Zynga Takes Back Stock Options

Zynga, a company famous for its many online games such as FarmVille and Words With Friends has issued an ultimatum to some of its employees: give up some of your unvested stock options or be fired. Being fired, they would lose all of their unvested stock options. When choosing to work at a startup, stock options are typically part of the benefits package and may be given in lieu of a market salary. Zynga said that they are trying to balance expected payout with performance and reclaim some options to give out to attract new talent. What Zynga is doing is wrong. Personally, I would be leery of joining a company with stock options that had just taken some back from employees.

When Minimum Wage Isn't Minimum Wage

California legislators can't decide on a budget. The Republicans want to cut spending to come up with the $15.2 billion. The Democrats want to increase taxes, specifically on the wealthy. Governor Schwarzenegger's solution? Stop overtime allowing overtime, lay off 22,000 employees, freeze hiring, and drop pay for 200,000 workers from the state minimum wage to the federal minimum wage. The first three are good business sense. The last one, while technically legal by a court ruling (so long as the government makes good on the difference once the budget has been settled) seems highly unfair. For one, it's unfair to the employees who have no control over a legislature that is currently out of session (but being called back for an August 4 vote). Secondly, why can the state of California pay less than state minimum wage when other businesses are required to pay minimum wage. If a private company tried to do this, they would be slapped with fines. Thankfully, the one group that can do something about this, the legislators and their staff, aren't getting a dime of their pay or per diem until they come to a resolution on the budget. More on this here, though it reads as a partisan article.