BTIG Analyst' Richard Greenfield Explains Why He Thinks Zynga's CEO Don Mattrick Must Go

Gaming company Zynga Inc ZNGA reported disappointing fourth-quarter earnings on Thursday, following which BTIG analyst, Richard Greenfield, wrote a blogpost earlier today, in which he criticized the management of the company and suggested that the company’s CEO, Don Mattrick, must go.

Greenfield was on CNBC recently to discuss why he thinks Mattrick must be fired.

Making The Same Mistakes

“Well, look I think there have been clear mistakes made and I think what’s really surprising about the company right now is that, they appear to be making the same mistakes,” Greenfield said. “Launching games too quickly, not doing enough consumer research on their games and pushing them out. The same mistakes that Mark Pincus was making when he was leading Zynga and Don Matrrick was supposed to be brought in despite not having any experience in mobile gaming,”

 Greenfield continued, “He had certainly been in the gaming world, the Xbox and has a long history in console gaming, he was supposed to be the one to fix all of this and yet Zynga seems to be stumbling and making the same mistakes all over again.”

Burning Cash

“In this case the challenge is that, they actually make a lot of money in some of their core franchises like Farmville, Poker, Words With Friends,” Greenfield said. “But what drives us crazy is they have been take all of that cash flow and burn it by trying to develop the new [It] franchise and they seem to be jumping all over the place to areas where Zynga has no expertise and I think what’s really most concerning is that the management team led by Don has led to a 50p reduction in the revenue stream.”