Nolan Bushnell

This is Google Video week on my blog...here’s another one. This is Nolan Bushnell, the founder of Atari and Chuck E. Cheese, at Garage’s “Bootcamp for Startups” in London on September 5, 2000.

It‘s fair to consider Nolan the father of arcade video games; more info about Nolan is here at Wikipedia and via the Tech Museum.

In this video, Nolan discusses the following topics in his own unique way:

• Venture capital
• Entrepreneurship
• Atari
• Pong
• Warner Communications
• Life

Comments

[samIam]

Now we're talking that would be great to listen to while on the plane!

[Ed Ross]

Given that Garage funds companies in California or the Western US, how come you were holding an event in London? Is another such event planned in the UK?

[John C. Randolph]

What really jumped out at me from this talk is going after a business where your competitors are dumb. That's what I'm doing right now. ;-)

-jcr

[Matthew Stibbe (Bad Language)]

I've always been a great fan of Nolan Bushnell's. I heard him speak years ago at a Games Developer Conference (I was in computer games before I became a writer). Also, there's a great video with him and Steve Russell and others which you can get from the Computer History Museum - great stuff. I gave a speech in 2001 about the history of computer games and the slides and notes are still on my personal website: http://www.stibbe.net/History/Games_Speech/Historian_frame.htm There's quite a lot of games apocrypha and Bushnalia there.

[Neville]

I think the in the date of the conference in the text of the post should read 2006 (not 2000).

**************

Neville,

If you believe in time travel, it could be in September, 2006--i.e., in 60 days. :-)

Guy

[Cashflow Business]

Great advice from a master.

[audienceone]

I'm learning a lot

[Don Schenck]

Great post. Thanks. Very good information.

[Scott Burkett]

Great post, but I'd like to serve up (pun intended) a minor correction (or silly nitpick, depending upon your perspective.)

Bushnell is the father of the "arcade" video game (Computer Space, 1969.) However, Ralph Baer created what would become the patent for "Pong" in 1966-1967. Bushnell licensed the patent from Baer and brought it to market in the 1970s.

http://www.pong-story.com

http://www.pong-story.com/inventor.htm

Of course, there is no denying Bushnell's vision and entrepreneurship.

Cheers.
Scott

[Brad Farris]

Guy:

I love these videos, but rarely can I spend an hour in front of my computer watching them. How would you feel about making an MP4/MP3 available so we could stick it on our iPods and watch/listen on the road?

[Harry Chong]

Cool!