David Ko puts up the ‘guard rails’ at Zynga to keep costs under control (interview)

David Ko’s job is to get Zynga into fighting shape. The chief operations officer of Zynga is No. 2 in command next to chief executive Mark Pincus, and Ko has made some tough calls, like the announced closing of CityVille 2, The Friend Game, and Party Place. In a conference call with analysts on Tuesday, he described this process as “putting up guard rails” so that managers can pull the plug on games that aren’t working earlier.