Nolan Bushnell

Challenging the Status Quo

Today, computer video games are multi-billion dollar industry, a major part of the entertainment landscape, and an indispensable diversion for countless children and adults. It's easy to forget that virtually nothing of the kind existed in 1972 when Nolan Bushnell, an electrical engineering graduate and former amusement park worker, founded Atari Inc. with $500 of his own money. Atari hit the big time with Pong, the first mass-market computer game, and soon had over 35 games on the market. In the process of creating its pioneering gaming system, Atari developed much of the technology essential to the creation of the personal computer. Only four years after starting Atari, Bushnell sold the company to Warner Communications for roughly $30 million. He had already started a chain of combination pizza parlor-video arcades as an outlet for his games, and populated the restaurants with talking, singing, robot cartoon characters. Within a few years, his Pizza Time Theatre chain had taken the name of its most famous character, Chuck E. Cheese, and had become the favorite birthday party destination of America's children. Through his Catalyst Technologies Venture Capital Group, Bushnell has incubated a brace of technology and gaming companies, and developed the technology behind the popular MapQuest and Google Maps online navigation systems. Nolan Bushnell's ingenuity has transformed the way we live, work and play.