Justin Waldron
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Justin Waldron is an American internet
entrepreneur Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value in ways that generally entail beyond the minimal amount of risk (assumed by a traditional business), and potentially involving values besides simply economic ones. An entreprene ...
known as the co-founder of
Zynga Zynga Inc. () is an American video game developer and Video game publisher, publisher known for its social video game services. It was founded in April 2007, with headquarters in San Mateo, California. The company primarily focuses on mobile an ...
, a mobile social gaming company, and Zynga.org, a non-profit organization to promote and facilitate the use of social games for philanthropic initiatives. In 2020 Waldron co-founded Playco, a mobile instant game company backed by
Sequoia Capital Sequoia Capital Operations, LLC is an American venture capital firm headquartered in Menlo Park, California, specializing in seed stage, early stage, and growth stage investments in private companies across technology sectors. the firm had appro ...
, where he currently serves as president. Zynga is considered to be the pioneer of the social games industry. In 2011, Zynga held a $1 billion IPO and as of 2021 is the largest mobile gaming company by market share. Waldron is an
angel investor An angel investor (also known as a business angel, informal investor, angel funder, private investor, or seed investor) is an individual who provides capital to a business or businesses, including startups, usually in exchange for convertible de ...
in more than 50 technology companies and was named as one of the top 100 seed investors by Business Insider in 2021. Zynga's most popular games include: ''
FarmVille ''FarmVille'' is a series of agriculture-simulation social network games developed and published by Zynga in 2009. It is similar to '' Happy Farm'' and ''Farm Town''. Its gameplay involves various aspects of farmland management, such as plo ...
'', '' CityVille'', ''
Zynga Poker ''Zynga Poker'' is a social game developed by Zynga as an application for the social-networking website Facebook as well as Android, iPhone, Windows Phone, Windows, MySpace, Tagged, and Google+. It was launched in July 2007. In 2011, with 38 m ...
'', '' Mafia Wars'', ''
Words with Friends ''Words with Friends'' is a multiplayer computer word game developed by Newtoy. Players take turns building words crossword-puzzle style in a manner similar to the classic board game ''Scrabble''. The rules of the two games are similar, but ''Wo ...
'', and ''CSR Racing 2''.


Early life and background

Waldron was born and raised in
Watertown, Connecticut Watertown is a town in Litchfield County, Connecticut, United States. The town is part of the Naugatuck Valley Planning Region. The population was 22,105 at the 2020 census. It is a suburb of Waterbury. The urban center of the town is the Wat ...
. He began programming his first video games and websites at 11 years old, shortly after receiving his first computer. His early software projects included hacking
AOL AOL (formerly a company known as AOL Inc. and originally known as America Online) is an American web portal and online service provider based in New York City, and a brand marketed by Yahoo! Inc. The service traces its history to an online ...
, a favorite childhood pastime shared by other notable technology company founders such as
Mark Zuckerberg Mark Elliot Zuckerberg (; born May 14, 1984) is an American businessman who co-founded the social media service Facebook and its parent company Meta Platforms, of which he is the chairman, chief executive officer, and controlling sharehold ...
. Waldron also reverse engineered the disassembled MIPS
machine code In computer programming, machine code is computer code consisting of machine language instructions, which are used to control a computer's central processing unit (CPU). For conventional binary computers, machine code is the binaryOn nonb ...
of
PlayStation 2 The PlayStation 2 (PS2) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Sony Interactive Entertainment, Sony Computer Entertainment. It was first released in Japan on 4 March 2000, in North America on 26 October, in Europe on 24 Novembe ...
games in his spare time to add his own features. In high school, Waldron cracked
Burger King Burger King Corporation (BK, stylized in all caps) is an American multinational chain store, chain of hamburger fast food restaurants. Headquartered in Miami-Dade County, Florida, the company was founded in 1953 as Insta-Burger King, a Jacks ...
's coupon code algorithm and launched a website to programmatically create unlimited free sandwich coupon codes for visitors. The website grew quickly in popularity resulting in a
cease and desist A cease and desist letter is a document sent by one party, often a business, to warn another party that they believe the other party is committing an unlawful act, such as copyright infringement, and that they will take legal action if the oth ...
notice from
Burger King Burger King Corporation (BK, stylized in all caps) is an American multinational chain store, chain of hamburger fast food restaurants. Headquartered in Miami-Dade County, Florida, the company was founded in 1953 as Insta-Burger King, a Jacks ...
.


