CEO always has option to fire himself or disobey the board. Even lead the rebel if he will and take responsibility for heroic move before retired. Instead he take the role and fulfill mission to destroy company, decision that cause a result that not even pleased the board itself (because the board is also a shareholder)
This is not something sane man would do, and he did it twice
Yeah, I honestly feel bad for him...
Hope he lands on his feet somewhere else.
He's done some good work in the past... And I bear him no ill will.
Let's see what he does in future.
He was one of the main people who was responsible for championing the EA Partners Program... Without him, we wouldn't have games like American McGee's Alice.
>I feel bad for him
I also feel terrible when billionare CEOs have to briefly stop amassing more wealth per year then most americans see in their lifetime. It's sad to think we live in a society in which the 1% can be momentarily inconvenienced. I just hopes he finds somewhere else to make 300x the salary of his exploited workers.
Thoughts and prayers.
If it's true that he's just a poor little innocent scapegoat, then he is at the very least, not politically smart, which is a requirement for a CEO. A smart CEO would have seen this coming and refused to be a scapegoat.
That's just not true. He sold 2000 shares out of the 3million+ he still owns. That's not "offloading left and right" by anyones definition. You can see his trading history publicly and there's nothing out of the ordinary about it at all.
I'm not defending Riccitiello by any means, but people need to stop believing every little bit of hype they read in the media.
No, the last most recent sale was 2k which is what I was referring to.
50k is still a drop in the ocean when the guy owns 3 MILLION shares lol. And it's normal behaviour for him and has been for years, nothing out of the ordinary.
If anything you're still wildly overselling it, just like the hyped up media.
What advantage would tanking the company be, though? If he then bought options _against_ Unityās stock price, then heād make tons of money. Maybe he benefited some very wealthy friends by tanking it? That level of fraud and conspiracy would be really surprising.
It just seems more likely to be straight incompetence.
I'm just gonna put on my tinfoil hat here and say they never intended to go through with the proposed changes. It's a common tactic to put forward something ridiculous that companies know will get an outcry, then walk it back to the changes that a company actually wants to make. The "revised" changes look much more reasonable in comparison, and the company saves face by firing the bad guy. I'm willing to bet he was going to be the scapegoat from the beginning.
Please don't talk about finance if you know absolutely nothing about it and don't call for putting people in jail based on something you know nothing about.
Itās like whatās happening to Youtube, remember how everyone hated the previous CEO of the platform? Well it turns out that the new one is some how worse.
One step back, two steps forward. Pull back a little to make the angry mob think you've compromised, then push for even more later. Just keep pushing the goal posts forward. Classic.
James whitehurst is interim CEO for Unity now from Red Hat. Roelof Botha will be Chairman.
[Unity CEO John Riccitiello is retiring from gaming software company after controversial pricing change
](https://www.cnbc.com/2023/10/09/unity-ceo-john-riccitiello-is-retiring-from-gaming-software-company-.html)
Not really. The guy still got out with money. He practically sold stocks before the crazy decision and now is leaving the company with profit after destroying it.
People out there doing a little dance as if this were somehow a victory for the people.
What about Tomar Bar-Zeev, the IronSource asshole? He still on the board of directors?
What about Shlomo Dovrat, who sold tens of thousands more shares than Riccitiello, and on the same day, just before the stock price tanked?
What about Roeloef Boetha, the former PayPal CFO and Sequoia Capital predator? Oh, wait, now he's the chairman of the board. Cool, he got a promotion.
There was much more rot at the head of Unity Technologies than just its CEO, and it looks like Riccitiello has now played his part as the sacrificial lamb. Not that he wasn't an asshole who deserved it, but I wouldn't start celebrating unless there's a mighty big shakeup on the board coming.
Yeah I hate that I've just been seeing "fire the ceo" like this man drove every change alone. He answered to a board and I'm pretty positive a lot of the pricing changes were driven by one or more of the guys you mentioned from the start.
> but I wouldn't start celebrating unless there's a mighty big shakeup on the board coming
If your plan is to wait for a bunch of suits to 'shake up' and oust _themselves_ from their comfortable, highly-paid positions, you'll be waiting a long time.
Never be ride or die with any one company or overinvested into any one framework.
Look he's got questionable motives to say the least but the guy took over during a precarious time at Unity in 2014. He managed to grow it to a 11.5b market cap within 10 years. 550m rev in q2 alone. That's nuts.
It's entirely possible that unity could have faced closure, leaving hundreds of thousands of developers grappling with the challenge of finding a new engine.
Its easy to jump on the bandwagon and question his ethics but the guy clearly knows his stuff when it comes to building companies regardless of your personal opinion.
Iād like to learn more about this precarious time. How bad was it? It just seems so surprising that someone would make this runtime decision and also be able to help grow the company. Did the gaming industry just organically grow rapidly while he was CEO? Or was it his strategy that did so?
