上周五，美国社交游戏巨头Zynga首日挂牌交易，IPO募集资金约10亿美元。公司创始人兼首席执行官马克•平克斯一早在Zynga 的洛杉矶总部敲响了纳斯达克开盘钟声，下午第一时间就接受了《财富》杂志（Fortune）的采访，畅谈公司的发展和上市的详情。

    下面是采访记录（略有编辑）：

《财富》杂志：Zynga不上市似乎也做得不错，现在为什么要上市？

    平克斯：事实是我们一直以为我们要很久以后才会上市。我们曾经试图通过限制股票数量——就像Facebook一样——来推迟上市时间，但公司已发展到这样的规模，员工股东和外部股东的数量已如此之多，“上市”开始比“不上市”变得更有意义。

    我们当然也希望能在公司发展过程的合适节点上实现上市，我认为现在就是。上市前我们正在努力提高推出新游戏的能力，我们已进行了多项收购，一个非常庞大的数据中心资本支出计划已接近尾声，为我们此次上市提供了两大基石。

你觉得投资者能够理解你的意图吗？

    我们很喜欢我们遇到的投资者，他们对我们公司状况的深入了解和高瞻远瞩（关注市场潜力以及未来我们的位置）给我们留下了深刻印象。我们认为，我们的投资者和董事会都代表了公司的DNA，我们很高兴能有更多志同道合的投资者加盟。

先于Zynga五周上市的团购网站Groupon遭遇了众多负面报道和美国证监会（SEC）的调查。你作为旁观者从中学到了什么？

    我没有什么特别的想法。他们面临的有些问题确实和我们一样，但我们对静默期很谨慎。我原本应在D开发者大会、Web 2.0和其他会议上演讲，结果都取消了。我们也没有和媒体对话，我们确实很谨慎。

Zynga成功IPO，是否说明华尔街对Facebook平台的认可？

    我是第一次听到这种说法，我们不这样看。我想Facebook极大地推动了社交游戏的发展，就像我们正在看到的苹果（Apple）和安卓（Android）一样。这些平台降低了行业的进入门槛，让我们这样的公司都能从中受益。

    Social gaming giant Zynga (ZNGA) went public earlier today, raising around $1 billion in its IPO. Company founder and CEO Mark Pincus rang Nasdaq's opening bell from Zynga's San Francisco headquarters earlier this morning, and this afternoon discussed the company and its listing with Fortune.

    What follows is a lightly-edited transcript:

Fortune: Zynga seemed to be doing fine as a private company. Why go public?

    Pincus: It's been a reality for us that we were going to go public for a very long time now. We were able to prolong our period of being private by having restricted stock units, similar to Facebook, but you get to the point where you have big enough numbers of employee shareholders and outside shareholders that it starts to make more sense to be public.

    We also wanted to go public at the right point in our evolution, which I think this is. We were expanding our own ability to bring new games to market, and though once we got past that investment and most of the way through a very large capital expenditure program on our data centers that we'd have two big building blocks in place for going public.

Do you think that investors understood your story?

    We really liked the investors that we met, and were impressed by both their depth of understanding of the state of our company and the long-term way their questions were really around market potential and where we'll be in the future. Our approach was that we think our investors and board really represent the DNA of the company, and we were excited to add some more likeminded investors.

Groupon (GRPN) went public five weeks before Zynga, and suffered through a bunch of negative press and SEC troubles. Did you learn anything from watching its process?

    I can't think of anything in particular. They did face some of the same things we did, but we were very conservative when thinking about the quiet period. I was supposed to speak at D and Web 2.0 and other conferences, but pulled out of all of them. And we didn't talk to the press, because we really wanted to be careful.

Is your IPO Wall Street's validation of Facebook as a platform?

    It's the first I've heard that argument, so I don't think that's the way we interpreted it. I think Facebook has been an amazing accelerator in social gaming, just like we're beginning to see Apple and Android also being accelerators. In both cases, these platforms are reducing barriers to play, and company like ours are able to benefit from it.

