Comment by ilamont | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ilamont | Hacker News Reader

This is a self-serving opportunity for Mark Pincus to look like the good guy, after years of acting like a tyrant when he was in charge of Zynga. I'm not just talking about pushing games designed to exploit users in various ways. Remember the incident where Pincus "demanded certain employees surrender some shares or be fired"? (1) He also laid off more than 500 people earlier this year,(2) managed problems by "address(ing) the symptoms rather than the root causes"(3) and padded his own nest while loyal investors who stuck with Zynga stock got roasted.(4)

Appearing in a photo opp with Obama and saying "free Snowden" is a low risk way for him to improve his image among his peers (rich Silicon Valley people) and the public.

1. http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1000142405297020462190...

2. http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/gaming/2013/06/03/zynga-l...

3. http://www.fastcompany.com/3007544/where-are-they-now/mark-p...

4. http://www.forbes.com/sites/ryanmac/2013/07/01/the-fall-of-m...

In Sarajevo Blues, Semezdin Mehmedinović writes about seeing Radovan Karadžić on television, stirring up genocidal sentiment with vicious lies. Mehmedinović angrily grabs his son's copy of Karadžić's poetry book for children and begins ripping it apart. The son cries, and Mehmedinović tapes the book back together and returns it.

People are more complex than 'bad guy' or 'good guy' despite our attempts to canonize them one way or the other (Jobs, Churchill, Lincoln, JFK.) Sometimes the bad guy does the right thing, sometimes even for the right reason. That doesn't mean you have to let go of your criticisms.

Karadžić writing good poems does not make him more than a simple 'bad guy.' Being talented is not a good act.

It might not stop him from being a bad guy but it definitely stops him from being simply a bad guy.

You missed the point of the story, which had to do with accepting a good thing that stemmed from a bad person. The good thing isn't even necessarily the book itself, but the enjoyment it gave Mehmedinović's son. Writing a decently written book for children is a good act and more than a manifestation of talent.

I'm definitely not saying it's a redeeming act, and I'm not saying that Karadžić is some kind of flawed hero. He is a bad guy, regardless of how much he loves his grandchildren.

But, is he particularly exceptional in his evil? All it takes to nurture his kind of evil is to consider a group of people as something less than human, a 'them' less important than 'us.' This kind of belief is prevalent everywhere; it is nearly innate.

There's a big fat line between being a dick of a manager (it's not illegal to say "surrender shares or be fired", simply asshole-tinted capitalism) and imprisoning someone for life for performing a heroic act (involving sacrificing his own personal freedom) to uphold some of the most important ideals of our society.

Please learn the difference between "asshole" and "evil".

You can be a stark raging asshole (e.g. Pincus, or weev) and still not be criminal, such as the activities of Obama, the DNI, and the NSA.

By that rationale, it's also not illegal to enforce an unfair but legally valid statute.

Nope, just evil.

Which is precisely my point.

Just because something is legal, doesn't mean that it's right.

>it's...not illegal to enforce [a]...legally valid statute

Tautologically, yes

Your big fat line may be legality, but it's not safe to assume that other people's moral judgements consider legality in any way.

>Please learn the difference between "asshole" and "evil".

>You can be a stark raging asshole (e.g. Pincus, or weev) and still not be criminal, such as the activities of Obama, the DNI, and the NSA.

I'm not sure how you can more clearly equivocate between "evil" and "criminal," and it's telling that the post you are responding to has absolutely no mention of legality. It's just something that you introduced in order to equivocate.

You're right; It's implicit that I think there is an understanding among reasonable people that "criminal" means "acting outside of your rights".

The US has no right to persecute Snowden, or to spy indiscriminately.

Pincus has every right to do basically whatever he wants as CEO that doesn't infringe upon anyone else's rights. (And no, nobody has a right to a job or future vesting predicated on that job.)

I think the average man on the google shuttle bus or any SV employee would consider "surrender shares or be fired" to be evil.

Ah so some silver lake employees are on HN then (initially i was dv'ed)

And it's exactly that that I suggest they learn not to do. It's a dick move, but it's not evil or criminal. It's within the rights of the person doing it, distasteful as it may be.

In my book its breach of contract between the employer and employee and that is illegal.

No, that's breach of contract. It has nothing to do with criminal law or legality.

You seem to be conflating civil and criminal law.

(Also, there is no employment contract in the world that gives up at-will, so ", or be fired" sentences aren't even breaches generally.)

The Weev actually is a criminal, it just so happens that the act that finally sent him to prison shouldn't have.

Personally, I'd argue that anyone who tries to incite people to rape women has crossed the boundary between simply being an asshole, and becoming evil.

https://twitter.com/rabite/status/414162384350367744

Clearly the fact that I incorrectly capitalized the first letter of someone's pretend internet name is an accurate way to assess my character. I honestly don't know how I will go on.

When you pay someone in shares instead of commensurate wages because you want employees to bank on your future success, then yank the shares when there is future success...I consider this to be real damage. He basically robbed those workers of their fair reward. Yeah it's not killing people, but it's still very wrong.

Let me introduce you to my friend Andrew Carnegie, raging asshole & builder of amongst other things the world's largest free public library system, or my other friend Howard Hughes, raging asshole and founder of one of the world's largest medical charities, or my other friend Werner von Braun, responsible both for massive civilian casualties and also bootstrapping human exploration of space.

Oh what a piece of work is man, to be able to do both good and bad things.

Agreed. You could fill out that list with many more names.

But what has Pincus done, beyond appearing in a photo opp and asking Obama to do something that others have already demanded?

Pincus sat down with the most powerful man on earth and told him to his face that he should pardon the whisteleblower who has most embarrassed him. That takes real guts, no matter what else he's done.

It could be argued that Keith Alexander is more powerful than Obama these days - but your point stands.

> He also laid off more than 500 people earlier this year

His company is tanking iirc, so I don't think he can be lambasted for that. You can't live in startup-growth-mode of ignoring the balance sheet forever.

If someone is doing seemingly morally correct thing with a self serving intention, he still takes the credit.

He can try to take credit all he wants, it's up to the rest of us if it means anything.

> This is a self-serving opportunity for Mark Pincus to look like the good guy

So what if it is? Who's to say that Bill Gates isn't just spending all the money he's spending on charity to "look like" the good guy? If somebody does the right thing, that's enough. If they do it enough times, that makes them a "good person".

If they also happen to look good in the process, who cares?

Judge the action, not the motive.

This is rank cynicism. You are trashing his motives without any evidence whatsoever. And no, evidence that he is a bad manager is not evidence that he doesn't believe in what he says about Snowden.

I'm not sure having an unofficial company motto of "Be evil" is evidence of being a bad manager.

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