#229 Former CEO Activision Blizzard, Bobby Kotick w/ Bing Gordon: Change the Game
Grit10 Feb 2025

#229 Former CEO Activision Blizzard, Bobby Kotick w/ Bing Gordon: Change the Game

Guest: Bobby Kotick, former CEO of Activision Blizzard; and Bing Gordon, Advisor at Kleiner Perkins

In 2020, when President Trump signed the executive order that would ban TikTok in the U.S., Bobby Kotick called his old friend Steven Mnuchin. The former Secretary of the Treasury told him that, if TikTok’s U.S. operations were to be sold to an American company, Microsoft would be the only bidder.

A couple calls later, he reached ByteDance founder and CEO Zhang Yiming, who said he’d rather sell to Bobby than Microsoft. Concerned about his ability to get the deal done solo, Bobby called Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and offered to make a joint bid.

Nadella declined, but added, “ if the deal doesn't get done, we should sit down and talk about us buying Activision.” TikTok currently remains Chinese-owned, but three years later, Microsoft paid $75 billion for Activision Blizzard.

Chapters:

  • (01:16) - Forming Activision Blizzard
  • (04:19) - Good acquisitions
  • (09:21) - Electronic Arts and “Schedule C”
  • (15:08) - Nintendo and Mediagenic
  • (21:19) - Steve Wynn
  • (29:24) - Wynn cashes out
  • (35:14) - Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater
  • (40:38) - Blizzard’s many sales
  • (44:44) - World of Warcraft and Call of Duty
  • (47:59) - Jurassic Park
  • (50:40) - Chris Metzen
  • (55:06) - David Geffen
  • (58:11) - New competitors
  • (01:02:25) - The harassment lawsuits
  • (01:06:53) - Trying to buy TikTok
  • (01:08:51) - Hardware design
  • (01:12:52) - Polymarket, Donald Trump, and TikTok
  • (01:15:19) - The Call of Duty Endowment
  • (01:18:31) - Brian Stann and Hire Heroes USA
  • (01:21:49) - Steve Jobs and Pixar
  • (01:29:41) - The first Macintosh
  • (01:31:29) - The Wii demo
  • (01:33:42) - Nintendo 64, PlayStation and VR
  • (01:37:35) - The hardest year
  • (01:40:17) - Working with Brian Kelly
  • (01:41:26) - Satya Nadella and Microsoft
  • (01:44:39) - Xbox Game Pass
  • (01:49:35) - What “grit” means to Bobby


Mentioned in this episode: Vivendi, Bruce Hack and Arnaud de Puyfontaine, EA, Call of Duty, Bizarre Creations, Atari, Apple II, Commodore 64, Jean-Louis Gassée, Apple Lisa, Howard Lincoln, Philips, Magnavox Odyssey, Sutter Hill Ventures, Infocom and Zork, Toys-R-Us, Howard Hughes, E. Parry Thomas, Sun Valley, Thom Weisel, William Morris Endeavor, Guitar Hero, Davidson & Associates, Michael Morhaime, Allen Adham, World of Warcraft, Medal of Honor, Steven Spielberg, Michael Crichton, Chris Roberts, Overwatch, Tencent, Time Warner, Jeff Bewkes, Sheryl Sandberg, Lean In, Lina Khan, Samsung, Elon Musk, James L. Jones, UFC, E. Floyd Kvamme, Toy Story 2, Procter & Gamble, Ron Doornik, John Lasseter, Xerox PARC, Shigeru Miyamoto, Satoru Iwata, Goldeneye 007, James Bond, Barbara Broccoli, Oculus, Apple Vision Pro, Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer, Sam Altman, Mustafa Suleyman, Spotify, Candy Crush Saga, Disney, Phil Spencer, Clarence Avant and Motown Records.


Links:

Connect with Bobby

Connect with Bing

Connect with Joubin


Learn more about Kleiner Perkins

This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm

Denne episoden er hentet fra en åpen RSS-feed og er ikke publisert av Podme. Den kan derfor inneholde annonser.

Episoder(286)

What It Takes to Build a Generational Company | Anduril’s Trae Stephens

What It Takes to Build a Generational Company | Anduril’s Trae Stephens

Founder quality becomes more important as startups become easier to build.Trae Stephens, co-founder of Anduril and partner at Founders Fund, has spent years backing founders with strong conviction, in...

18 Mai 56min

How AIG Is Reinventing Insurance With AI | Peter Zaffino

How AIG Is Reinventing Insurance With AI | Peter Zaffino

What does it take to run a company where the business is risk itself?In conversation with Joubin Mirzadegan, Peter Zaffino shares what the role demands at AIG, including high stakes decisions, constan...

4 Mai 56min

From Airbnb to Linear: How Karri Saarinen Redefined Product Design

From Airbnb to Linear: How Karri Saarinen Redefined Product Design

In a market that hadn’t changed in decades, Linear didn’t win by being faster. They won by being more thoughtful.Karri Saarinen helped shape design at Airbnb and Coinbase before building Linear around...

20 Apr 1h 17min

How Kevin Mandia Built the Most Trusted Name in Cybersecurity

How Kevin Mandia Built the Most Trusted Name in Cybersecurity

What does security look like when attackers use AI better than you do?Armadin recently raised $200M to build for the “attacker of the future,” where attacks are autonomous and harder to contain.On the...

6 Apr 1h 2min

The Silicon Valley Insider In The Pentagon | DoW Emil Michael

The Silicon Valley Insider In The Pentagon | DoW Emil Michael

Emil Michael went from scaling Uber across 600 cities to rewiring the world's largest military.In the midst of the Pentagon-Silicon Valley debate, the now U.S. Under Secretary of Defense for Research ...

23 Mar 40min

How Sierra Is Pulling Ahead in the AI Race | Co-founder Bret Taylor

How Sierra Is Pulling Ahead in the AI Race | Co-founder Bret Taylor

Few founders have seen Silicon Valley from every seat at the table.After co-creating Google Maps at Google, serving as CTO at Facebook, and later as co-CEO of Salesforce, Bret Taylor is now building A...

9 Mar 1h 12min

The AI Era of Cybercrime: How Malwarebytes Is Evolving Its Security Stack | Marcin Kleczynski

The AI Era of Cybercrime: How Malwarebytes Is Evolving Its Security Stack | Marcin Kleczynski

What began as a 14 year old fixing infected computers became Malwarebytes, an 800 person cybersecurity company trusted by millions of customers.On Grit, Marcin Kleczynski joins Joubin Mirzadegan to ex...

23 Feb 1h 3min

The Truth Behind Automation Claims in Customer Support | Cresta CEO Ping Wu

The Truth Behind Automation Claims in Customer Support | Cresta CEO Ping Wu

Can you scale customer support without burning out agents or frustrating customers?Ping Wu shares how Cresta combines AI and human intelligence into a single system that scales sustainably for compani...

9 Feb 43min

Populært innen Business og økonomi

stopp-verden
dine-penger-pengeradet
lydartikler-fra-aftenposten
rss-penger-polser-og-politikk
e24-podden
rss-borsmorgen-okonominyhetene
rss-skravla-gar
pengepodden-2
livet-pa-veien-med-jan-erik-larssen
pengesnakk
rss-pa-konto
utbytte
tid-er-penger-en-podcast-med-peter-warren
finansredaksjonen
rss-sunn-okonomi
morgenkaffen-med-finansavisen
liberal-halvtime
rss-markedspuls-2
lederpodden
okonomiamatorene