Ex-Zynga Employees Tell All on Reddit

thanks for the link.. interesting answer here:

"Artists, you don't need a degree. You need talent.

Designers, you need experience and connections. Education helps, but experience is best.

Programmers, you need talent and the ability to prove your worth, socially. (Many lack skills in communication and social etiquette.) Education is great, but acceptability (within a team) is best.

Producers, you need exceptional communication and organizational talents. Education is good, but managerial talents are best."

Rings true across many industries.

To Zynga's credit, they had an honest layoff, with severance and a press release (so peoples' reputations don't get burned). Most tech startups hide a layoff in stack-ranking and so-called "performance improvement plans", which additionally humiliate people on the way out and are used as an excuse not to give severance.

I'm not a fan of Zynga-- their games are garbage, and the equity clawback was vicious-- but it sounds like they did the right thing here.