Nolan Bushnell Quotes
102 Nolan Bushnell Quotes (Atari Quotes)
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My name is Nolan Bushnell… Though you may not know me I founded Atari, and Atari was credited with founding the video game business.
Nolan Bushnell
Pretend to be completely in control and people will assume that you are.
Nolan Bushnell
The critical ingredient is getting off your butt and doing something.
Nolan Bushnell
The true entrepreneur is a doer, not a dreamer.
Nolan Bushnell
It’s a solution in search of a problem.
Nolan Bushnell
Business is a good game – lots of competition and a minimum of rules. You keep score with money.
Nolan Bushnell
Putting a spoke in the wheels of my competition has always been part of my philosophy.
Nolan Bushnell
[On Atari] This was a company started with $250. We never had any capital. But we learned that stealth and guile can sometimes work instead.
Nolan Bushnell
If you try to do everything, you end up doing nothing.
Nolan Bushnell
You can tell the difference between an employee and an entrepreneur by the way they look at payroll. If they look forward to it, they're an employee. If they hate it, they're an employer.
Nolan Bushnell
Once a decision has been made and all that’s left is to carry it out, then all apprehension about the final result must be deliberately put aside. Which means this: as soon as you’ve made a reasonable decision, based on factual information, the time has come for action.
Nolan Bushnell
I see myself as a doer. I’m sure that other people have had ideas that were similar to mine. The difference is that I have carried mine into action, and they have not.
Nolan Bushnell
[On others wanting to sack Steve Jobs from working at Atari due to his body odor and the fact he didn’t use deodorant or shower regularly] The smell wasn’t an issue with me. Steve [Jobs] was prickly, but I kind of liked him. So I asked him to go on the night shift. It was a way to save him.
Nolan Bushnell
[On Steve Jobs] He was more philosophical than the other people I worked with. We used to discuss free will versus determinism. I tended to believe that things were much more determined, that we were programmed. If we had perfect information, we could predict people’s actions. Steve felt the opposite.
Nolan Bushnell
[To Steve Jobs on a deal for Atari where he would get a bonus if they used less microchips] I said yes, there was a bonus for each chip they saved…
Nolan Bushnell
There is something indefinable in an entrepreneur, and I saw that in Steve [Jobs]. He was interested not just in engineering, but also the business aspects. I taught him that if you act like you can do something, then it will work. I told him, ‘Pretend to be completely in control and people will assume that you are.’
Nolan Bushnell
[On being asked to invest in Apple] He asked me if I would put $50,000 in and he would give me a third of the company. I was so smart, I said no. It’s kind of fun to think about that, when I’m not crying.
Nolan Bushnell
[On Steve Jobs being pushed out of Apple] Where is Apple’s inspiration going to come from? Is Apple going to have all the romance of a new brand of Pepsi?
Nolan Bushnell
The critical ingredient is getting off your butt and doing something. It’s as simple as that. A lot of people have ideas, but there are few who decide to do something about them now. Not tomorrow. Not next week. But today. The true entrepreneur is a doer, not a dreamer.
Nolan Bushnell
I knew I was coming of age when I traded one of my pieces of communication gear for a pair of skis.
Nolan Bushnell
I was selling advertising during the day, and I always felt the best way to keep from spending money, which I had a penchant for, was to have another job.
Nolan Bushnell
[On Atari] It was a company run by a lot of green guys with a product line that a lot of people didn’t understand. But it was very easy for people to confuse foolishness of product with foolishness of company.
Nolan Bushnell
[On Bushnell projecting in 1976 that Atari would need $80 million to stay in the video game business] It was time for a deep pockets investor, I was tired of chasing the cash, and I was naïve enough to think that I wouldn’t mind working for a big company. It seemed like a good chance to cash out, to consolidate some of my win.
Nolan Bushnell
[On selling Atari to Warner Communications in August 1976 for $28 million and he receiving half that amount and staying as chairman] I felt $14 million is all the money you need in the world.
Nolan Bushnell
[On burning through technology money in Catalyst] They put money in the wrong places. That is not being conservative, it’s simply foolish. Putting your money on a company that is between fifth and one-hundredth in the industry, which is what these people do, is a significantly higher risk than trying to pioneer in the industry.
Nolan Bushnell
[On the home computer industry in 1985] I think the industry has committed suicide. It would be hard to imagine how any industry could be more mismanaged. The lack of change has been phenomenal. They have still not definitely shown why you need the damn things in your home. It’s a solution in search of a problem. They really should have gone towards integrated systems in which the system is really the centerpiece of the home entertainment center.
Nolan Bushnell
Don’t even think of computers, think more in terms of functional blocks in which everything has intelligence. Start thinking of anticipatory functions in which you don’t have to push buttons, but you have a building block of functionality and it knows what it’s supposed to do and it does it a lot better than you.
Nolan Bushnell
Video games that spill off the screen and run around your feet.
Nolan Bushnell
If we can’t make a computer game that makes you nauseous, we’ve done something wrong.
Nolan Bushnell
Everyone who’s taken a shower has had an idea. It’s the person who gets out of the shower, dries off, and does something about it who makes a difference.
Nolan Bushnell
No one wants to read an encyclopedia to play a game.
Nolan Bushnell
A good game is easy to learn but hard to master.
Nolan Bushnell
The only business to be in is the fun business.
Nolan Bushnell
[On playing in 1962 on the cutting edge computer of the day - PDP-1 a game called Spacewar! when the computer was available which was between 2:00am and 6:00am.] Hooked and mesmerized. I was obsessed. I mean truly obsessed.
Nolan Bushnell
Work smart, not hard.
Nolan Bushnell
We’re going to be billionaires!
Nolan Bushnell
[On selling Atari] Finally, when I tell people I’m a millionaire, it’s true.
Nolan Bushnell
The good news for Atari was that Pong could be built in a garage shop. The bad news was that anyone else with a garage shop could build them, too.
Nolan Bushnell
There is a completely controllable and understandable universe that is predictable. Much more controllable than real life.
Nolan Bushnell
[Videogames arose out of a natural wish to] Make computers do fun things.
Nolan Bushnell
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