Celebrating 50 Years of Atari with Nolan Bushnell
Atari founder and serial innovator/entrepreneur on the highs and lows of building Atari and pioneering the gaming industry
50 years ago today, Atari was born! So I am celebrating with a REPLAY of my episode with the legendary Atari founder Nolan Bushnell – serial entrepreneur and a pioneer of the video games industry. Listen here or wherever it is you get your podcasts from.
After an early interest in engineering, Nolan went on to study Electrical Engineering before setting up Atari with Ted Dabney and Al Alcorn (I interviewed in Series 1, EP 8 - listen here). Atari experienced huge success with Pong which was one of the first computer games ever created but whilst it was hugely popular, Atari was born at a time when venture capital didn’t really exist, IP could not be protected and so the journey to keeping the company going was much tougher than it is today and by the time Warner Communications made an offer for the company, Nolan was ready to sell.
In this interview, we look back at gaming history, Nolan talks me through the highs and lows of building Atari, the traits he looks for when hiring, and why one of his biggest regrets was turning down an offer from Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak to own a third of Apple.
Listen here or wherever it is you get your podcasts from. Enjoy!
Danielle
NB This episode was recorded January 2021.