Who is Nolan Bushnell

Nolan K. Bushnell (born February 5, 1943) is an American electrical engineer and entrepreneur who founded both Atari, Inc and the Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza-Time Theaters chain. Bushnell has received a great deal of recognition, including being inducted into the Video Game Hall of Fame and the Consumer Electronics Association Hall of Fame, receiving the Nations Restaurant News “Innovator of the Year” award, and being named one of Newsweek's "50 Men That Changed America." Bushnell has started more than twenty companies and is one of the founding fathers of the video game industry. He is currently the founder and CEO of uWink, a game-based restaurant startup, and the Chairman of the board at NeoEdge Networks, an advertising-based video game company.

When we asked Nolan to join us, he said…

“I have a lot of projects that I’m involved with, and I get approached often to join on more, and I always look for a reason to say “No.”  So far I can’t see a reason to say no to ME3.  Give me the prospectus.  I have to do my due diligence.  When I associate with a project, people assume its credibility because I’m involved, so I must do my due diligence.”

Well, he did his due diligence and he said yes.

It’s a wonderful accomplishment to have attracted a man of Nolan’s stature, repute and experience in the game industry to be on our board.  He’s the father of the Game industry, the creator of the first video game.

He’s stellar but he’s also the grandpa next door…

Leonardo Dicaprio is making a movie on the accomplishments of Nolan Bushnell and he’s going to call it Atari.  Leonardo is portraying Nolan. 



So Nolan’s accomplished and famous, and he’s about to become more so, given the projects and innovations he working on currently.  But he’s the father of eight, and when we met with him at his Hollywood restaurant, uWink, his baby granddaughter sat on his lap looking quite adorable.  He was the doting grandpa and then she decided she was upset and started to cry, his transformation to the grandfather next door was complete as he looked about frantically for his daughter to come relieve him of the now unhappy baby.

Despite all the google-glam that can be found about him, he’s a real person.  He’s approachable and friendly, there’s nothing about him that’s pretentious.  It was a great pleasure to meet with him and see him with his family.   And we as a company are blessed to have a man of his commitment and integrity on our board.