This isn't "borrowing". This is IP theft. And these aren't "ideas" these are full blown products.
"Ideas are cheap, it's the implementation that really matters."
The games that Zynga copies were not "ideas" they were IP. And Zynga wasn't inspired by them. Zynga flat out, straight up, cloned them.
When you work your ass off, sacrifice time with your family, your savings, and invest it into building a profitable flash game online, iterating week after week until you get the formula just right. Only to have a bully come by and clone it. That my friend, is NOT borrowing. That's NOT implementing an idea differently. That is theft. Those are unfair business practices.
People like me are angry at Pincus because his method, if it becomes popular, could completely fuck up the startup ecosystem.
What if ALL of silicon valley starting acting like Pincus? Instead of acquiring sites and IP fairly, they simply cloned them. What if Google simply cloned YouTube div for div, color for color, feature for feature? What if Amazon cloned the technology used in Kiva's robotic logistics system instead of acquiring the company? What if Microsoft cloned skype and its algorithms instead of acquiring it? This isn't Github where you can fork someone else's work. These are companies that people put their lives and savings accounts into.
Here's how it works:
1: Crazy young entrepreneurs risk everything to find a new profitable business or build a new product. Because they're small they can easily pivot and reiterate day after day and evolve their product/solution/business faster than a big company.
2: They find something that works, VCs jump on board to grow the business/product/service and the crazy young entrepreneurs who worked their asses off expand their business/service/product.
3: Big players like Microsoft, Apple, Google, Facebook, Amazon can use their muscle and dollars to acquire the startup and assimilate it into itself and offer this unique new service/business/product to their established customers. Thus benefiting the entrepreneurs who try new things, the investors who help grow new things, the big players with lots of established customers, and the end users. So many people benefit from this ecosystem.
What Zynga does is dangerous. It basically gives the little guy the finger, steals their hard earned IP and doesn't give anything back. This is what makes it despicable. Most entrepreneurs keep their voice down about it because they don't want to look like angry disgruntled losers who are envious of a successful entrepreneur. But if you don't call it out and say anything about it and on top of that give Pincus a CEO of the year award... That hurts all of us.
On top of all this, Zynga sees nothing wrong with what it does. Again, if they were open about the whole thing they'd be seen in a slightly better light. Still unethical copycats that hurt an ecosystem but at least honest about it. If they did the right thing and properly acquired the games they clone, we'd all be cheering Pincus on.