I worked there too (2002-2004), but didn't that all happen when the founder Trip Hawkins was there? It looks like he left in 1991
I don't think you can meaningfully call EA the same company -- it's more like a different company with the same name, and doesn't deserve respect for its past achievements
By the time I was there, over 20 years ago now, the management was already shitty. The people were great, but the management took advantage of employees' love for games. (I was part of the "EA Spouse" settlement)
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In fact I now remember an utterly bizarre experience when I was an intern at EA. The CFO spoke in front of 20 interns, and reminded us that our jobs was to make the stock price go up. Like whenever you do anything, you should think about the stock price as your ultimate goal. So the company isn't really about making games?
I mean I can appreciate his honesty, compared to later big tech "make the world a better place" slogans, while also just trying to make the number go up
But it's a weird thing to say to a bunch of 22 year olds, since they have little influence on the stock price, other than trying to increase their knowledge of the craft
There were a number of other shady characters in EA management. They were often brought in from outside
Even though I criticized "don't be evil", I have to say that by and large Google management was much more competent, and they came off as kinder, even though the company changed eventually too
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I do think it has to do with whether the founder still leads the company -- there has to be someone mission-driven, not just money-driven
I think Trip Hawkins was mission-driven. Larry Page was to an extent, but I think he got sick of managing the company, so he let the optimizers take over
And private equity are almost universally short-term optimizers, in favor of themselves and against customers, which tends to ruin the company in the long term. So I see this as a continuation of a multi-decade trend with EA.
Though I'd be interested in any counterexamples, i.e. private equity that actually made the company better in the long term
I don't think you can meaningfully call EA the same company -- it's more like a different company with the same name, and doesn't deserve respect for its past achievements
By the time I was there, over 20 years ago now, the management was already shitty. The people were great, but the management took advantage of employees' love for games. (I was part of the "EA Spouse" settlement)
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In fact I now remember an utterly bizarre experience when I was an intern at EA. The CFO spoke in front of 20 interns, and reminded us that our jobs was to make the stock price go up. Like whenever you do anything, you should think about the stock price as your ultimate goal. So the company isn't really about making games?
I mean I can appreciate his honesty, compared to later big tech "make the world a better place" slogans, while also just trying to make the number go up
But it's a weird thing to say to a bunch of 22 year olds, since they have little influence on the stock price, other than trying to increase their knowledge of the craft
There were a number of other shady characters in EA management. They were often brought in from outside
Even though I criticized "don't be evil", I have to say that by and large Google management was much more competent, and they came off as kinder, even though the company changed eventually too
---
I do think it has to do with whether the founder still leads the company -- there has to be someone mission-driven, not just money-driven
I think Trip Hawkins was mission-driven. Larry Page was to an extent, but I think he got sick of managing the company, so he let the optimizers take over
And private equity are almost universally short-term optimizers, in favor of themselves and against customers, which tends to ruin the company in the long term. So I see this as a continuation of a multi-decade trend with EA.
Though I'd be interested in any counterexamples, i.e. private equity that actually made the company better in the long term