受过系统的管理培训。因此区分好坏经理的一种方式就是划定职责范围。人们如果清楚了解自己的认为目标，他们就越能高效的完成任务。

您说过自己曾经被一家美国知名公司辞退。早期的求职经历对您现在的公司管理有影响吗？

在我们公司，所有人都会写下自己的人生故事。而我的故事则说明了真正的企业家很难受聘于人，他们很多都是不轻易屈服于权势的离经叛道者。当时我认为企业家应该就是这种人。但现在我的想法改变了很多。我明白了其实不论公司规模大小人们都有机会成为企业家。现在，许多好公司都十分珍惜具有企业家特质的员工，并极力挽留和动员他们。在过去的15年中，我明白的最重要一件事就是：如果想创建一家集聚各色人才的公司，营造出一种积极的企业文化十分重要。公司的实力就在于能否充分发挥各色人才的能力。

您之前的上司对您的事业有没有产生什么影响？

我早年的求职经历中消极经历多过于积极经历，也许是因为我并没有努力去发掘那些积极经历。年轻的时候，我更脆弱也更叛逆。我曾工作的很多地方环境十分死板。

在最后5年里，我突然对管理产生了集大的兴趣。我有机会与Jeff Bezos等世界顶级的CEO坐下来面对面进行交流，我会问他们：您的行程是怎么安排的？您多久听取下属的直接汇报？他们单独汇报还是团队汇报？我在与John Doerr的交流中学到很多东西。我对现代知名公司的运作十分感兴趣。

您认为Zynga公司发展前景如何？

我总是会对新加入公司的员工说，如果对你而言来Zynga是种牺牲，例如要离开家人或放弃一些自己的喜好，那么你必须斟酌清楚。其实，当生命走到尽头，这家公司赚了多少钱或者值多少钱其实并不重要，重要的是你为世界的付出带给你的成就感。我希望开发与人们生活息息相关的产品。我知道很多人认为社交游戏是毫无疑义的傻瓜游戏，但我们却认为社交游戏的真正价值在于加强人们之间的联系。我希望开发一种网络财富。如果我们实现了这一目标，那么所有的人都将有机会加入其中。

Zynga公司的福利十分优渥——全额健康保险，无限期休假，免费供应餐点、现场按摩、针灸治疗、携带宠物上班等。向员工提供这些待遇的目的是？

首先是因为我们想要建立一个优秀的公司员工团体。但其中的餐点供应我并不认为算得上是福利。我自己一直都十分重视饮食，我很喜欢美味的健康食品。我知道很多风险投资公司为员工提供良好的饮食，我希望自己的团队也能享受同等的待遇。同时，我发现良好的饮食供应对生产效率也能产生重要影响。每天我们都会花时间寻找食物。你我们也经常吃到很多不好的食品。另外食物还有利于建造一个团体——供应足够的食物，公司各个部分的员工就有机会坐在一起，相互交流。

恭喜最近您喜添了一对双胞胎，现在您有时也会请假回家。您是否觉得现在Zynga没有您的监督一样可以运作良好呢？

是的。有趣的是，我个人生活的变化总是和公司和管理文化的发展进程能息息相关。当我在度蜜月的时候，我第一次发现了我的偶尔离岗能对公司管理起到积极的影响。那是个为期两周的蜜月旅行，也是我自创办公司后的第一个休假。那时我对我的员工说“放手干吧！”。当我回来时，他们已经聘请了25或30名新员工，并在MySpace上发布了Mafia Wars。我的离岗为其他员工的成长提供了空间。

现在，因为有了孩子我不得不将精力投注在家庭上。这为公司员工提供了发展机会。对于一名CEO而言，最艰难的事可能就是抵制住想自己解决问题的欲望。你曾身经百战，你也许是最有经验，最有资格去解决问题的人。但是这样一来却无法建立一个优秀的管理团队。将机会留给别人期待他们能解决问题十分艰难，但也十分值得。这样一来，整个团队的能力都可以有所提升。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译）

Mark Pincus was chased out of some of the best companies in America. Now he’s trying to build a better one. Pincus is the founder and CEO of Zynga, an online game company that attracts more than 200 million gameplayers per month for applications such as FarmVille, FrontierVille, and Mafia Wars. In this Q&A, Pincus talks about why a company’s strength comes from the inclusiveness of its culture, why everybody should think like an entrepreneur, and why you should quit whining about resources and start prioritizing ruthlessly.

Kermit Pattison: Zynga has grown to more than 1,000 people in three years and that means you have to delegate more to managers. What do you look for when you hire people?

Mark Pincus: In all managers, I’m looking for a combination of three attributes. One, I want to see that they can be an entrepreneur. Especially as your company gets bigger, you value people who can drive toward an outcome and are good at creative problem solving. They’re going to be resourceful and not just delegate and organize other people. They need to drive the outcome and train and teach people.

Secondly, they have to be a good manager of people and projects and that means they have to have a high EQ. The more you can be self-aware and honest about yourself, the more you can cultivate that in other people. We really value humility. I find that more humble managers are more open to people and ideas and are more approachable.

