Zynga Founder Becomes Ninja

Siqi Chen shares a story about how he ended up reporting directly to Mark Pincus at Zynga due to a co-founder's unexpected career change.

"When I joined I was director of products. My girlfriend, who later became my wife, moved to China for some job work thing. I was three months into Zynga and wasn't really feeling it, so I told them I was going to resign and move to China.

They said, 'Hey, why don't we just give you this new job? You can report to Eric Schreiner, one of the co-founders, and basically be head of product for the company.' I said, 'That sounds fun, that sounds great.'

So I reported to Eric Schreiner, who was a co-founder of Zynga. What happened is a month into the job, Eric Schreiner stopped showing up to work - wouldn't respond to emails, wouldn't go to work. I was like, 'What?' And that's when I started reporting to Mark and became the head of products.

The punchline of the story is the reason why he stopped showing up to work. I later found out that he decided to become a ninja. He wanted to start a ninja dojo and undergo ninja training."