Mark Pincus, who founded Zynga and stepped down as CEO after layoffs and underperforming game troubles at the online gaming company, is starting an incubator called Superlabs.
The project was announced this week by Pincus at Web Summit in Dublin. He stated that while there is a lot of innovation in the tech industry there are only a few really transformative apps.
"I don't want to call it an incubator, exactly," said Pincus in an interview, adding he is funding the project with his own money. "I really think the opportunity is still out there now that mobile has so disrupted the market and left a lot of areas to be innovated. It's a great time to be making things."
Pincus has hired a number of young tech heads to work on two projects that he has yet to announce. After Zynga went public in 2011, Pincus became a multibillionaire. He remains at Zynga as chairman. While Zynga started at $10 per share, the company has fallen to just $2.35 per share.
"Zynga got to a place where it was more management CEO and less hands-on product maker," continued Pincus. "That is what I love to do. That's one I'm passionate about, being 'close to the metal.' I did this when there was no business on the Internet. I did it in 1999 when it was hot. And I did it when it was cold. I'm passionate about getting things into people's hands. I can't do anything else."
So far Superlabs has not found anything that has been a fast success, and Pincus himself acknowledges the company will likely strike out many times before it finds anything that ultimately becomes successful.
There have been a number of figures in the tech industry who have moved on from what made them famous to create new ideas. These include the likes of Uber and StumbleUpon co-founder Garrett Camp, who went on to form Expa, which raises money to create new companies, and Kevin Rose, who founded Digg and is now attempting to create startups of his own with North Technologies.