Career


Zynga

In 2007, Justin dropped out of
The University of Connecticut The University of Connecticut (UConn) is a public land-grant research university system with its main campus in Storrs, Connecticut, United States. It was founded in 1881 as the Storrs Agricultural School, named after two benefactors. In 1893, ...
and co-founded
Zynga Zynga Inc. () is an American video game developer and Video game publisher, publisher known for its social video game services. It was founded in April 2007, with headquarters in San Mateo, California. The company primarily focuses on mobile an ...
at 19 years old. He created
Zynga Zynga Inc. () is an American video game developer and Video game publisher, publisher known for its social video game services. It was founded in April 2007, with headquarters in San Mateo, California. The company primarily focuses on mobile an ...
's first title,
Zynga Poker ''Zynga Poker'' is a social game developed by Zynga as an application for the social-networking website Facebook as well as Android, iPhone, Windows Phone, Windows, MySpace, Tagged, and Google+. It was launched in July 2007. In 2011, with 38 m ...
in 2007. In 2008, Waldron led the game studio behind '' YoVille'' and later led product strategy across Zynga's studios. Waldron also worked on special projects with
Zynga Zynga Inc. () is an American video game developer and Video game publisher, publisher known for its social video game services. It was founded in April 2007, with headquarters in San Mateo, California. The company primarily focuses on mobile an ...
's other founders. He lived in
Tokyo Tokyo, officially the Tokyo Metropolis, is the capital of Japan, capital and List of cities in Japan, most populous city in Japan. With a population of over 14 million in the city proper in 2023, it is List of largest cities, one of the most ...
during Zynga's expansion to Japan. Waldron served as the SVP of Product at Zynga until 2013.


Playco

In 2020, it was announced that Waldron had co-founded Playco, which has received over $100 million in funding from
Sequoia Capital Sequoia Capital Operations, LLC is an American venture capital firm headquartered in Menlo Park, California, specializing in seed stage, early stage, and growth stage investments in private companies across technology sectors. the firm had appro ...
and others. Playco is creating games that can be played instantly with friends without app downloads. The company's games are available within popular social applications such as
Facebook Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by the American technology conglomerate Meta Platforms, Meta. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andre ...
, LINE,
Snapchat Snapchat is an American multimedia social media and instant messaging app and service developed by Snap Inc., originally Snapchat Inc. One of the principal features of the app are that pictures and messages, known as "snaps", are usually availa ...
,
Viber Rakuten Viber, commonly known as Viber, is a cross-platform voice over IP (VoIP) and instant messaging (IM) software application owned by Japanese multinational company Rakuten, provided as freeware for the Android, iOS, Microsoft Windows, mac ...
,
TikTok TikTok, known in mainland China and Hong Kong as Douyin (), is a social media and Short-form content, short-form online video platform owned by Chinese Internet company ByteDance. It hosts user-submitted videos, which may range in duration f ...
, Zoom and others.


Web3 / Blockchain

Waldron is active in the
Web3 Web3 (also known as Web 3.0) is an idea for a new iteration of the World Wide Web which incorporates concepts such as decentralization, blockchain technologies, and token-based economics. This is distinct from Tim Berners-Lee's concept of th ...
and broader
blockchain The blockchain is a distributed ledger with growing lists of Record (computer science), records (''blocks'') that are securely linked together via Cryptographic hash function, cryptographic hashes. Each block contains a cryptographic hash of th ...
ecosystem. In 2017, Waldron invested in the first
blockchain The blockchain is a distributed ledger with growing lists of Record (computer science), records (''blocks'') that are securely linked together via Cryptographic hash function, cryptographic hashes. Each block contains a cryptographic hash of th ...
focused hedge fund,
Polychain Capital Polychain Capital (Polychain) is an American investment firm based in San Francisco, California. The firm focuses on investments related to cryptocurrency and blockchain technology. Background Polychain Capital was founded in 2016 by Olaf Ca ...
. In 2018, Waldron became an advisor to Dapper Labs, the creators of CryptoKitties and NBA Top Shot. Waldron also advises Immutable X, the first gas-free NFT platform on
Ethereum Ethereum is a decentralized blockchain with smart contract functionality. Ether (abbreviation: ETH) is the native cryptocurrency of the platform. Among cryptocurrencies, ether is second only to bitcoin in market capitalization. It is open-s ...
. Waldron has advised
Decentraland ''Decentraland'' is a 3D virtual world browser-based platform. Users may buy virtual plots of land in the platform as NFTs via the MANA cryptocurrency, which uses the Ethereum blockchain.
since 2018.