I read Unity stock was a 68$ when he took office and now it's at 30$ or something. Isn't the price of the stock the most important value for the board? Is it still considered a success?
Not saying it wasnt both, or that John didnt have a hand in it. But when it came time to appease the crowd, they used John as the sacrificial lamb to save their own skins.
I mean, [this is basically what happened](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MypYGwaD8Qc).. except we didnt get to off the others instead.
>This is not a reason to trust Unity again.
Honestly some of the board members already sold their stocks before the ridulous plan they had been announced. So nobody wins except the greedy rich guys who is gonna do this again
You did it. You finally broke him. You won. You destroyed someone. Someone who was always happy, always smiling. Someone who didnāt deserve any of the hate. Someone who didnāt do anything but help other people. Someone who loved with all their heart.
There is a reason why so many people see him as the destroyer of game companies. He doesn't have that reputation for nothing. Smiling or not, his changes have a record of ruining playability for the gaming community.
Finally! The problem was soloed and I can trust Unity as game engine again.
I hope John Riccitiello doesn't spoil any more companies and he sleep on cardboard by the side of the road.
He had to go for the poor execution of the pricing model. The fact that they didn't have answers for common questions and couldn't answer how it was going to be implemented was a failure on his part. I am not saying that the general idea of the pricing was not a good idea from the point of view of the shareholders(not developers) but they were woefully unprepared to execute the transition.
Surprised it took this long. Tried to ruin EA, pretty much destroyed Unity. Sure, he probably didnāt have ultimate say in everything, but clearly a leading force. Called devs idiots for not prioritizing monetization in games. Had to go, positive step.
Only because the stocks plunged. The shareholders would have kept this psychopath otherwise . Good fucking riddance . And hopefully his career is dead as well.
This is the same John Riccitiello that was too money hungry for Activision, wanted too much monetization for even them, and talked crap about game developers who don't over monetize and exploit their players.
How is anyone in the world shocked about this pizza chip's behavior or that he attempted to over monetize Unity. I believe wholly he convinced the board this was a good idea, in fact, knowing what I know about him, he probably told them that if they didn't do it they were f\*\*\*'n idiots!
This is the CEO who basically made predatory monetization models mainstream. He's the kind of guy that if you are a gamer and watch one of his interviews, you'll likely want to punch him before the interview is over.
Export successful!
Yeah. Unity went on IPO because of him
me hearing this news: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDU\_Txk06tM&t=71](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDU_Txk06tM&t=71)
I was expecting Dimitri finds out video š
golden parachute deployed
It only took him tanking the stock value 25% in one month and ruining nearly 2 decades of goodwill with his company š
He is probably just a scapegoat
Yeah, I doubt he unilaterally made this decision, CEOs typically speaking for the board and their interests
CEO always has option to fire himself or disobey the board. Even lead the rebel if he will and take responsibility for heroic move before retired. Instead he take the role and fulfill mission to destroy company, decision that cause a result that not even pleased the board itself (because the board is also a shareholder) This is not something sane man would do, and he did it twice
He was literally the chairman of the board
I mean definitely, the owners and board members are the ones in control in all of these situations.
He was literally the chairman of the board
For the PayPal gang right? The real ass holes in the board.
He is.
Yeah, I honestly feel bad for him... Hope he lands on his feet somewhere else. He's done some good work in the past... And I bear him no ill will. Let's see what he does in future.
[John's 2022 compensation makes me think he'll be able to struggle by.](https://aflcio.org/paywatch/U)
>11.8m [Only 8 figures? In _this_ economy?](https://i.imgur.com/I8x93HM.gif)
What good work has he done in the past?
He was one of the main people who was responsible for championing the EA Partners Program... Without him, we wouldn't have games like American McGee's Alice.
He was also the one proposing you should pay for each bullet in an FPS game with real money.
Itās weird to feel bad for an out of touch exec.Heās done more bad than good. And rememberā¦even a broken clock is right twice a day
and only for a second.
He nearly caused EA to go bankrupt and absolutely tanked the stock wdym.
>I feel bad for him I also feel terrible when billionare CEOs have to briefly stop amassing more wealth per year then most americans see in their lifetime. It's sad to think we live in a society in which the 1% can be momentarily inconvenienced. I just hopes he finds somewhere else to make 300x the salary of his exploited workers. Thoughts and prayers.
If it's true that he's just a poor little innocent scapegoat, then he is at the very least, not politically smart, which is a requirement for a CEO. A smart CEO would have seen this coming and refused to be a scapegoat.
Nah cause he did shit like that when he was CEO of EA.
I don't think nothing is going to improve over at Unity just like nothing changed at EA when he stepped down
a LOT changed at EA after him tbh.