The third thing is domain expertise. We want to see some passion, skills, and chops in consumer products, specifically web user experience and game user experience. We really value people at all levels of the company who can come in and really connect with our end users.

How important is prioritization?

One of the most important things a manager can do on weekly basis is ruthlessly focus on prioritization. There’s never any lack of good ideas. Every team has 10 great ideas they’re really excited about. The problem is picking which of the 2 or 3 to focus on.

The lesson we get over and over again is a small number of features really connect with the users and get explosive results. You actually have diminishing returns with more features. When you’re picking the right features to go deep on, the user starts to have this trust and expectation that the next thing you bring out is going to be great.

No matter how big or how small your company is, you are always resource constrained. If you talk to Microsoft, or Google, or Yahoo–the biggest companies with the most engineers–every product manager will say they’re resource constrained. If they just could have twice the people, they could get everything done. No matter where you are, you have to be ruthless about how you’re using people.

Zynga is known for your philosophy of making everybody the CEO of something. What does that mean?

When I entered the workforce, I was frustrated. When you’re starting your career, somebody else is “The Man” or “The Woman.” They go into a room and make the decision, not you. You don’t feel empowered. I wanted to break through that. I wanted to push the ownership and decision making to the people who were closest to the features, problems, and opportunities and empower them to go for it, to take risks and make mistakes.

Not everybody has a lot of real management training. One way to get around strong or weak managers is clear lines of ownership. If you have clear goals and people know they own them, it makes up for a lot. No one likes to be given a list of tasks. You want to know what hill you’re supposed to take and the fun is figuring out how.

You once said you were kicked out of some of the best companies in America. How did your early career shape how you manage people today?

We all write these stories for ourselves. My story was great entrepreneurs aren’t employable and they’re iconoclasts and mavericks with no respect for authority. That characterized my early days as an entrepreneur. It kind of worked for me, but I think it was oversimplifying the world. My thinking has evolved. What I’ve learned since then is you can be an entrepreneur inside any size company. The best companies today value great entrepreneurs and work hard to retain them and motivate them. The big learning for me over the last 15 years is you want to create companies that a lot of kinds of people, personality types, and skill sets can thrive in. It’s more about creating a positive culture. The strength of your company is how wide a variety of people can be successful in it.

Have any former bosses been a formative influence in your career?

In my early career, there were more negative lessons than positive ones. But I don’t think I was looking for the positives enough. In my early career, I was more brash and anti-authority. I worked at some places that were very structured environments.

In the last five years, I’ve had a real hunger and curiosity about management. I’ve had the opportunity to interact with some world class CEOs like Jeff Bezos and sit down and ask him detailed questions: What does his calendar look like? How often does he meet with direct reports? Does he meet with them singly or as teams? I learned a lot interacting with John Doerr and the people at Google. I’m really interested in how great modern era companies are run.

What’s your vision for Zynga?

I say to people when they first join us, if you’re going to make the sacrifice and be away from your family and other fun things you can do, let’s make it count. At the end of the day, it’s not how much money the company made or what its worth. It’s your pride of what you put out in the world. I want us all to work on products that matter in people’s lives. I know social games have been called silly or meaningless, but we think the potential of social games is to enhance relationships. We want to build an Internet treasure. If we can do that, this will be a special place and opportunity for everyone who came to work here.

The perks at Zynga are very generous–full health benefits, unlimited vacation, free meals prepared by a culinary staff, massage onsite, acupuncture, bring dog to work day. What’s underlying goal?

We want to build a great community, first and foremost. The food program I don’t even think about as a perk. From early on, food was important to me. I really like great food and I really like healthy food. It bugged me that the VCs lived and ate better than the startups. I wanted my team to live and eat as well as the VCs we visit. I started to realize that from a productivity standpoint good food has a multiplier effect. You waste time trying to find food everyday. You feel crappy about a lot of the food you eat. There are positives about building community–food brings people together. If have enough good food in one place, it gives people from different parts of the company reason to sit down together.

We know people are working a lot. We put in late nights and weekends. We just wanted to do everything we could to make other parts of their lives easier. Dry cleaning or having a dentist come to the office–it just started with me wanting to help out the engineers.

You and your wife recently had twins and you’re taking some time off. Is your company at a point where you can turn your back and be confident things will be operating well without you?

Oh yeah. It’s interesting how the growth of the company and management culture has dovetailed with my personal life. The first time the company really hit a positive inflection point from a management point of view was when I went on my honeymoon. We went on a two week honeymoon and that was the first vacation I had taken since starting the company. I checked out and said to the team, “go for it.” I came back and they had hired 25 or 30 people and had launched Mafia Wars on MySpace. It gave other people room to grow and a bunch of people leveled up.

Now with the babies I had to step back again. It creates more space for everyone else to step in and figure out things on their own. One of the hardest things as a CEO is resisting the desire to solve problems. So many of the problems you face feel strategic and are strategic to delivering your outcome. You’re probably the most experienced person. You’ve been solving those problems so you’re the most qualified person to come in and do it. But then you don’t build up those management muscles. It’s hard, but it’s rewarding when you do take the chance and bet on other people to solve it. The whole organization levels up. （Source：Fastcompany）