Mark Pincus
Founder and former CEO of Zynga, the social-games company behind FarmVille, Zynga Poker and Words with Friends; says he founded ten companies in all, and wrote Life at the Speed of Play.
Mark Pincus did not write this page. What is this?
It collects the places they publish and what they have said there, each linked to the source. They have no account here. Is this you? Claim it, correct it, or ask us to remove it from ppll.
Where they publish
Site lifeatthespeedofplay.com His book's site, and what markpincus.com now points at.
The site for Life at the Speed of Play, his book on launching products people love. It doubles as his front door: markpincus.com redirects here, and it is where the X account is linked from.
Link verified 8 Sept 2026.
Beliefs
Korrents What they believe 38 beliefs — each backed by an exact quote.
Each is a — compiled by korrents.com, not by them: the one-line wordings are korrents', the quotes are theirs.
Recent
A founder's gut instincts are almost always right and the ideas built on top of them are usually wrong, so the work is to isolate the instinct and test many ideas around it.
we have these instincts like in our gut, these human level instincts that are pretty much always right. And then we put these ideas on top of the instincts that are usually wrong. And my rule of thumb is your instincts are right 95% of the time.
The hidden pattern behind successful products | Mark Pincus (FarmVille, Words with Friends, & more) Said 14 Jun 2026
A team has not earned the right to innovate on a product until it is the world's leading expert on the best versions of that product that already exist.
And I like to say we we don't we haven't earned the right to innovate on the camera until we are the world's leading PhD on the best mobile cameras that already exist.
The hidden pattern behind successful products | Mark Pincus (FarmVille, Words with Friends, & more) Said 14 Jun 2026
The genuinely new idea in a product will probably fail; its job is to give people a reason to try the product at all.
And we have to accept that that new idea is probably going to fail. It's a reason to try it for people, but it's probably going to fail.
The hidden pattern behind successful products | Mark Pincus (FarmVille, Words with Friends, & more) Said 14 Jun 2026
Show 35 more
The taboo against copying is a moral one, which is exactly what makes copying an arbitrage available to founders with less ego invested.
in the Peter Teal sense it's almost a moral arbitrage because there's something in our gut as a product you you became a founder an entrepreneur because you wanted to go be an innovator and so it can feel like a beatdown that your path to innovation starts with copying other people's work
The hidden pattern behind successful products | Mark Pincus (FarmVille, Words with Friends, & more) Said 14 Jun 2026
Ambition should be measured in the eyes of your customer rather than your peers, which means being willing to take the best ideas wherever you find them.
if you're truly ambitious, burn your resume. If you and if you define your ambition in the eyes of your consumer, not your peers, you're not trying to win awards and respect from your peers.
The hidden pattern behind successful products | Mark Pincus (FarmVille, Words with Friends, & more) Said 14 Jun 2026
Taking something a person already loves and making it one inch better wins more of them than showing them something they have never seen and did not know they wanted.
But if you took something that she loves and you make it one inch better, she might love that more than if you showed her something she's never seen before and didn't wake up knowing that she wanted.
The hidden pattern behind successful products | Mark Pincus (FarmVille, Words with Friends, & more) Said 14 Jun 2026
People feel ownership of the products they use every day and are angry when those products change, even when the change is an improvement.
we feel this sense of ownership of products that we rely on every day. And we're angry when they change. Even if they change for the better, we're like angry because we go through life faster because of pattern recognition.
The hidden pattern behind successful products | Mark Pincus (FarmVille, Words with Friends, & more) Said 14 Jun 2026
Being too ambitious and visionary at the outset is how founders miss product-market fit, because it stops them starting somewhere small and humble enough.
if if we're if we're too ambitious and we're at the outset and too ambitious and visionary about the product we want to build, then we will probably miss product market fit because we won't start at a small enough humble enough place
The hidden pattern behind successful products | Mark Pincus (FarmVille, Words with Friends, & more) Said 14 Jun 2026
A first-time founder has an advantage over a repeat winner, because past success makes it too easy to raise money and hire against a big vision before there is product-market fit.
it almost gives a new founder an advantage over a multi-time successful founder because we have too much rope to hang ourselves. It's too easy to raise money and recruit teams against a big vision before we've gotten to product market fit.