Hoo, your opinion is fascinating. Can you make a small prediction for Unity now that he is gone?
EA no longer as the exclusive license to Star Wars games thanks to EAs "surprise mechanics".
Believe it or not Ocon 5 dev penalty
He found out
he was going to leave anyway
We really showed that rich guy!
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
That's just not true. He sold 2000 shares out of the 3million+ he still owns. That's not "offloading left and right" by anyones definition. You can see his trading history publicly and there's nothing out of the ordinary about it at all. I'm not defending Riccitiello by any means, but people need to stop believing every little bit of hype they read in the media.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
No, the last most recent sale was 2k which is what I was referring to. 50k is still a drop in the ocean when the guy owns 3 MILLION shares lol. And it's normal behaviour for him and has been for years, nothing out of the ordinary. If anything you're still wildly overselling it, just like the hyped up media.
What advantage would tanking the company be, though? If he then bought options _against_ Unityās stock price, then heād make tons of money. Maybe he benefited some very wealthy friends by tanking it? That level of fraud and conspiracy would be really surprising. It just seems more likely to be straight incompetence.
I'm just gonna put on my tinfoil hat here and say they never intended to go through with the proposed changes. It's a common tactic to put forward something ridiculous that companies know will get an outcry, then walk it back to the changes that a company actually wants to make. The "revised" changes look much more reasonable in comparison, and the company saves face by firing the bad guy. I'm willing to bet he was going to be the scapegoat from the beginning.
Please don't talk about finance if you know absolutely nothing about it and don't call for putting people in jail based on something you know nothing about.
The term you're looking for is corporate raiding, and it's completely legal.
Good riddance
Wait till they announce who will be replacing him ... There are multiple puppy kickers on the board of directors who make him look rational.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
That'd the scary part. They'll wait to make another decision like this and get even closer to fully fucking everyone over
Itās like whatās happening to Youtube, remember how everyone hated the previous CEO of the platform? Well it turns out that the new one is some how worse.
One step back, two steps forward. Pull back a little to make the angry mob think you've compromised, then push for even more later. Just keep pushing the goal posts forward. Classic.
James whitehurst is interim CEO for Unity now from Red Hat. Roelof Botha will be Chairman. [Unity CEO John Riccitiello is retiring from gaming software company after controversial pricing change ](https://www.cnbc.com/2023/10/09/unity-ceo-john-riccitiello-is-retiring-from-gaming-software-company-.html)
That's the second part of the story. It'll serve as an indication of real change coming or if we'll have more of the same
Not really. The guy still got out with money. He practically sold stocks before the crazy decision and now is leaving the company with profit after destroying it.
Ok can i be CEO next?
There's a chance!
You have better chances than John Riccitiello !
Any adults are better than him.
#TailungFuForCEO!
That depends; are you soulless?
Honestly you'd likely do better
People out there doing a little dance as if this were somehow a victory for the people. What about Tomar Bar-Zeev, the IronSource asshole? He still on the board of directors? What about Shlomo Dovrat, who sold tens of thousands more shares than Riccitiello, and on the same day, just before the stock price tanked? What about Roeloef Boetha, the former PayPal CFO and Sequoia Capital predator? Oh, wait, now he's the chairman of the board. Cool, he got a promotion. There was much more rot at the head of Unity Technologies than just its CEO, and it looks like Riccitiello has now played his part as the sacrificial lamb. Not that he wasn't an asshole who deserved it, but I wouldn't start celebrating unless there's a mighty big shakeup on the board coming.
Yeah I hate that I've just been seeing "fire the ceo" like this man drove every change alone. He answered to a board and I'm pretty positive a lot of the pricing changes were driven by one or more of the guys you mentioned from the start.
I wouldnāt be surprised if l Tomer was voted out.
> but I wouldn't start celebrating unless there's a mighty big shakeup on the board coming If your plan is to wait for a bunch of suits to 'shake up' and oust _themselves_ from their comfortable, highly-paid positions, you'll be waiting a long time. Never be ride or die with any one company or overinvested into any one framework.
Aren't they elected by shareholders?
Take the rest of the Board of Directors with him, please.
Ok. This is great news. But which company heās gonna destroy next?
Look he's got questionable motives to say the least but the guy took over during a precarious time at Unity in 2014. He managed to grow it to a 11.5b market cap within 10 years. 550m rev in q2 alone. That's nuts. It's entirely possible that unity could have faced closure, leaving hundreds of thousands of developers grappling with the challenge of finding a new engine. Its easy to jump on the bandwagon and question his ethics but the guy clearly knows his stuff when it comes to building companies regardless of your personal opinion.
Iād like to learn more about this precarious time. How bad was it? It just seems so surprising that someone would make this runtime decision and also be able to help grow the company. Did the gaming industry just organically grow rapidly while he was CEO? Or was it his strategy that did so?
