What is Zynga Anyway?
Zynga was founded in July 2007 with the vision of connecting the world through games. Since then we’ve dedicated ourselves to making fun and social games for people to play with their friends and have become the largest developer of social games on the web in the process. Zynga games provide a platform for players to express themselves and form deep social connections with their friends. With a catalogue that ranges from casino games to role playing games, our games can be found on most social networks, and on the iPhone. Follow us on Twitter http://www.twitter.com/zynga too!
Zynga was named after Zinga, Mark’s 13-year old American Bulldog who sadly passed away in late 2008. Zinga’s name came from Enzinga, the Swahili name for an African Warrior Princess
Questions about game and billing
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Where The Money Come From
Bing Gordon
Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers
KPCB is a venture capital firm passionately committed to helping its portfolio companies, including Google and Amazon, succeed. Bing was a pioneer at Electronic Arts, where he served as Creative Officer until 2008. He is widely regarded as one of the founding fathers of the video game industry. Bing and Mark do some of their best thinking together on bike rides in Marin. Long, slow bike rides.
Brad Feld
Foundry Group
Foundry Group is an early-stage venture capital fund focused on making investments in the information technology sector. Brad and Mark first met while Brad was a partner at Softbank, Brad is a cool guy who likes to attend board meetings in loud t-shirts. Brad is a prolific blogger and reader (according to his blog).
Fred Wilson
Union Square Ventures
Union Square Ventures is an early stage venture capital fund located in New York City. Fred convinced Mark to become an entrepreneur in 1995 and then backed his first company, FreeLoader. Fred spends most of his time checking out new bands and then blogging about them but manages to make a few investments in between.
Reid Hoffman, Chairman
Reid is a prolific Web 2.0 investor who has built LinkedIn into the leading professional networking site with 17 million active monthly users. Mark and Reid have worked together since co-investing in Friendster in 2003.
Sandy Miller
Institutional Venture Partners
IVP is one of the premier later-stage investment firms in the United States. Sandy was recognized by Forbes Magazine as one of the leading venture investors in the U.S. by inclusion in the 2007 and 2008 Midas List. We believe he will bring that touch to Zynga!
Rich Levandov
Avalon Ventures
Avalon Ventures is a San Diego-based venture capital fund focusing on seed and early stage companies in the wireless technology and life science industries. Rich and Mark first met in 1995, when Mark tried unsucessfully to recruit Rich from AOL to FreeLoader (could you blame Rich for staying?).
Peter Thiel, Managing Partner
Clarium Capital
Peter is a super smart guy who runs a large and growing macro hedge fund. He led the original Series A investment in Facebook and is a board member today.
Bob Pittman and Andy Russell
The Pilot Group
Bob is a cool guy who built MTV and has run major consumer franchises like Century 21 and AOL. He is also a pilot who flew himself to Burning Man in a helicopter last summer.
Who's Leading the Charge?
Mark Pincus
Founder and CEO
Weighing in at 150 lbs, is Mark Pincus, frenetic visionary of Zynga. His DNA is one strand entrepreneur and one strand competitive gamer. Mark founded Tribe.net (www.tribe.net), one of the first social networks in 2003. Prior to Tribe, he was the founder and CEO of SupportSoft (Nasdaq: SPRT), the world's leading provider of support automation software. Prior to SupportSoft, Mark co-founded Freeloader, the first consumer push information service.
Favorite game: Texas Hold'em, of course!
Scott Dale
VP of Engineering
Scott is the prettiest member of the Engineering team, yet he still has fewer Facebook friends than patents (6). Scott co-founded Houseglue in 2006. Prior to Houseglue, Scott co-founded SupportSoft with Mark and Cadir Lee (Nasdaq: SPRT) and spent eight years serving as both vice president of engineering and chief technology officer. Scott has also worked for Hewlett-Packard and Apple Computer. He earned a B.S. in Computer Science from Stanford University.
Favorite games: Texas Hold'em
Robert Goldberg
SVP of Business Operations
Robert Goldberg is Zynga’s senior VP of Business Operations, which includes revenue management, sales, marketing, business and corporate development, partner management and studio services. He brings over 25 years of senior management experience at industry leading media, e-commerce, enterprise software companies and venture capital firms, including Idealab and NBCi.
Michael Luxton
Co-Founder and CTO
Michael is such a hardworking, big-thinking technologist that it prompts questions about whether he’s human or simply an enormous brain. Smart money says the answer is somewhere in between. He’s responsible for overall technology and platform strategy. Prior to Zynga, he designed and built the core systems for eUniverse and developed web caching and filesystem/kernel technology at Network Appliance. He studied music, math, and physics at UC Santa Cruz and enjoys playing the violin and piano.
