Eagerly looking forward to the explanation for this weird juxtaposition.<p><a href="http://i.imgur.com/huUv09m.png" rel="nofollow">http://i.imgur.com/huUv09m.png</a>
Schadenzyngafreude: The good, but somewhat guilty feeling of pleasure in being right about an overhyped venture in what everyone knows is a rotten market segment.
Did Zynga lay off 15% of its workforce to recoup the $527M investment it made in NaturalMotion? See <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7153395" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7153395</a><p>This article says they'll take a $17M charge this year on the lay off and then save about $33M/year. Discounted at 6% per annum that works out to $533M. See <a href="http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=-17+%2B+Sum%5B33%2F1.06%5En%2C%7Bn%2C1%2Cinf%7D%5D" rel="nofollow">http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=-17+%2B+Sum%5B33%2F1.06...</a><p>The other article says Zynga has "about $1.2 billion in cash and marketable securities on hand." But a dailyfinance article suggests companies aren't really as cash rich as they seem; their money is locked up in offshore tax havens; they can't repatriate it without paying tax on it: <a href="http://www.dailyfinance.com/2011/07/25/why-are-rich-companies-laying-off-poor-workers/" rel="nofollow">http://www.dailyfinance.com/2011/07/25/why-are-rich-companie...</a>
Could it be that some of the people who are a part of NaturalMotion are redundant, so they chose to keep the NaturalMotion employees rather than the Zynga employees? I'm not defending them or laying off employees, but there could be more to it than what we are actually seeing here.
Firing people is a natural part of doing business. Decision should be judged (morally) on the margin. If I fire 100 people, I haven't resulted in 100 people never being able to work again, I have simply shifted them to their next-best option.
Just got word from a friend that the entire Zynga Seattle office is being closed. :(<p><a href="http://www.geekwire.com/2014/zynga-closes-seattle-office/" rel="nofollow">http://www.geekwire.com/2014/zynga-closes-seattle-office/</a>
Am I the only one that thinks 15% could be too low? Unless they are rapidly investing in new games, it seems like they're on a "Milk what you have, and buy what you don't" strategy.
No matter how you rationalize this, it's still a loss of 1500 jobs - their replacements financed by the very profit those employees helped generate.