Nolan Bushnell

“I never, ever, saw the evil Steve Jobs. He was always the most well-mannered and respectful guy I knew. And we got to be pretty good friends. He didn't suffer fools gladly. I guess he didn't think I was a fool.”

“The idea is to become a best-selling author first and then the rest of my books will be slam dunks.”

“Atari showed that young people could start big companies. Without that example it would have been harder for Jobs and Bill Gates, and people who came after them, to do what they did.”

“These days when you say 'videogame', people think of immersive games that take over your life and require three thumbs to control. My goal is to create games that almost retreat into the background. I'm interested in bringing them back to their role as a social facilitator, the way party games help people to interact.”

“I was actually the manager of the games department of an amusement park when I was at college, so I understood the coin-op side of the games business very well.”

“The subtle generational cues that make one thing cool and another uncool aren't always obvious to a parent. My children are my dinner-table sounding board. I've come up with some wonderful ideas that they universally dismissed as 'lame.'”

“I try to get a vision of the future, and then I try to figure out where the discontinuities are.”

“My sweet spot is figuring out how to make a product that people love and how to refine it to make them love it more. All the rest is business noise.”

“Remember that we can only in our forebrains handle 5-7 items. Our backbrains can handle massive amounts. So when you're given a problem, think about it before you go sleep, and chances are you can solve it by the next morning.”

“I believe there are Steve Jobses all around us. Really, what is happening is that they're being edited out of importance.”

“Sometimes when you hire people who have to pass a Mr. Congeniality test, you end up losing some of the non-conformists who will give you different views and perspectives.”

“Radical innovation is difficult to fund. It seems scary. And the really radical things seem even more scary.”

“Everybody believes in innovation until they see it. Then they think, 'Oh, no; that'll never work. It's too different.'”

“A good interviewer is able to ferret out what the applicant is really passionate about. Ask them what they do for fun, what they're reading, try and find out if they have a life outside of work.”

“I hate 'Mafia Wars'.”

“Selling Atari when I did - I think that's my biggest regret. And I probably should have gotten back heavily into the games business in the late Eighties. But I was operating under this theory at the time that the way to have an interesting life was to reinvent yourself every five or six years.”

“'Grand Theft Auto', in its deification of antisocial behavior, is where I heap the most of my scorn.”

“Young adults love to play games and they're thirsty for social interaction, but a lot of bar and restaurant experiences are quite unsatisfactory on the social level. What young people need is a place that has the feel of an unhosted party where they find themselves interacting with like-minded strangers.”

“I've always thought legal addictions are a great way to create a business. Starbucks is a wonderful example.”

“The truly creative people tend to be outliers.”