Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick's management style: No chief of staff, no 'toxic' discretionary pay programs

• Take-Two's CEO says his 13,000 employees share a collective goal: make the world's best entertainment.
• His philosophy to get there? A formulaic pay program aligned with that mission, empathetic listening, and direct CEO access.
• Take-Two Interactive is getting set to launch its hotly-anticipated GTA 6 in November.

Strauss Zelnick is relentlessly focused on making "the best entertainment on earth." There's no confusion about that mission among his employees, he said.

"I have 13,000 colleagues," the Take-Two Interactive CEO said at Business Insider's The Long Play event in New York City on Thursday. "100% of them can and will tell you exactly what I just said."

His management philosophy — "establish a mission, establish a strategy, and promulgate collective culture" — is about to get its biggest test in years.

Take-Two is the publisher behind popular games like "Red Dead Redemption" and "NBA 2K," and, on November 19, they'll launch a new "Grand Theft Auto." The wildly popular series hasn't had a new mainline installment since 2013 and has delayed its launch twice in an effort to meet the studio's exacting standards. GTA 6 is central to Take-Two's forecast for at least $8 billion in net bookings for fiscal 2027.

Zelnick has run the company since 2007. To align employee incentives with Take-Two's big expectations, he believes compensation should be based on a formula aligned with the company's mission — not left to manager discretion.

"I personally believe that discretionary compensation programs are toxic," he said, adding that they create "politics and get you the wrong results, especially over time."

"So, we're all formulaic," he said. "You perform, the company performs — you get paid. You perform, the company doesn't perform — you don't get paid. Company performs, you don't perform — if you still have your job, you get paid."

Zelnick also said he has no chief of staff, is available on Slack 24/7, and shares his cellphone number with employees.

"If you're not president of the United States, you have no reason to have a chief of staff," he said.

That doesn't mean he will swoop in and override an employee's manager, said Zelnick, who considers himself an empathetic listener. He said workers should feel heard — and that he will try to help them solve a problem.

Still, he doesn't believe his formula at Take-Two is necessarily the right approach for every leader.

"Leadership comes in all flavors," he said. "You have to be your own kind of leader, and I don't think anyone should adopt my skills, because you're not me."