Favorite games: Mafia Wars
Vish Makhijani
SVP of Casual and Mobility Divisions
Vish Makhijani is Senior Vice President of Zynga’s Casual and Mobility Divisions. Makhijani was previously CEO of Yandex, a Russian search company, and prior to that had a long career with Yahoo!, with his last position as senior vice president, Yahoo! Search. He is helping Zynga capitalize on their web and social networking opportunities with his deep knowledge and wealth of experience.
Colleen McCreary
VP, Chief People Officer
As Zynga’s Chief People Officer, Colleen is helping the company make sure that the Zynga family maintains close ties. Previously, she spent five years at Electronic Arts (EA), where she was global corporate human resources director as well as the head of university relations, community relations, and diversity, and worked with EA’s studios around the world. Prior to EA, McCreary spent several years at Microsoft in a number of different roles. She has built university curriculums all over the world on games in computer science and is a lovely mother of one.
Eric Schiermeyer
Co-Founder and SVP of Product
Eric is a life-long gamer who started out playing Atari and Intellivision games. Prior to launching Zynga, he co-founded 3 successful start-ups including Intermix Media. Eric studied philosophy and economics at U.C. Santa Cruz and maintains an interest in world religions, philosophy, martial arts and yoga. He currently lives in the Bay Area with his wife and two children, ages 3 and 5.
Favorite games: Scramble
Steve Schoettler
Member of Founding Team and VP of Platform
Steve is a member of founding team of Zynga, and as VP of Platform, is responsible for security, payments, risk management, and platform services. Steve likes to solve hard problems. He's not a gamer, but knows how to build secure, high-performance internet services that support millions of users. Steve held senior engineering and management positions at several pioneering startups including GO, General Magic, and Kontiki. He earned a B.S. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences from UC Berkeley. Go Bears!
Marcus Segal
VP of Operations
As Zynga’s Vice President of Operations, Marcus oversees the company’s shared services. Prior to joining Zynga, Marcus served as the vice president of operations and acting CFO for Vindicia Inc., a technology company focused on providing advanced billing and risk solutions for digital merchants. Prior to Vindicia, he was VP of operations at eMusic.com, seeing them through their acquisition by Universal Music Group in 2003. Before starting his career in technology, Marcus worked in TV and film, as the executive in charge of production for The Documedia Group, producing the Emmy Award nominated series Sworn to Secrecy for The History Channel and as a pyrotechnician on one of the world’s true film classics, Beastmaster 3.
Kyle Stewart
VP of Virtual Worlds Studio
Mike Verdu
VP of Game Development
As VP of Game Development, Mike is helping Zynga with scalable production – which simply means finding new ways to make great games. Mike has been in game development for over 18 years, serving in a variety of roles ranging from game designer to team leader, producer, studio head, general manager, and CEO. Most recently, he was VP and General Manager of Electronic Arts Los Angeles, where he oversaw major franchises like Command & Conquer, Medal of Honor, and The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth. Mike has credits on games that have sold more than 20 million units in aggregate.
Mark Vranesh
CFO
Mark Vranesh was named Chief Financial Officer of Zynga in May 2008. Prior to that Mr. Vranesh served as Vice President, Finance & Administration of Fortinet, Inc. from April 2006 to May 2008 and served as Vice President of Finance and later, General Manager, for SupportSoft, Inc. from 2000 to 2006. Mr. Vranesh is a CPA with over 15 years of financial and business experience in the software, entertainment and related technology industries. Mark also spent 8 years with Ernst & Young LLP’s high tech practice, most recently as an Audit Senior Manager and earned a degree in Business from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo in 1990.
Favorite games: YoVille
Justin Waldron
VP of Virtual Worlds Studio
Justin has been programming and designing websites/games in some form or another since middle school. He parted ways with college in 2007 to co-found Zynga. Today, he partners with Kyle Stewart to run the Virtual World studio which includes the franchise YoVille. Someday, Justin aspires to have a college degree.
Zinga Zoo
Chief Animal Officer (1995 - 2008)
Zinga was Mark's 13-year old American Bulldog and the inspiration for the name and logo of the company. She was on her fourth startup and sadly passed away in late 2008.
Zynga was named after Zinga – the meaning coming from Enzinga, the Swahili name for an African Warrior Princess