Mark Pincus

Before he became an entrepreneur, Pincus worked in venture capital and financial services for six years. After graduating from Wharton, Pincus spent two years working as an analyst in the New Media Group at Lazard Freres & Co.[24][25] After that time, he moved to Hong Kong, where he served as a Vice President for Asian Capital Partners for two years.[26][27]

He returned to the United States in order to attend Harvard Business School (HBS) where he was a contemporary of Chris Hohn, Guy Spier[28] and Chris Shumway.[29] He graduated in 1993[30] and also spent a summer as an associate for Bain & Co. in 1992.[31]

After Pincus graduated from Harvard Business School, he took a job as a manager of corporate development at Tele-Communications, Inc., which is now AT&T Cable.[32] A year later, he joined Columbia Capital as Vice President, where he led investments in new media and software startups in Washington, D.C. for a year.[33][29]

In 1995, Pincus founded his first startup, Freeloader, Inc.[34] Freeloader was backed by Fred Wilson and Softbank.[35] The company was acquired seven months after its launch by Individual, Inc., for $38 million.[36][27] Sean Parker worked as a summer intern at Freeloader when he was 14 years old. He later went on to co-found Napster, and Pincus became Napster’s first investor with an investment of $100,000.[37][38]

He then started his second company, Support.com, in August 1997. As Chairman and CEO, Pincus built the company into a leading provider of help desk automation software. The company went public in July 2000 at a $1.5 billion valuation.[39] In 2002, the company changed its name from Support.com to SupportSoft, Inc.[40]

In 2003, at age 37, Pincus founded his third startup, Tribe.net, an early social network.[41] Tribe.net partnered with major local newspapers and was backed by The Washington Post, Knight Ridder Digital, and Mayfield Fund and Guy Spier,. In 2007, Cisco Systems acquired the core technology of Tribe.net to develop a social networking platform for its digital media services group.[42]

In 2003, Pincus and Reid Hoffman purchased the Six Degrees patent, a broad, sweeping patent that describes a social network service that is the heart of social networks from the extinct Sixdegrees.com company for $700,000.[43][44] Pincus and Hoffman stated at the time that their objective in buying the patent was to protect innovation in social networking and to prevent large companies from interfering with this. Pincus and Hoffman have never enforced the patent.[45]

Pincus was a founding investor in Napster, Facebook, Friendster, Snapchat, Xiaomi and Twitter.[46][47] He was also an early investor in JD.com,[48] Brightmail (later acquired by Symantec for $400m),[49] and Buddy Media (acquired by Salesforce for $800m).[50] In 2015, Pincus invested in the nootropics company HVMN (formerly Nootrobox),[51][52][53] man-made diamond company Diamond Foundry,[54] and in 2014 automated investment service firm Wealthfront,[55] among others.[56]

In July 2007 Pincus founded his fourth company, Zynga Inc.[57][58][59][60] Zynga developed games on top of social networks such as Facebook, Myspace, and Bebo.

In 2011, Pincus took the company public with a $1 billion IPO.[61] Pincus served as CEO of the company from 2007 to 2013.[62] On July 1, 2013, Zynga recruited Don Mattrick, the former president of Interactive Entertainment Business at Microsoft, was to succeed Pincus as CEO.[63] Pincus remained actively involved in the company as Chairman of the Board and Chief Product Officer,[64] but stepped down from his role as chief product officer to focus on his role as chairman of the board, the company announced in April 2014.[2]

Pincus returned to the role of CEO of Zynga in April 2015.[65] On March 7, 2016, Pincus stepped down as CEO, but continued his association with Zynga as Executive Chairman of the Board with Frank Gibeau in the role of CEO.[66] Though Pincus remains non-executive chairman, a change in stock structure and a voluntary conversion of shares in the company to a different share class reduced his voting rights from 70% to 10% in 2018.[67] His decision to cede control was due to a “vote of confidence in Zynga’s current leadership.”[68][69]

In 2014 Pincus started Superlabs, an incubator to fund startups. Zynga acquired Superlabs in 2015.[70][71]

In 2017, Pincus, alongside Reid Hoffman and Adam Werbach, launched Win the Future, a movement within the Democratic Party.[72][73]

Pincus is a member of the board of the Presidio Trust, a federal agency that operates and maintains the Presidio as part of the Golden Gate Recreation Area.[74] He was appointed to the board by President Obama in 2017.[75]

In October 2009, Pincus started Zynga.org, which is "committed to transforming the world through virtual social goods."[76] Zynga.org has since raised more than $20 million[77] for more than 50 international nonprofits[78][79] by occasionally selling virtual goods for charitable causes.[80] During his time at Zynga Pincus created features for several gaming sites that allowed players to donate to the San Francisco Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA); two organizations in Haiti, FATEM and Fonkoze, raising $427,000 in less than three weeks in October 2009. In January 2010 Zynga.org had raised $1.5 million in five days for Haiti Earthquake relief. The money was distributed within just two days.[81] The total Zynga.org raised during 2010 for earthquake relief in Haiti was $3 million. In 2011 they raised an additional $2 million for rescue efforts in Japan after the earthquake and tsunami that devastated the country.[82]

On March 11, 2011, Zynga announced that 100 percent of the proceeds from the purchase of virtual goods from more than seven of its games would go toward Japan's Save the Children Earthquake Emergency Fund.[83][84] During the 2012 holiday season, Zynga.org partnered with Toys for Tots in its largest charitable campaign not related to disaster relief. The campaign raised $745,000, with 100 percent of the purchase price of certain virtual goods going to Toys for Tots.[77]

In 2014, Zynga raised $1 million for Water.org, a Kansas City, Missouri-based charity that funds clean water projects in developing countries.[85]

Zynga announced in June 2020 that they created a $25 million fund to invest in charitable causes and educational organizations that promote diversity and inclusion.[86][87]

In May 2020, Pincus donated $700,000 to the Oakland Unified School District and City of Oakland to help meet their $12.5 million goal towards eliminating the prevalent digital gap that exists in Oakland.[88][89][90]

In February 2020, Pincus donated $3 million to Roden Crater, a large scale Land artwork by James Turrell within a dormant volcano in the Painted Desert region of Northern Arizona. The contributions bring the project closer to completion which the artist hopes to open within the next five years.[91]

In April 2020, Pincus, Finnish entrepreneur Jyri Engeström and biotech executive Cyrus Harmon, organized and financed community-wide COVID-19 testing in their hometown of Bolinas, California.  It was one of the first cases of community-wide testing in the US.[92] Through their efforts Bolinas was able to test every one of its 1,600 residents for COVID-19 for free. Pincus donated the first $100,000 for the initiative, since it was not covered by government funds.[93]

Pincus donated over $100,000 to Canal Alliance in June of 2020. Canal Alliance works to provide relief from COVID-19 to families in need.[94]

In 2020, Pincus, along with many other Silicon Valley tech billionaires, gave the legal maximum dollar amount to support Joe Biden’s presidential campaign.[95] Pincus is a longtime supporter of Kamala Harris, whom he believes is qualified to navigate the relationship between Washington D.C. and Silicon Valley. Pincus co-hosted a fundraiser for her campaign in 2016 and has since publicly backed Biden’s presidential campaign alongside Harris.[96]