Mark Pincus Net Worth

What is Mark Pincus's Net Worth?

Mark Pincus is an American Internet entrepreneur who has a net worth of $1.4 billion. Mark Pincus is best known for co-founding the mobile social network gaming company Zynga. Considered a pioneer in the field of online social gaming, the company has developed such popular games as "FarmVille," "Words with Friends," and "CSR Racing 2." Pincus has also co-founded a number of other companies, including Support.com, tribe.net, and Reinvent Capital.

Net Worth Ups and Downs

Mark Pincus became a billionaire primarily through his significant ownership stake in Zynga, the social gaming company he founded in 2007. Zynga's initial public offering (IPO) in December 2011 was a pivotal event that elevated his net worth. At the time of the IPO, Pincus owned approximately 112 million shares, representing about 18.1% of the company. With Zynga's valuation reaching up to $20 billion during its IPO, Pincus's holdings were valued at approximately $3.6 billion.

Following the IPO, Pincus sold portions of his shares, including 7.8 million shares at $13.96 each and 16.5 million shares at $12 each during a secondary offering.

However, Zynga's stock experienced volatility in the subsequent years, leading to fluctuations in Pincus's net worth. For instance, by March 2013, as Zynga's stock declined from $14.48 to around $3 per share, Pincus's net worth decreased accordingly, and he was no longer considered a billionaire at that time.

He re-gained billionaire status in May 2022 after Take-Two completed a $12.7 billion acquisition of Zynga.

Early Life and Education

Mark Pincus was born on February 13, 1966 in Chicago, Illinois to artist and architect Donna and business columnist and PR adviser Theodore. He is Jewish. As a youth, Pincus was educated at Francis W. Parker School, graduating in 1984. He went on to attend the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, from which he graduated summa cum laude with a BS degree in economics in 1988. Pincus subsequently went to Harvard Business School, where he earned his MBA in 1993.

Career Beginnings in Finance

Pincus began his career working in venture capital and financial services. Following his graduation from Wharton, he spent two years as an analyst at the financial advisory and asset management firm Lazard Freres & Co. Pincus then moved to Hong Kong, where he served as a vice president at Asian Capital Partners for two years. After graduating from Harvard Business School, he became a manager of corporate development at Tele-Communications, Inc. One year later, Pincus became vice president of Columbia Capital.

Tech Startups

Pincus launched his first startup, Freeloader, Inc., in 1995. Backed by Fred Wilson and SoftBank Capital, the company was soon acquired by Individual, Inc. One of the interns at Freeloader was Sean Parker, who later co-founded the file-sharing application Napster. Due to the connection, Pincus became Napster's first investor. Before that, in 1997, Pincus launched Support.com, a technical support company for businesses and consumers. As its chairman and CEO, he grew the company into a leading provider of help-desk automation software. Support.com went public in 2000 and changed its name to SupportSoft, Inc. in 2002. In 2003, Pincus co-founded the early social-networking site tribe.net with Paul Martino and Valerie Syme. Around this time, he was a founding investor in two other social-networking services, Friendster and Facebook.

Pincus co-founded his fourth company, the social-network gaming company Zynga, in 2007. Named after his late bulldog Zinga, the company develops and publishes video games for social media, mainly Facebook, as well as for mobile platforms. Zynga's first game was "Texas Hold 'Em Poker," which was also the first game introduced on Facebook. The company went on to develop the massively popular "FarmVille," which had ten million daily active users within six weeks of its launch in 2009. Zynga went on to have another huge hit with the Scrabble-like word game "Words with Friends." In 2011, the company went public, and in 2013 Pincus stepped down as CEO but remained chairman. He returned as CEO in 2015, but stepped down again in 2016. Meanwhile, Pincus invested in the nootropics company HVMN.

Reinvent Capital

With fellow Internet entrepreneur Reid Hoffman and hedge fund manager Michael Thompson, Pincus co-founded the investment firm Reinvent Capital in 2018. It has invested in such companies as Zipline, Oscar Health, Lyft, and SpaceX. Reinvent Capital has also launched a number of SPACs under the name Reinvent Technology Partners.

Philanthropy and Politics

In 2009, Pincus established Zynga.org, a nonprofit intended to promote the use of social gaming for philanthropic causes. The organization, which lasted until 2016, helped raise money for animal cruelty prevention, disaster relief, and clean water projects, among other concerns.

In 2017, Pincus partnered with Reid Hoffman and Adam Werbach to create the political organization Win the Future, a group in opposition to Donald Trump. Three years later, he joined Cyrus Harmon and Jyri Engeström to finance community-wide COVID-19 testing in their hometown of Bolinas, California.

Personal Life

In 2008, Pincus married Alison Gelb, who went on to co-found the luxury home decor company One Kings Lane. They had three children together before divorcing in 2017.

Real Estate

In 2005, Mark paid $2.85 million for a home in San Francisco's Cole Valley neighborhood. In 2012 he paid $16 million for a mansion in SF's Pacific Heights neighborhood. He sold this home in 2015 for $18 million. In 2009, Mark paid $4 million for a mansion in Bolinas, California.