谈到其他非Facebook平台，你能告诉我们何时会推出Project Z吗？

    我们还没有公开披露过这个时间，但我可以说，我们的员工正在内部继续进行不同元素的测试，就和我们推出游戏时的流程一样。我们希望它不久能与大众见面，但我们并不着急。这个时间更多地取决于我们什么时候能够达到很出色的玩家体验。

有很多人猜测，一旦Zynga的员工持股禁售期结束，就会有很多员工离开公司。为什么？

    我不知道为什么会有这样的猜测，我们一直处于静默期。Zynga的人员自然流失率历来很低，大大低于硅谷其他的上市或非上市公司。我知道媒体从未报道过这一点，但这是真实情况。而且，我们也在不断地收到很多出色的简历，并持续有优秀的人才加盟。

    一家公司如何留住人才，归根结底是三点：

    1. 员工们对公司的事业和方向有没有信心？我相信我们的员工有，因为Zynga提供了为最广大玩家打造游戏产品的独特机会。

    2. 员工们有没有感受到良性的职业流动。我必须要指出的是升级文化是我们的价值观之一。超过60%的员工每年都能获得升级，即每年他们都会承担起更高的领导职务、获得更高的薪酬。我们结束静默期后，你可以和我们一线的员工交谈，我想他们会告诉你，他们在Zynga获得的职业流动机会高于其他任何公司。

    3. 我们的团队自我管理，这意味着他们对工作环境有很大的控制权。

    我们的文化不止于此，它相当深厚。我们的员工热爱公司，并引以为荣。我们一直要求他们不要出头，不必在媒体或博客上替公司说话，因此我想公众可能还不知道这一点。

今年3月你个人将约1.09亿美元的股票卖回给公司，每股售价略低于14美元。你能联系当时的背景谈谈这个决定吗，毕竟你们今天的IPO价格是每股10美元？

    我从未试图踏准市场节奏或成为什么估值专家。我希望能在这家公司度过余下职业生涯，因此从一开始我的做法就不同于其他企业家，他们售股可能是为了退出公司。

    很早我就开始持续少量地卖出持股，希望不要感到有出售公司的压力。媒体不能用其中某一笔交易来揣测当时我对公司未来前景或公司估值的看法。

Speaking of other non-Facebook platforms, can you say when Project Z will be available?

    We haven't made any public announcements about the timing, but I'd say that we continue to test various elements of it with our employees internally, just as we do when launching a game. We hope it will be out to our audience soon, but I wouldn't say we're driven by dates. It's more about when we think we've achieved a compelling experience.

There has been widespread speculation that a large number of Zynga employees will leave the company once they are allowed to sell shares. Why?

    I'm not sure why there's been all that speculation other than that we've been in a quiet period. Our company has historically had very low attrition, much lower than other public or private companies in Silicon Valley. I know that hasn't been reported on, but it's true. We also continue to have an amazing inflow of resumes and talent.

    When you think about what keeps talent at a company, it comes down to three points:

    1. Do employees believe in the mission and direction of the company. I believe they do, because Zynga offers a unique opportunity to build games for the broadest audience ever seen in games.

    2. Do employees feel they have great career mobility. And I'd point you to the fact that a culture of leveling up is one of our values. More than 60% have leveled up annually, which means they've taken on greater leadership roles and compensation each year. When we're past the acquire period and you can talk to actual employees, I think they'll tell you they have more opportunity for mobility here than if they worked at any other company.

    3. Our teams manage themselves, which means they have a great amount of control over their work environments.

    Beyond that, our culture runs deep. Our employees have a real love for Zynga and real pride. We've asked them not to go out and defend us in the press or blogs, so I don't think that's come through publicly yet.

You personally sold around $109 million shares back to the company in March, at a price of just under $14 per share. Can you contextualize that decision, given that your IPO priced today at $10 per share?

    I've never been trying to time the market or be an expert on valuation of us or anybody else. My approach from the beginning, because I've wanted to stay at this company for the rest of my career, has been to take a different approach from other entrepreneurs who might look to sell their company as an exit.

    Since early on, I've sold small pieces of my ownership along the way, so as not to feel any pressure to sell the company. I don't think you can look at any single one of those transactions and use it to judge my beliefs at that time in the future prospects of the company or its value.