The hidden pattern behind successful products | Mark Pincus (FarmVille, Words with Friends, & more) Said 14 Jun 2026
Hope is confidence without basis, and a team running on hope rather than belief keeps shipping releases while waiting for something magical to happen.
there's a difference between belief and hope. Hope is confidence without basis. Hope is just, you know, it's it's a prayer, but it's but it's it's not it's not founded in anything that your your lived experience.
The hidden pattern behind successful products | Mark Pincus (FarmVille, Words with Friends, & more) Said 14 Jun 2026
The word to kill in "minimum viable product" is viable, because viability is where hope comes from — aim at a maximum launchable product instead.
Minimum viable. that the viable is the the word we got to kill along with hope because viable is where hope comes from, right? If it's viable, it might make it, right?
The hidden pattern behind successful products | Mark Pincus (FarmVille, Words with Friends, & more) Said 14 Jun 2026
AI should be used as a failure machine that tests many ideas cheaply, not as a way to build one idea faster.
the way we should be using AI is as a testing machine, a failure machine, and a way to vibe code, cloud code, but but build build the, you know, the the lowest possible cycled version of your product that you can get signal back on.
The hidden pattern behind successful products | Mark Pincus (FarmVille, Words with Friends, & more) Said 14 Jun 2026
If you are asking whether your product is an A, it is not an A — real signal never leaves you asking.
If you're asking whether or not your product is an A, it's not an A. And you're you're full of hope.
The hidden pattern behind successful products | Mark Pincus (FarmVille, Words with Friends, & more) Said 14 Jun 2026
The most valuable companies in the world are the ones with the highest day-365 retention, and a team can build against that number long before day 365 arrives.
I believe that the most valuable companies in the world, well, statistically this is true. They have the highest day 365 retention.
The hidden pattern behind successful products | Mark Pincus (FarmVille, Words with Friends, & more) Said 14 Jun 2026
A company that grows on virality rather than retention is a sinking speedboat, trying to drive faster than it takes on water.
I like to say viral-based companies, and there's been many, you know, be real, there's, right, we've seen these, they're sinking speedboats. They're trying to drive faster than they're sinking, right?
The hidden pattern behind successful products | Mark Pincus (FarmVille, Words with Friends, & more) Said 14 Jun 2026
There is enormous unmet demand for social, because the social products people already use have lost their adrenaline.
I believe that we have beyond a latent demand for social we are being social right online. We are on Snapchat and Instagram and and Tik Tok, but I believe it's it's lost the adrenaline.
The hidden pattern behind successful products | Mark Pincus (FarmVille, Words with Friends, & more) Said 14 Jun 2026
AI is an important technology but is not yet a platform, because nothing has been opened up for other apps, experiences and developers to be built on.
there there's a one question we got to back up and really explore which is is AI a new platform and I would argue that it is not yet a new platform. It is an important technology.
The hidden pattern behind successful products | Mark Pincus (FarmVille, Words with Friends, & more) Said 14 Jun 2026
Distribution has to be part of the product and proven from the beginning; building and hoping people come is a hope strategy, not a belief strategy.
Distribution has to be part of your product and part of baked into the strategy deeply and and proven from the beginning. And if you're just building this product and hoping they will come, hoping it'll spread virally or word of mouth, you know, that's hope strategy, you know, not a belief strategy.
The hidden pattern behind successful products | Mark Pincus (FarmVille, Words with Friends, & more) Said 14 Jun 2026
The best product CEOs stay in the minutiae: micromanaging pixel-level details is not a failure of leadership but the job itself.
And I believe the best product CEOs are in the minutia of the details. you know, all the stories about Steve Jobs. I was so impressed when I heard that he insisted on picking out the carpeting in the conference rooms, you know, and and I tried to have that same mentality of micromanaging the really small pixel level details that matter.
The hidden pattern behind successful products | Mark Pincus (FarmVille, Words with Friends, & more) Said 14 Jun 2026
The number one job of a CEO is to be right — being in the right body of water matters more than having the right boat.
if if I got to pick one if I get to pick one thing that you do as CEO, I'm going to pick that you're right. So even if you don't, you know, even if you don't operate the ship or the factory that well, I'd rather that you picked the right product, the right strategy than you were phenomenal at execution or inspiring people or managing because, you know, being in the right body of water matters more than the right boat.
