Zynga Releases New Game 'Greedville'

Imagine, if you can, you are a hard-working software developer who took a chance working for a start up company.

You take less pay in lieu of stock options, willing to bet your hard work will make the company successful. And it works. The company puts out several social networking games which go viral and suddenly the company is rolling in money and soon talk begins about going public.

You know you're set because you've kept your end of the deal and soon your sacrifice will pay off. Then the CEO arbitrarily begins demanding your invested options back or you'll be fired.

Sounds like a bad dream until you read the Wall Street Journal's account of Justin Scheck and Shayndi Raice discovering that our very own Zynga, with development offices near , is doing exactly that. What's worse is that Zynga is defending the practice calling it “meritocracy.”

Now when I was growing up, one of the most important lessons I learned was that a deal is a deal. You don't make a deal and then renege after you get your end because you've decided you're paying somebody too much.

What has happened to corporate responsibility? What is going on in American business when these kinds of actions are being tolerated? Just because we're in a bad economy and the job market is an employers market is no reason to begin abusing your employees.

Zynga's Chief Executive Mark Pincus reminds me of the Grinch who is trying to steal Christmas, except in a very bad way. What is it about these kinds of people who think it's a good idea to mess with people's finances?

I realize that he has a responsibility to the company to save money, but you don't do it by reneging on deals you make with your staff. Do you believe that once you do this that you're going to find anyone willing to work for you in the future?

If you follow through with this, Mr. Pincus, you will lose all your best talent. You won't be able to get more because they will no longer trust any deal you make and there will be a slow and steady departure of the rest of your employees because they will no longer have any confidence in anything you tell them. Your company will then fail and bankruptcy soon follows. I've seen it happen too many times to not see it here.

Mr. Pincus, you are the epitome of corporate greed. You promised those people stock options while you needed their help, but now that your company is successful, you want to steal their options back so that you can make more money when the company goes public. It's because of you and people like you that America is in the mess it's in now. Corporate greed threatens everything that is or was great about this country.