Investing

Waldron has made early-stage investments, advised, or served on the board of directors for companies such as
Substack Substack is an American online platform that provides publishing, payment, analytics, and design infrastructure to support subscription-based content, including newsletters, podcasts, and video. It allows writers to send digital content directl ...
, Lambda School,
Kik Messenger Kik Messenger, commonly called Kik, is a freeware instant messaging mobile app from the Canadian company Kik Interactive, available on iOS, iPadOS, visionOS, and Android operating systems. The application uses a smartphone's internet connectio ...
, ''Asia Innovations Group'', Snappr, and over 50 others.


Philanthropy and community service


Zynga.org

In October 2009, Waldron and his co-founders started Zynga.org, which is "committed to transforming the world through virtual social goods." Zynga.org has since raised more than $20 million for more than 50 international nonprofits by occasionally selling virtual goods for charitable causes.Zynga Will No Longer Take A Cut Of Charitable Donations
. Techcrunch.com (2010-11-16). Retrieved on July 9, 2011.
On March 11, 2011, Zynga announced that 100 percent of the proceeds from the purchase of virtual goods from more than seven of its games would go toward Japan's
Save the Children The Save the Children Fund, commonly known as Save the Children, is an international non-governmental organization. It was founded in the UK in 1919; its goal is to improve the lives of children worldwide. The organization raises money to imp ...
Earthquake Emergency Fund. During the 2012 holiday season, Zynga.org partnered with
Toys for Tots Toys for Tots is a program run by the United States Marine Corps Reserve which distributes toys to children whose parents cannot afford to buy them gifts for Christmas. It was founded in 1947 by reservist Major Bill Hendricks. The Marine T ...
in its largest charitable campaign not related to disaster relief. The campaign raised $745,000, with 100 percent of the purchase price of certain virtual goods going to Toys for Tots.


Thiel Foundation

Waldron is a mentor at
Peter Thiel Peter Andreas Thiel (; born 11 October 1967) is an American entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and political activist. A co-founder of PayPal, Palantir Technologies, and Founders Fund, he was the first outside investor in Facebook. According ...
's Thiel Foundation, using his experience as a college dropout to help young entrepreneurs in the
Thiel Fellowship The Thiel Fellowship (originally named 20 under 20) is a Scholarship, fellowship created by billionaire Peter Thiel through the Thiel Foundation in 2010. The fellowship is intended for students aged 22 or younger and offers them a total of $20 ...
's 20 under 20 program.


Government

Waldron is a special advisor to the
Shibuya is a Special wards of Tokyo, special ward in Tokyo, Japan. A major commercial center, Shibuya houses one of the busiest railway stations in the world, Shibuya Station. As of January 1, 2024, Shibuya Ward has an estimated population of 230,60 ...
city government in
Tokyo Tokyo, officially the Tokyo Metropolis, is the capital of Japan, capital and List of cities in Japan, most populous city in Japan. With a population of over 14 million in the city proper in 2023, it is List of largest cities, one of the most ...
, Japan. His focus is helping to grow the startup ecosystem in Japan.


References


External links


Justin Waldron - AngelList ProfileZynga Corporate SiteZynga.org SitePlayco Corporate SiteJustin Waldron Opentalk
with
Sumit Jain Sumit Jain (born 13 June 1984) is an Indian software engineer and Internet entrepreneur. He started online real-estate portal Commonfloor.com for property seekers in 2007. Prior to that, he used to work with Oracle. As the co-founder and CEO, ...

a16z Live: Zynga cofounder Justin Waldron on Games Club
{{DEFAULTSORT:Waldron, Justin American video game businesspeople Living people American technology company founders Zynga people People from Watertown, Connecticut Year of birth missing (living people)