Mark Pincus founded Zynga—the company behind Words With Friends, FarmVille, and Zynga Poker—and has arguably created more hit consumer products than anyone in history. At Zynga, eight of 10 major game launches became massive hits, reaching over a billion players. Over the past five years, Mark has been synthesizing everything he’s learned about building successful consumer products and turning it into a book, Life at the Speed of Play, which comes out on June 23. This is the first interview he’s done about the book.

In our in-depth conversation, we discuss:

1. His “Proven, Better, New” framework: copy what’s proven, make it better so that 10 out of 10 people say “f*ck yes, I’ll use this”—then add something new

2. Why being less ambitious is the path to the most ambitious ideas

3. His rule of thumb that your instincts are right 95% of the time, but your ideas are wrong 75% of the time

4. “Kill hope before hope kills you”

5. How to raise kids in the age of AI

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Where to find Mark Pincus:

• X: https://x.com/markpinc

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markpincus

• Website: https://www.lifeatthespeedofplay.com

Referenced:

• Tribe.net: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tribe.net

• Zynga: https://www.zynga.com

• Sid Meier: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sid_Meier

• Electronic Arts: https://www.ea.com

• CityVille: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CityVille

• Words With Friends: https://wordswithfriends.com/

• Scrabble: https://playscrabble.com

• Reddit: https://www.reddit.com

• TED Radio Hour, MIT Media Lab founder, 1984 TED talk.: https://www.ted.com/talks/nicholas_negroponte_5_predictions_from_1984

• Peter Thiel on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/peterthiel

• FarmVille: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FarmVille

• Craig Newmark: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craig_Newmark

• How to consistently go viral: Nikita Bier’s playbook for winning at consumer apps (co-founder of TBH, Gas, advisor, investor): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-to-consistently-go-viral-nikita-bier

• Angry Birds: https://www.angrybirds.com/

• OMGPop: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OMGPop

• Draw Something: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draw_Something

• Slack founder: Mental models for building products people love ft. Stewart Butterfield: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/slack-founder-stewart-butterfield

• Brian Chesky’s new playbook: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/brian-cheskys-contrarian-approach

• Garry Tan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/garrytan

• Brian Armstrong on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/barmstrong

• Jason Citron on X: https://x.com/jasoncitron

• Stanislav Vishnevskiy on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/svishnevskiy

• Jeff Bezos on X: https://x.com/JeffBezos

• Andy Jassy on X: https://x.com/ajassy

• Niantic: https://nianticlabs.com

• Pokémon Go: https://pokemongo.com

• Bing Gordon on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/binggordon

Recommended book:

• Life at the Speed of Play: Launch Products People Love!: https://www.amazon.com/Life-Speed-Play-Launch-Products/dp/0063352575//a>

Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com.

Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.

My biggest takeaways from this conversation:...