The hidden pattern behind successful products | Mark Pincus (FarmVille, Words with Friends, & more) Said 14 Jun 2026
Schools are still preparing children to become knowledge workers, and that game is over.
my kids are in this educational system that is trying to prep them to get into a good college and to be a knowledge worker and I know that game is over
The hidden pattern behind successful products | Mark Pincus (FarmVille, Words with Friends, & more) Said 14 Jun 2026
The greatest thing a product maker can build is an internet treasure — a service people cannot remember life before or imagine life without.
it's to build an internet treasure which is a service we can't remember life before or imagine life without. And I believe as product makers that that's the greatest ambition and the greatest thing that we can offer the world.
The hidden pattern behind successful products | Mark Pincus (FarmVille, Words with Friends, & more) Said 14 Jun 2026
A founder has to run on what if everything goes right; starting from what if everything goes wrong is playing defense and losing before the start.
And I don't know how you're going to get yourself there, but you've got to be in this place that you're thinking, you're also thinking, "What if everything goes right? What does right look like? How am I ready for everything going right?" If we're starting with what if everything goes wrong, you're playing defense and you've lost before you're even out of the gates.
FarmVille Creator: The Hidden Path to Successful Products Said 2 Jun 2026
Great consumer products work because they answer a human instinct or need that was already being felt but was unexpressed and unmet.
I think great products in the consumer world speak to us on some deep level. They they speak to some human instinct or need that we've been feeling and it's been unexpressed or unmet. When we first experience that, there's something magical to it that it could be an unlock. And lots of times it's it's where we're most cynical that we're ready for the most magic.
FarmVille Creator: The Hidden Path to Successful Products Said 2 Jun 2026
Founders who fail early tend to attach themselves to that failure and start being defined by it, and the line between success and failure on a first company is very fine.
I I definitely think I'm so aware of the fine line between success and failure, especially on your first company. And and and it's so it pains me how much founders and es especially I see it in men, not all men. And I have four sisters and a bunch of daughters. But I would say I see it in a lot in men and and friends, college friends, people I've grown up with that if they had an initial failure, if they had failures, they get attached to it and they start feeling defined by it
FarmVille Creator: The Hidden Path to Successful Products Said 2 Jun 2026
A person should run their own life strategically, choosing each year by what their future self would thank them for doing.
I think that a practice like the book of life, what it's done for me and I think it could do for a lot of people is just be strategic about your life. Like be thoughtful about like I like say what would your future self thank you for doing this year. We can be strategic, hold ourselves accountable and and force ourselves to make some tougher decisions.
FarmVille Creator: The Hidden Path to Successful Products Said 2 Jun 2026
The markets worth entering are the ones everybody treats as mature and finished, because they usually have not started yet.
Well, I love these markets and they're all around us where we think they're mature and over and they haven't even started yet. And that was search before Google. You know, Google was the 56th search engine. It was a mature, slow growth business. Google made us reimagine what search could be in our lives and obviously turned it into a trillion dollar company value.
FarmVille Creator: The Hidden Path to Successful Products Said 2 Jun 2026
Every founder falls into a structureless period after a company ends, and it is a dark place that seems to offer freedom before it starts to feel permanent.
The way I think of the abyss is it's this place that we go to as founders and entrepreneurs after our thing, after it dies or it's bought or it's over for whatever reason. It's this amorphous place that we are in our life that has no structure.
FarmVille Creator: The Hidden Path to Successful Products Said 2 Jun 2026
Users vote with their clicks, and roughly half of them are lost at every click a product asks for.
They vote with their clicks. You lose at least half your users every click. Every time you say click here, half people don't click. And you lose 80% when you say download this. At least that's probably 90 or more. 90% or more in the app store.
FarmVille Creator: The Hidden Path to Successful Products Said 2 Jun 2026
A product monetised through what users pay for their own engagement beats one monetised by advertising, because ads work by sending the user away.
