Actually, it makes plenty of sense -- if what you're after is talented and thoughtful people.
Here's a guy who has enough mojo that he produced a well-reviewed game on his own. That's exactly the kind of person I like to hire because they can think broadly about the work in a way that many people can't. Zynga obviously doesn't want employees devoting significant time to competing with them. But leaving the game up does no harm. So they negotiate the exception, file the paragraph away for when this comes up again, and everybody's happy.
What we learn from this is that they don't really want people this smart and creative. They want somebody mindlessly obedient who will go and do the dubious things Zynga does.
True. But look at it from the perspective of the big company - they thrive on process more than empowerment and creativity. Btw, don't get me wrong, I am not defending Zynga. I lost all respec for that company after they asked some early employees to turn over their shares because they did not deserve as much as they held.
I think it depends on what you mean by "thrive". Humans with power like to consolidate power and suppress the emergence of threats to their power. But lack of innovation (or ability to even recognize the need for innovation) is a major killer of corporations in the long term.
So I think it's more accurate to say that managers thrive on process more than empowerment, because a lot of companies are functionally equivalent to feudal empires in their social structure.
Here's a guy who has enough mojo that he produced a well-reviewed game on his own. That's exactly the kind of person I like to hire because they can think broadly about the work in a way that many people can't. Zynga obviously doesn't want employees devoting significant time to competing with them. But leaving the game up does no harm. So they negotiate the exception, file the paragraph away for when this comes up again, and everybody's happy.
What we learn from this is that they don't really want people this smart and creative. They want somebody mindlessly obedient who will go and do the dubious things Zynga does.