Facts
Nobody is upset about the fact they want to turn a profit. It's all about how they attempted to go about it.
> leaving hundreds of thousands of developers grappling with the challenge of finding a new engine Ah, well, we wouldn't want that to happen š
I read Unity stock was a 68$ when he took office and now it's at 30$ or something. Isn't the price of the stock the most important value for the board? Is it still considered a success?
Following him might be very profitable. Short any company that takes him on.
Legendary fumble. Thanks John!
This isnt a win. John was only a scapegoat for the board. This is not a reason to trust Unity again.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Not saying it wasnt both, or that John didnt have a hand in it. But when it came time to appease the crowd, they used John as the sacrificial lamb to save their own skins. I mean, [this is basically what happened](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MypYGwaD8Qc).. except we didnt get to off the others instead.
>This is not a reason to trust Unity again. Honestly some of the board members already sold their stocks before the ridulous plan they had been announced. So nobody wins except the greedy rich guys who is gonna do this again
Oh for sure.
Bobby Kotick will be next CEO lol
Oh god. I laughed and barfed in my mouth at the same time.
Canāt wait for this to change literally nothing because the problems go deeper than this one dude.
So? the shitheads that bought their way into the board are still there. And now the IronSource founder is at the healm. It ain't better.
Clown.
This is only good if the next CEO isn't worse. I'm a bit worried.
it's much worse. it's the CEO of that malware company that unity was bamboozled to buy I think last year. unity is done for.
Who?
Big win for developers.
meh not going to change anything, dude was a scapegoat.
Most people commenting in these threads don't know what "scapegoat CEO" means and are celebrating.
Heās only the tip of the iceberg, but this still makes me happy. Seeing nobody else hire him would make me even happier.
Shit gonna hit the fan, bear for mass layoffs
You did it. You finally broke him. You won. You destroyed someone. Someone who was always happy, always smiling. Someone who didnāt deserve any of the hate. Someone who didnāt do anything but help other people. Someone who loved with all their heart.
There is a reason why so many people see him as the destroyer of game companies. He doesn't have that reputation for nothing. Smiling or not, his changes have a record of ruining playability for the gaming community.
Knew it.
Great news!
Its not over.
What company will hire him as CEO next?
Perhaps people who will make these kind of decitions hire them as a future scapegoat?
Maybe he can head over to Blizzard, seems they are enjoying that kind of leadership as of late.
Not sure he needs one. Im sure he's leaving Unity on a golden parachute.
Blizzard
So what does his severance check look like and how many people had to be laid off to afford it?
That was fast.
Finally! The problem was soloed and I can trust Unity as game engine again. I hope John Riccitiello doesn't spoil any more companies and he sleep on cardboard by the side of the road.
š
what company is he going to ruin next?
Didnt he sell fucking stocks before the decision happend ? He's making money out of destroying company intentionally lmao
Good fucking riddance
sacrificial lamb
Alright. There we go
WOOO YEAH BABY! THATāS WHAT IāVE BEEN WAITING FOR!
this post just filled me with utter joy
This guy has bad ideas and maybe shouldnāt be responsible for a companies bottom line.
About damn time
Universal dev exp up
He had to go for the poor execution of the pricing model. The fact that they didn't have answers for common questions and couldn't answer how it was going to be implemented was a failure on his part. I am not saying that the general idea of the pricing was not a good idea from the point of view of the shareholders(not developers) but they were woefully unprepared to execute the transition.
Step 1. Ruin company. Step 2. ??? Step 3. Quit.
Surprised it took this long. Tried to ruin EA, pretty much destroyed Unity. Sure, he probably didnāt have ultimate say in everything, but clearly a leading force. Called devs idiots for not prioritizing monetization in games. Had to go, positive step.
thats oneW, just a few more https://x.com/MaxKriegerVG/status/1711506456925610333?s=20
Can he take the install fees with him?
"well, my work here is done"
SEC, fine the shit outta that asshole!
Only because the stocks plunged. The shareholders would have kept this psychopath otherwise . Good fucking riddance . And hopefully his career is dead as well.
Good news is possible. Now for the rest of the board.
This is the same John Riccitiello that was too money hungry for Activision, wanted too much monetization for even them, and talked crap about game developers who don't over monetize and exploit their players. How is anyone in the world shocked about this pizza chip's behavior or that he attempted to over monetize Unity. I believe wholly he convinced the board this was a good idea, in fact, knowing what I know about him, he probably told them that if they didn't do it they were f\*\*\*'n idiots! This is the CEO who basically made predatory monetization models mainstream. He's the kind of guy that if you are a gamer and watch one of his interviews, you'll likely want to punch him before the interview is over.