We made this something useful for adults and we had this user pay model that could monetize your engagement instead of trying to show you an ad and getting you to leave the game to go somewhere else. It actually the more engaged you were, the more likely you were to, you know, spend money.
FarmVille Creator: The Hidden Path to Successful Products Said 2 Jun 2026
A founder who does not know their own goal dies by a thousand compromises and ends up running a company they do not want to work at.
know your goal or suffer a death by a thousand compromises. Because what I had done my whole career and most of us do is compromise to get that next engineer, CTO, investor. You put a jerk on your board because you impressed with their firm name and the valuation and all your friends are going to be impressed and it's going to be so much easier. We make all these compromises and contort ourselves and eventually we wake up and it's company we don't want to work at.
FarmVille Creator: The Hidden Path to Successful Products Said 2 Jun 2026
A founder should take half the valuation if it buys all of the control, because the right to be wrong in your own way is what founding was for.
you've gone through so much to be here. You owe it to yourself to bet on your instinct. You owe it to yourself to lose because of yourself. It's your right to be wrong. You, as a founder, owe it to yourself to control your own destiny and take half the valuation if it's all of the control. And it means you have the right to do it your way.
FarmVille Creator: The Hidden Path to Successful Products Said 2 Jun 2026
A company is not a democracy: every voice should be heard and then one person decides, and the decision should not be the popular one.
It's false to believe that a company is a democracy. The way I run the company was what I called a democratic dictatorship. And I said, I want everyone everyone's voice to be heard and then I'll be the single vote. And I think that's the way a company should be run. I think there's one CEO, there's one chef. I think a good CEO is going to seek out the intellectual honesty, the truths from everywhere and hear from everybody and then they're going to make the decision and they're not going to make the decision because it's most popular in the company.
FarmVille Creator: The Hidden Path to Successful Products Said 2 Jun 2026
One-on-one meetings create politics and waste a chief executive's time, and complaints about colleagues should be redirected to the colleague instead.
So I I don't do one-on- ones. My friend Bing told me that Jeff Bezos wouldn't ever do one-on ones because it created politics and it was a huge waste of his time. I was like, I love that. No one ones.
FarmVille Creator: The Hidden Path to Successful Products Said 2 Jun 2026
A company owes its builders a moral contract: if they take the hill, leadership must work just as hard to unlock the value of what they built.
In the same way we owe our you we have a responsibility to our users we have a responsibility to our engineers or our builders people who are in the factory building and so I said there there should be a moral contract if you're going to take that hill I'm going to show you that I am going to work just as hard to unlock value out of the work you did
FarmVille Creator: The Hidden Path to Successful Products Said 2 Jun 2026
Keeping ineffective people is a debt owed to the effective ones, and promoting anyone whose merit is not obvious to everybody else erodes the culture.
I think that you owe it to in that moral contract to your good employees to fire the weak people. And they're not bad people. They may be really smart. They are not effective in your organization. They are not taking hills.
FarmVille Creator: The Hidden Path to Successful Products Said 2 Jun 2026
Leaders are trained fastest by an apprentice who shadows every meeting, which is an unscalable way of scaling an organisation.
it's this nonscalable way to scale your organization and it's through like passing your vampire blood. That's what inside Zinga they called it, Pinkis' vampire blood. What he did that I started to do is you pick someone from the organization who's promising. I usually pick the people who didn't fit in the smart misfits and they become your tech assistant which is not your chief of staff, not your executive assistant.
FarmVille Creator: The Hidden Path to Successful Products Said 2 Jun 2026
Anything on the internet that can be free will be free and anything that can have less friction will, which is why voice will replace much of typing and reading.
Anything that can be free on the internet will be free. Anything that can be less clicks, less friction will be less friction. I think voice is one of those places.
FarmVille Creator: The Hidden Path to Successful Products Said 2 Jun 2026
What is a korrent?
A korrent is a belief a person has stated in their own words: one sentence stating the claim, backed by a quote and a source, kept at korrents.com.
Under a name here, the quoted block is what they actually said. The korrent beneath it is the claim those words support, in korrents' wording — tap it to see the record, its source, and who else holds it.
Nobody here wrote their own korrents. They are compiled from public statements, and a person can change their mind, which is recorded too.