Zynga CEO Mark Pincus Explains The Pros And Cons Of Being A Public Company

Sure, going public in a predictable industry would be more fun. But being a company in transition doesn't make an IPO less necessary.

With Zynga’s stock trading at about 20% of the price it opened at last December, it was surprising that, when asked by Fast Company Editor in Chief Bob Safian about the consequences of becoming a public company, CEO Mark Pincus chose to start with the pros. “We want to build an Internet treasure,” he said at Fast Company's Innovation Uncensored Conference in San Francisco Thursday. “From the beginning…I wanted to build a company that could sustain not for two years or four years or even ten years but be something that really matters over time the way Amazon and Google and others have.” “The only way you can do that is to go public. I haven’t seen another way.” Liquidity helps sustain quality talent and investors, and going public is a way to achieve it without selling the company. But Zynga has lost several key employees as its stock price has tanked, and going public has also brought with it some clear cons. Transitions can be more difficult under the scrutiny of Wall Street. At the beginning of its life as a public company, Zynga is going through what Pincus calls its biggest transition ever. Long almost entirely dependent on Facebook for its income, the company has recently refocused its efforts on mobile games. Where once its mobile division focused on "with friends" games, this quarter no games were greenlit without a mobile component. “Clearly as you move to being a public company, probably even more than growth, there is a huge value based on predictability,” Pincus says. “And we have not delivered on that predictability lately that we would like, that our investors would like.” Listen to the full audio: Zynga CEO Mark Pincus in conversation with Fast Company Editor-in-Chief Robert Safian: Meanwhile, he says, employees go home for Thanksgiving and need to answer questions about the company because its news is now "everybody's news." “It’s hard, but I think it’s hard for any new company in a new industry to be public so early,” he said. “We’re still in an emerging and transforming market. It would be more fun at a point that the platforms and markets were if the market for social gaming were more defined and predictable. “ [ Image: Flickr user Joi]
Source : fastcompany[dot]com

Progress Report: A Car That Flies

Project: Terrafugia's Transition Aircraft

The Transition is meant to fly below 10,000 feet, which is one-fourth the cruising altitude of commercial aircraft.

Thesis
Private aviation often plays victim to bad weather and hefty storage and maintenance fees. If light aircraft could double as road vehicles, pilots would have a more practical, safer way to fly.

Method
The Transition has wings that extend and retract electronically, allowing it to take to the air and then drive home from the airstrip on city streets (where it can hit 65 mph and gets 35 mpg). Says Terrafugia CEO and CTO Carl Dietrich: "People like to call it a flying car, but it's really a street-legal airplane."

Materials
FAA standards require the Transition to weigh under 1,000 pounds when unoccupied. Carbon fiber and titanium, used for the fuselage and frame, have a higher strength-to-weight ratio than steel or aluminum.

Most folding wings have locking pins that slide into holes, but those are prone to debris buildup. Instead, the Transition uses more-advanced rotating linkages that, when flush against the aircraft body, easily signal that wings are locked and ready for takeoff. A parachute system lives in the Transition's nose. "Say you're over mountainous terrain where you can't land," Dietrich says. "A handle in the cockpit will deploy a chute to get you down safely--though it may destroy the plane." Results The MIT-trained team behind Terrafugia first flew a proof-of-concept model in 2009, successfully completing 28 takeoffs and landings. Now Terrafugia is eyeing the personal aircraft market presently dominated by the Cessna Skycatcher, a two-seater plane that doesn't double as any other kind of vehicle.

Despite its shortcomings, the Transition does solve one of the biggest barriers to personal aviation: high storage costs. It fits neatly into a standard home garage, saving owners up to $1,500 a month on the cost of a hanger. It also puts to good use the U.S.'s 5,200 public-access airports, most of which see too little traffic to justify car-rental kiosks or cab lines.

Remaining Challenges
1. Pass future flight and drive tests.
"We have to do things during testing that no pilot in their right mind would do," Dietrich says. The Transition is designed for casual cruising, but upcoming tests include aggressive acrobatics.

Source : fastcompany[dot]com