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The Autonomous Business

Mark Pincus Built Zynga on One Rule. AI Founders Are Breaking It. | Mark Pincus (Zynga)

25 June 2026 56:49 Mickey Haslavsky

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About this episode

Mark Pincus is the founder of Zynga, which went from a poker app on Facebook to a $12.7 billion acquisition by Take-Two Interactive. His new book, Life at the Speed of Play, introduces the Proven Better New framework: kill your ego, copy what works, and innovate only the core.

In this episode, Pincus explains why AI has made the MVP trap worse, not better. He shares the "failure machine" concept he still hasn't seen anyone build, the white tiger story that turned a Friday night into a hundred thousand dollars, his Sunday Morning Joy ritual, and why he believes AI will make founders work more, not less.

He also describes the two Zynga decisions he would reverse today, why public company founders need a wartime board, a thirty-two-year journaling practice called the Book of Life, and why he pulled the plug on a four-year project the moment AI-native startups started doing it better.

Guest: Mark Pincus
Host: Mickey Haslavsky, Founder and CEO of enso
The Autonomous Business Podcast is a joint production of enso and Forbes Israel.

Links:
Life at the Speed of Play: https://www.lifeatthespeedofplay.com/
Mark Pincus on X: https://x.com/markpincus
enso: https://enso.bot
Podcast page: https://www.enso.bot/podcast

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